Year-ahead scheduling for repeat grooming clients

How the appointment wizard books a year

1. Start from an order. The wizard schedules an order you have already built, so the services, time and price are known. See orders before scheduling.
2. Choose the pattern. Pick "Recurring", how often the dog comes in (every 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 weeks) and whether to book through the end of this year or next year.
3. Let Pawdmin find the times. Pawdmin works out each target date, then finds open times inside your business hours that avoid existing appointments and your time off.
4. Check the list. The wizard shows a "Proposed Dates List" with every date and time. Nothing is on the calendar yet.
5. Generate the appointments. You choose whether each one is created as confirmed or as a penciled-in option, with up to five options per date, and whether the client is notified by email and text message.

The wizard also schedules a single appointment, a list of dates a client gave you, or extra dates added to an existing order.

Scheduling rules

You tell the wizard how you like to work, and it applies those rules to every date:

• Days. Which days suit this client or this kind of groom.
• Strength. Each rule is a must, a preference, an avoid or a must-avoid.
• Times. Starting at, after or before a time, between two times, or must end by a time.
• Fallbacks. An alternative day or week to try when the first choice has no opening.

When a target date falls on a day your rules do not allow, Pawdmin moves it to the nearest allowed day, from three days earlier to seven days later.

Rules can be written in plain language as a scheduling prompt, for example "Tuesdays or Thursdays, must start after 9 am, avoid Fridays". An AI model turns the prompt into rules, using your business hours, your preferences and what is already booked. A prompt you use often can be saved as a template.

Prices follow your tiers across the year

Each appointment the wizard creates is priced at the hourly rate in effect on its own date. If you have a rate change scheduled for July, the appointments before July keep the old rate and the ones after get the new rate, and the wizard tells you that more than one rate applies. See client tiers.

What the wizard needs and what it does not do

• Business hours must be set first. The wizard only offers times inside them.
• Recurrence is in weeks, 4 to 8. Pawdmin does not offer monthly-by-date or longer patterns in the recurring wizard.
• It stops at December 31. The wizard books to the end of this year or next year, not on a rolling 12 months.
• It does not match dogs to each other. The wizard does not have rules for which dogs can or cannot be booked next to each other.