Availability & Scheduling
Give some clients extra hours or a longer booking window
Build an audience — a named set of clients, by name, by package, or by tag — and grant it evening hours your public page never shows, or the right to book further ahead than everyone else.
An audience is a named set of your clients — Momentum clients, evening regulars, the four people you coach on retainer. On its own it does nothing. You point things at it: extra hours your public booking page never shows, or the right to book further into the future than everybody else.
Open Availability in the sidebar, under Configure. The page has three tabs. General holds your weekly hours and scheduling defaults, and is covered in set your weekly availability hours. The other two — Extended Availability and Maximum Advance — are the two things an audience can be granted, and they list the same audiences.
Where the client actually sees it
There is no second link and no separate page to send. Clients use your normal booking link — the same one everybody else uses — and it simply shows them more, on one condition: they have to be signed in to your client portal.
A portal session is the only thing Calso trusts to say who is asking. An email typed into the booking form proves nothing, because anyone could type it, so Calso will not widen availability on the strength of it.
Clients who are signed in can also browse straight from the portal's own Book area, which lists what they can book from you. Either route gives them the same widened hours and window.
If someone in an audience has no portal account yet, the editor flags them, and you can send an invitation from their client record.
Who is in an audience
Three rules, and an audience can use any mix of them. Calso works out who qualifies at the moment a client loads your booking page, so the answer is never a stale list you have to maintain.
| Rule | Means | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Specific clients | These named people, and nobody else | A handful of individuals — "Sarah and Dev get Friday evenings" |
| Package holders | Anyone holding a live package from an offering you pick | "Everyone on the Momentum package", without naming them |
| Client tags | Anyone carrying a tag on their client record | "Everyone tagged retainer", which you already maintain in Clients |
A client only has to match one rule to be in.
Tags come from the Tags field on a client record — the small + tag
control under their email. Calso matches them regardless of capitalisation, so
a client tagged VIP is matched by an audience tagged vip. Each tag in the
editor shows how many of your clients currently carry it, so a typo announces
itself rather than sitting there looking like a live rule.
Grant 1 — extra hours
The Extended Availability tab gives an audience booking hours on top of your standard weekly hours. The classic use: you publish 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM to the world, and your package clients can also book Monday evenings.
- Name the audience
Type a name into the field at the bottom of the tab and choose Add audience. Names are for you — "Momentum clients" is more useful in six months than "Group 1".
- Say who is in it
On the right, add any mix of specific clients, packages and tags. You can come back and change this at any time; it takes effect on the next page load.
- Add the hours
On the left, pick a day and a start and end time, then choose Add window for more. These are extra hours, not replacement hours — your standard week is untouched.
- Choose which sessions they apply to
All session types, or tick the specific ones. Pinning matters: extra evening hours on your 60-minute session do not have to mean extra evening hours on your half-day intensive.
- Save hours
The window is live immediately for anyone in the audience who is signed in to your client portal.
Grant 2 — a longer booking window
The Maximum Advance tab lets an audience book further into the future than everyone else. Your default might be 60 days; your package clients might get 90, so they can lay out a whole quarter.
Pick a session type — or All session types — enter how far ahead, and choose Add window. The field shows the number you have to beat directly underneath it, because of the one rule that catches people out:
Two audiences matching the same client give the most generous window. Order means nothing, and you never have to arrange the list.
What audiences deliberately cannot do
They only ever add. There is no way to use an audience to give a client fewer hours, a shorter window, or to keep them out of something. That is a design decision, not a gap: it means adding an audience can never quietly take something away from a client who was already booking happily.
To limit who may book a session at all, use Restrict Access on that event type's Access tab — controlling who can book an event type covers it.
Deleting an audience
The bin icon removes the audience, its extra hours and its booking windows, from both tabs at once. Clients keep every booking they have already made and every package credit they hold; they simply go back to your standard hours and your standard booking window.
Frequently asked questions
Does a client need a portal account to get their extra hours?
Yes, for extra hours. Calso only widens availability for a client it can identify, and the only identity it trusts is a signed-in client portal session — never an email typed into the booking form, which anybody could type. A client without a portal account keeps their audience membership and simply never sees the extra hours; the editor flags them with a warning so you are not left wondering. A longer booking window works the same way. Send them a portal link from their client record.
What happens to a client's extra hours when their package runs out?
They lose them, that day. Membership by package means anyone holding a live package from that offering — active, with credits remaining, and not expired — so spending the last credit takes the client out of the audience. That is deliberate: the grant follows the relationship rather than a moment in it, so a client who renews is back in without you touching anything. If you want someone to keep the hours regardless, add them to Specific clients as well.
I set a maximum advance of 14 days and nothing changed. Why?
A booking window on an audience extends only. It can let those clients book further out than everyone else and can never pull anyone's window in, so a grant shorter than what a client already has does nothing at all. If your default is 60 days, only a grant above 60 has any effect. The editor says so on the row itself once you have saved it.
A client is in two audiences with different booking windows. Which applies?
The most generous one. Two audiences granting 90 and 120 days give that client 120, and the order they appear in the list means nothing. The same is true of extra hours: every audience a client belongs to adds its hours, and nothing an audience does can remove an hour or a day a client already had.
Can I use an audience to stop certain clients booking something?
No, and that is on purpose. Audiences only ever add. To limit who can book a session at all, turn on Restrict Access on that event type's Access tab instead — see the article on controlling who can book an event type.