Introduction
Time Blocks are an innovative way to enable your customers to purchase Products at a specific location, date, and time. Time Blocks use Configio's Schedule Builder, which is a visually rich and intuitive feature with robust functionality.
Getting Started
There are no system-level Configurations related to Time Blocks.
Building Time Blocks
Here is a guide to create a Time Block Product, the Schedule for your Product, and the Appointments for your Schedule.
Creating the Time Block Product
Time Blocks are a type of Product. Login to the administrative side of your database and navigate to Products. Click the "Add New Product" button, select "Time Block" as your type of Product, input a name, and click the SAVE button.
Select your Region, Category, and Location. Choose your Date offsets. For example, my Time Block will be visible (online) in the Schedule Builder between 100 days and 1 day prior to the start date/time of the Time Block. Likewise, it will be purchasable (can be added to the Shopping Cart) via the Schedule Builder between 100 days and 1 day prior to the start date/time of the Time Block.
If you like, you can set your Time Block product to Active, or you can wait to do this after more setup is done. Please note that it will not be visible in the Schedule Builder until it is set to Active. Click the SAVE button.
Note: It is not necessary to input a Price and Availability for your Time Block Product -- this is managed later when building a schedule
Creating a Schedule
Time Block products enable you to create a Schedule for your Products. Your Product can have a Schedule with just one Appointment, or it can have many Appointments. If it has many Appointments, they can recur in the pattern of your choosing. You can create multiple Schedules for a single Time Block Product -- this enables you to have Appointments that have different attributes (such as Price, Availability, and Recurrence) all nestled within the same Product.
Note: Please don't hesitate to reach out to us for assistance setting up a Time Block Product. They are very flexible, and we would be more than happy to guide you through the process. Together, we may even discover innovations that will benefit your company in ways that you never imagined. We can be emailed at support@configio.com or phoned at 1-800-375-2191.
First Steps
Click on the Calendar tab. Click on the "Manage Time Block" button. This will return the Manage Time Blocks window.
Click the "Add New Time Block" button. This will return the "Manage Time Blocks" window.
The Manage Time Blocks Window
The Manage Time Blocks window enables you to define the attributes of a group of Appointments.
Note: the attributes are very flexible, and it is possible to define attributes so that they conflict. Again, please don't hesitate to contact us help -- we are here for you.
Inputting the Basic Information
Input a Title for your Time Block. This will be visible in the Schedule Builder -- I chose to reuse the Product's Name. Input a Price and a Quantity. This is how much it will cost to purchase an appointment, and how many spots in a given appointment can be purchased.
Inputting the Dates & Times
The Dates & Times section enables you define your appointment will occur. Below is a definition for each field. The definitions are for if you have multiple Appointments, as this is the more prevalent and interesting use case.
Start Time: When the first appointment will start by on each day of the Calendar.
End Time: The latest time an appointment can start on each day of the Calendar.
Duration: How long each appointment will last. You can define the length by minutes, hours, etc.
Padding: How much time between Appointments. For example, if you had 50 minute Appointments, you could add 10 minutes of padding around it so that there would be some prep-time around the appointment.
Start Date: When the first Appointment will be.
End Date: When the last Appointment will be. You can define it to end after a certain number of occurrences (Appointments), end by a certain date, or to never end. Please note that the Schedule Builder will only create Appointments as far as one year out.
Inputting Recurrence Information
The Recurrence section (naturally) enables you to define how your Appointments will recur. Below is a definition for each field.
Recur Pattern: What type of recurrence pattern for your Appointments, e.g. they recur every hour or every day.
Recur Every: How often your Appointments can recur within that pattern, e.g. if your pattern is Hourly, and you set it to recur every 1 hour, then each hour will be available for an Appointment. Or, if you set it to 2 hours, then every other hour will be available for an appointment.
Day Checkboxes: Which days of the week are available for an Appointment. For example, if you unselected Saturday and Sunday, then only weekdays would be available for Appointments.
Example Time Block
Here, I re-used my Product Title as the name of my Appointments. Each Appointment is priced at $100, and each Appointment can be purchased 25 times.
My Appointments start at 9:00 AM and end at 4:00 PM. I simply made them 7 hours long and gave them no padding. The first Appointment will be on June 12th, and the last one will be on September 1st. Appointments are on every weekday.
Previewing the Schedule
Once your attributes are set, click the Preview Schedule button.
The Preview Time Blocks window will appear. Near the top, you will see a count of the number of total blocks (Appointments) that will be created. You will see a calendar item for each Appointment in your Schedule. You can page through the calendar, see a month, week, or day view, and there is a button to return the calendar to day. If you want to make changes, click the Cancel button to return to the previous window. If you like what you see, click the Save & Generate Schedule button to create your Appointment group.
Editing an Appointment Group
The Preview Time Blocks window will disappear. The Manage Time Blocks window be available, it will list your Appointment group. and there is an Edit icon to view or edit that Appointment group.
Note: Once a customer has purchased an Appointment, that particular Appointment cannot be edited, however other Appointments in that group that have not been purchased will be edited.
Adding Another Appointment Group
You can add another Appointment group to your Schedule. You can have as many groups as you like for each Time Block Product. This way, you can have Appointments on a Product that have different attributes, like date, time, recurrence, price, name, and quantity. Simply click the Add New Time Block, and repeat the process above.
Finishing Up
Click the close button or the cancel icon when you are done adding Appointment groups to the Schedule of your Time Block Product.
Creating Another Time Block Product
You can create as many Time Block Products as you like. One reason to create multiple Products, instead of just multiple Appointment groups on a single Product, is that you can have them be a different Locations. In our example, I have a similar camp that is run at a different Location. So, I chose to simply clone my first Product. Click the Clone button, input a name for your second Product, and click the OK button. 
A new Time Block Product is created, and the system conveniently copied-over my Date offset values from the original Product. I chose my other Location, made it Active, and clicked the Save button.
In addition to copying the Date offset values, the system copied over the Appointment group. I want to update the Title of the Appointments, so I went to the Calendar tab, clicked Manage Time Blocks, clicked the Edit icon on the Appointment group, updated my Title, and clicked the Preview Schedule button.
The Preview Time Block window appears. I previewed the Appointment group, and clicked the Save & Generate Schedule button.
Building Blocks - etcetera
Like other types of Products, Time Block Products can have constraints, images, descriptions, discounts, and forms to just name a few. Please see the Product articles for detailed instructions, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here for you success!
I have decided to add each item mentioned above. For the long description I decided to use Product Information. For that, and for discounts and forms, I followed the best practice of assigning them at the Category level. I created a Category called "Fun in the Sun 2017", put my Products in that Category, and made my assignments. I also added age constraints on each Product, added a short description and two images.