1. In a nutshell

Buffer time is the extra time added before and/or after the appointment duration. It can be used to accommodate various purposes like preparing for the next appointment, winding up the ongoing appointment, potential delays in reaching the location, or if the appointment overruns the actual duration.

2. Feature availability

• Available for all plans.
• Roles 

• Super admins and admins can manage buffer time for all event types
• Workspace admins can manage them for their workspace's event types
• Managers and staff are only able to view it.

3. Overview

In Zoho Bookings, buffer time can be added both before (pre-buffer) and after (post-buffer) an appointment. Let's assume that an event type is created with an appointment duration of 30 minutes, a pre-buffer of 15 minutes, and a post-buffer of 15 minutes. When an appointment is booked, a time slot will be available only if a total duration of one hour is available for the staff member. In other words, pre-buffer + appointment duration + post-buffer.

Additionally, you can block buffer time in your calendar events along with appointment time. You can choose whether to include or exclude this buffer time.

Buffer time will not be visible to the customers during booking; it is only visible to the users in the Bookings tool. However, if the buffer time is also blocked in the calendar events, then the customer's calendar also gets blocked along with the buffer time. 

4. Use case 

A Sales team uses Bookings for onboarding their customers and helping them configure the product. They usually take 2 hours to onboard and finish the setup. Each day, they have multiple customer onboarding lined up. For some customers, the configuration takes more time, and they might ask questions that would extend the meeting. In such cases, the team will run out of time for the next customer onboarding. To avoid this overlap, they can implement buffer times, consisting of 15 minutes pre-buffer and 15 minutes post-buffer in each appointment. This change can help them meet unexpected delays in the previous appointment and leads to smoother transitions.

5. Steps to set buffer time

1. Go to the required workspace and click Event Types in the left pane. The event types added under the selected workspace will be listed.
2. Hover over the required event type and click the options icon , then select Edit. 
   
   
3. Click the Schedule Rules tab on the left. 
   
   
4. Under Pre-buffer, select the time duration to add before an appointment starts. 
5. Under Post-buffer, choose the time duration to add after the appointment ends. 
   
   

   Note: The time can be set in any multiple of five.

Once set, the respective buffer time will be added to the appointments created after that.

6. Include buffer time in notifications

Please note that these variables will not be available for customer notifications as the buffer time is primarily for the users to manage appointment overlaps.

7. Include buffer time in the external calendar events

You can choose whether to add the buffer time to the events getting created in your external calendars like Zoho Calendar, Google Calendar, Office 365 Calendar, and Zoho CRM Calendar. This creates an event with pre-buffer and post-buffer added to the appointment duration. Learn how to set up this option. 

8. Points to note

• Each event type can have its own buffer time.
• When a buffer time is edited, the appointments made before editing follows the old buffer time, and the appointments made after editing follows the new buffer time.
• Buffer time is not applicable for group booking event type.

9. Related links

• Event type settings

• Event types and its categories

• Booking pages