Availability templates in eCourtDate define when your agency is available for appointments, events, and chatbot responses, ensuring clients only interact with your services during operating hours.

### Overview

An availability template specifies your agency's business hours, holidays, and timezone settings. Once created, you can link an availability template to calendars, chatbots, and other features that depend on scheduling. This ensures that clients can only book appointments during open hours, chatbots respond only when your team is available to follow up, and calendar views reflect your actual operating schedule.

- **What it does:** Defines your agency's operating hours, closed days, and timezone for use across calendars, chatbots, and scheduling features.
- **Why it matters:** Prevents scheduling conflicts, ensures clients interact with your agency during appropriate hours, and provides a consistent experience across all client-facing tools.
- **Who uses it:** Agency administrators and supervisors responsible for scheduling, calendar management, and chatbot deployment.
- **Expected outcome:** A reusable availability template that controls when your agency's scheduling and communication tools are active.

### Prerequisites

Before creating an availability template, make sure you have:

- An active eCourtDate agency on staging or production
- Super admin access, or the **Manage Automations** permission
- Your agency's business hours, holidays, and timezone information ready
- A calendar or chatbot set up if you plan to link the template immediately (optional)

### How-To Steps

#### Step 1: Access Availability Templates

1. Go to **Admin** > **Automations** in the top navigation bar.
2. Click the **Availability** tab.
3. Click the **Create** button to start a new availability template.

#### Step 2: Name and Describe the Template

1. Enter a descriptive name in the **Template Name** field (e.g., "Standard Business Hours" or "Court Clerk Hours").
2. Enter a description to help your team identify when this template should be used.
3. Click **Save** to create the template.

#### Step 3: Set Your Timezone

1. Scroll to the **Timezone** section.
2. Select your agency's timezone from the **Timezone** dropdown (e.g., "America/New_York," "America/Chicago," "America/Los_Angeles").
3. All hours defined in this template will be interpreted in the selected timezone.
4. Click **Save** to apply.

#### Step 4: Configure Business Hours

1. Scroll to the **Business Hours** section.
2. For each day of the week, set the **Open** and **Close** times:
   - Click the toggle next to the day name to enable or disable that day.
   - Enter the opening time in the **From** field (e.g., 8:00 AM).
   - Enter the closing time in the **To** field (e.g., 5:00 PM).
3. For days your agency is closed (e.g., Saturday and Sunday), leave the toggle disabled.
4. To set a lunch break or split schedule, click **Add Hours** for the same day to create a second time block (e.g., 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM).
5. Click **Save** to apply your business hours.

#### Step 5: Add Holidays and Closures

1. Scroll to the **Holidays** section.
2. Click **Add Holiday** to add a closed date.
3. Enter the holiday name in the **Name** field (e.g., "Independence Day").
4. Select the date in the **Date** field.
5. To add a recurring annual holiday, enable the **Recurring** checkbox.
6. Repeat for each holiday or closure date your agency observes.
7. Click **Save** to apply your holidays.

#### Step 6: Link to a Calendar

1. Go to **Events** > **Calendars** in the top navigation bar.
2. Click **Edit** on the calendar you want to link.
3. Select your availability template from the **Availability Template** dropdown.
4. Click **Save** to apply.
5. The calendar now uses the availability template to determine which time slots are available for booking.

#### Step 7: Link to a Chatbot (Optional)

1. Go to **Admin** > **Automations** > **Chatbots**.
2. Click **Edit** on the chatbot you want to link.
3. Select your availability template from the **Availability Template** dropdown.
4. Click **Save** to apply.
5. The chatbot now responds only during the hours defined in the availability template.

#### Step 8: Test the Template

1. Open a linked calendar and verify the available time slots match your defined business hours.
2. Attempt to book an appointment outside of business hours to confirm the slots are blocked.
3. Check that holidays are correctly blocked on the calendar.
4. If linked to a chatbot, test the chatbot outside of business hours to verify it displays the fallback message.

### What to Expect

After creating and linking an availability template, all connected features (calendars, chatbots, scheduling tools) respect the hours you defined. Clients see only available time slots when booking appointments. Chatbots respond only during defined hours and fall back to your configured offline message outside those hours. Changes to the availability template take effect immediately after you click **Save** and apply to all linked features.

### Best Practices

- Create separate availability templates for different departments or functions (e.g., "Clerk Office Hours" vs. "Probation Office Hours") if they have different schedules.
- Add all known holidays at the beginning of the year to avoid scheduling conflicts later.
- Review and update your availability templates at least quarterly to account for schedule changes.
- Use descriptive template names so your team can quickly identify which template applies to which function.
- Test your availability template thoroughly on staging before linking it to production calendars and chatbots.

### Frequently Asked Questions

**Q: Can I create multiple availability templates for the same agency?**
A: Yes. You can create as many availability templates as needed. Different calendars and chatbots can each use a different template, allowing you to manage multiple schedules across your agency.

**Q: What happens if I do not link an availability template to a calendar?**
A: If no availability template is linked, the calendar defaults to allowing bookings at any time. Linking a template is recommended to prevent clients from scheduling outside your operating hours.

**Q: Can I set different hours for different days of the week?**
A: Yes. Each day of the week has its own open and close times. You can set Monday through Thursday to 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Friday to 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM, for example.

**Q: Do holidays override the regular business hours?**
A: Yes. If a date is added as a holiday, the agency is marked as closed for that entire day, regardless of the regular business hours set for that day of the week.

**Q: Can I set a temporary closure without creating a holiday?**
A: Yes. Add the closure date as a non-recurring holiday. It will block availability for that specific date without affecting future years.

### Troubleshooting

**Issue:** Calendar shows time slots outside of business hours.
**Symptoms:** Clients can see or book time slots that should be blocked by the availability template.
**Solution:**

1. Open the calendar and verify the correct availability template is selected in the **Availability Template** dropdown.
2. Open the availability template and confirm the business hours are set correctly for each day.
3. Check the **Timezone** setting to ensure times are interpreted in the correct timezone.
4. Click **Save** on both the availability template and the calendar, then refresh the calendar page.

**Issue:** Holiday is not blocking availability.
**Symptoms:** A date marked as a holiday still shows available time slots on the calendar.
**Solution:**

1. Open the availability template and scroll to the **Holidays** section.
2. Verify the holiday date matches the expected date (check the year if it is a non-recurring holiday).
3. Confirm the holiday entry was saved by checking that it appears in the list.
4. Click **Save** and refresh the calendar to apply the change.

**Issue:** Chatbot responds outside of business hours.
**Symptoms:** The chatbot answers client questions when it should be displaying the offline fallback message.
**Solution:**

1. Open the chatbot and verify an availability template is linked in the **Availability Template** dropdown.
2. Open the availability template and confirm the business hours are correct.
3. Check the timezone setting to ensure the chatbot is using the correct local time.
4. Click **Save** on both the chatbot and the availability template.

> **Important:** If you continue to experience issues after following these troubleshooting steps, sign in to eCourtDate and create a ticket by clicking the ticket button in the bottom right corner of the screen.

### Related Articles

- [Automations Overview](/automations-overview)
- [How to Create a Chatbot](/how-to-create-a-chatbot)
- [How to Create Calendars](/how-to-create-calendars)
- [How to Manage Automations](/how-to-manage-automations)
- [How to Create a Virtual Event](/how-to-create-a-virtual-event)