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What Are Time Slots?
Time Slots gives you a way to commit to a locked-in arrival window — like "Morning: 8am–12pm" — upfront, then freely adjust your internal schedule within that block without the customer's promise ever changing.
Today, when a job gets moved to optimize a route or fit in a last-minute add, the arrival window shifts with it, leading to confusion and complaints. With Time Slots, your customer commitment stays locked while you stay flexible behind the scenes.
Time slots may be a good fit if you:
Think about your day in blocks (morning/afternoon) rather than exact times
Want to give customers an arrival window and keep flexibility to re-sequence jobs
Run your schedule with flexibility where "arrival in the afternoon" is the commitment
Turn On Time Slots
Go to Settings in the left navigation.
Open your Schedule settings.
Find the Time slots section. Its subtitle reads: "Commit customers to a block. Move jobs freely within it."
Toggle the switch to On.
Create a Time Slot
In the Time slots section, click Add slot.
In the Add time slot dialog, fill in:
Name — a label for the block (e.g., "Morning," "Afternoon")
Start time
End time
Capacity — how many jobs it should hold per technician. This gives you a simple guardrail so a block doesn't get overbooked.
Click Save.
Once time slots are on and a time slot is created, your defined blocks appear on the calendar and become available when scheduling jobs.
Time Slots on the Calendar
When time slots are on, each slot shows up on the calendar as a shaded background band with a dashed border, spanning the slot's time range on each technician's (or route's) column. It acts as a visual guide for where work belongs — it doesn't block the time.
At the top of each day, capacity pills show how many jobs are currently booked into each slot for that technician or route, so you can see at a glance which blocks still have room.
Time slots work with both individual technicians and routes. If you schedule with routes, the same slots and capacity counts apply to each route column.
Scheduling a Job into a Slot
When you schedule a job or estimate, the start time of the job will determine the time slot. Moving the time slot of the job will automatically adjust the start time of the job.
Time slots work differently from arrival windows. Time slots do not change
Arrival window - 2 - 3pm job with a 4 hour arrival window = 2 - 6pm arrival.
Time Slot - 2 - 3pm job in the afternoon time slot = 12 - 4pm arrival.
What the Customer Sees
Customers are shown the time slot for their appointment rather than a single exact time or arrival window. The communications the customer receives are the same as today, just with the time slot.
Because the commitment is the block, moving a job within the same slot doesn't change the window the customer was promised. If you move a job so that it lands in a different slot, that's a change to the customer's committed window.
Common Questions
Q: What's the difference between a time slot and an arrival window?
A: An arrival window is dynamic based on the start time of the job - changing the start time of the job will always change the arrival window, triggering a change to the customer commitment made. Time slots give you the flexibility to move the start time around within the set time slot without changing the customer commitment.
Q: Can slots overlap?
A: No. Slots for your business can't overlap. You'll get an error if you try to save an overlapping slot.
Q: Do time slots work if I schedule with routes?
A: Yes. Slots and their capacity counts apply to route columns as well as individual technician columns.
Q: What happens if I move a job within its slot?
A: The job stays inside the block the customer was committed to, so the customer's promised window doesn't change. A notification will not be sent to the customer.
Q: Is there a limit to how many slots I can create?
A: Yes. 3 time slots can be created.
Need Help?
We're here for you! Chat with Support using the Blue Chat Bubble in your Housecall Pro account, or give us a call at (858) 842-5746.