Webinar Recap: Unleash Pawfect Schedules with Gingr Calendars

Keeping your team organized (and your kennels full — but not overfull!) starts with a clear view of what’s happening today, tomorrow, and next month. In our latest Gingr webinar, we explored three calendars available in the pet business software — Facility, Lodging, and Availability — and how they work together to simplify scheduling, reduce mistakes, and improve the customer experience for your pet-care facility. Let's dive in!

What We Covered

• Drag-and-drop capabilities to reschedule and rearrange
• Smart filtering and saved views for faster daily ops
• Capacity-aware booking with the Availability Calendar (for staff and customers)
• A quick tour of each calendar and where to find it

Facility Calendar: Your Command Center

Why it matters: See specialists’ schedules and all reservations in one place, from appointments, slot-based services, and blocks to high-level daily counts by reservation type (with color coding you set in Reservation Types).

Where to find it:

• Dashboard quick links (if enabled via Admin → Dashboard Settings) or
• Left nav Calendar icon → Facility Calendar

Highlights

• Multiple views: Day, Week, Month, and Agenda list view.
• Drag & drop rescheduling: Move services from day to day (Month and Week views). Time and specialist stay the same when moved via Month/Week; fine-tune on Day view.
• Specialist columns & blocks: See each specialist’s appointments and blocked availability (e.g., 11:00–12:00 break) without editing their full schedule.
• Slot-based services: Adjust daily slot counts on the fly (e.g., nail trims from 10 to 8 slots).
• Saved filters: Hide “No Specialist Needed,” exclude specific users, or filter by Booking Category (e.g., view only Grooming). Your selections persist for your profile.
• Notices visibility: Dashboard notices appear at the top of Facility Calendar for all users; use “Hide Events/Notices” if you need a cleaner view.
• Jump to today: Lost in the calendar? One click returns you to the current date.

Pro tip: Prefer to see only business hours? In Admin → Lodging & Facility Calendars, enable Facility Calendar Limit Default Hours to confine the Day view to your operating hours.

Lodging Calendar: Easy Room Management

Why it matters: Visualize where pets are staying, when they start and end, and rebalance rooms without bouncing through multiple screens.

Where to find it: Left nav Calendar icon → Lodging Calendar

Highlights

• Legend at a glance: Yellow = starting, Teal = ending, Gray = occupied.
• Flexible views: Navigate by Day/Week/Month; quick-select a starting week for far-future planning.
• Drag-and-drop transfers: Move a pet to a new room and choose:
  • All dates (entire stay)
  • From today forward
  • Selected date only
    If you’ve set Lodging Transfer Pricing Rules, pricing adjusts automatically when you move from Standard → Luxury (etc.).
• Powerful filters: Filter by Reservation Type and toggle Only Vacant or Only Occupied.
• Capacity snapshot: See rooms booked / total plus a % utilization to gauge remaining space.

Use case: Discovered two neighbors don’t get along in your kennel? Move one pet starting today forward and keep night one as-is. Fast, accurate, and easy!

Availability Calendar: Capacity-Aware Booking (Staff & Customers)

Why it matters: Take the guesswork out of scheduling. If capacity is reached, dates show Unavailable—for your team and, if enabled, in the Customer Portal.

Where staff see it:
New Reservation or New Appointment flow (clock icon) → Choose service → Availability Calendar button under date picker.

How it works

• Pulls from Capacity for that reservation type (e.g., Daycare Full Day).
• For Boarding, capacity source depends on your setup:
  • General capacity → uses that value
  • Capacity by Lodging → uses lodging-level capacity (great for shared vs. private rooms)

Customer Portal Visibility (Optional)

1. Enable for employees: Admin → Reservation Types & Services → [Your Type] → Booking Options → Show Availability Calendar to Employees

2. Enable for customers: Admin → Reservation Types & Services → [Your Type] → Customer Portal Options → Show Availability Calendar to Customers

When enabled for customers, they’ll see green “Available” dates and red “Unavailable” dates during date selection—so they can self-serve, plan ahead, or join a waitlist (if you’ve configured one).

Live Q&A Highlights

Q: If I drag an appointment in Month view, can I pick a new specialist/time?
A: Dragging in Month/Week keeps the original specialist and time and moves the date only. To change specialist or time, switch to Day view and adjust there.

Q: Can I limit Facility Calendar to business hours (or expand past them)?
A: Yes. Use Admin → Lodging & Facility Calendars → Facility Calendar Limit Default Hours to show only your operating hours. Uncheck to display 12:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Q: Does the Availability Calendar use total daily numbers or overnights for boarding?
A: It depends on your configuration:

• General capacity enabled → uses that total
• Capacity by Lodging enabled → uses lodging-level capacity (more accurate for overnight room counts, shared rooms, etc.)

Q: Notices tagged to specific users still show on Facility Calendar. Is that expected?
A: Yes. User-tagged notices limit visibility on the Dashboard, but the Facility Calendar shows notices to everyone. Use the Hide Events/Notices toggle if needed.

Quick-Start Checklist

1. Add quick links for Facility & Lodging calendars: Admin → Dashboard Settings
2. Color-code reservation types for instant recognition.
3. Configure specialist schedules and use block availability for breaks.
4. Enable capacities and decide General vs. By Lodging for boarding.
5. Turn on Availability Calendar for staff, then (optionally) for customers.
6. Set Facility Calendar hours to match your operating day.
7. Create lodging transfer pricing rules if you offer tiered rooms.

Common Workflows You’ll Love

1. Same-day reshuffle: Drag lodging to a new room from today forward to fix noisy neighbors. Pricing rules apply automatically.
2. One-screen slot control: Adjust slot-based services day-of to match staffing.
3. Saved personal filters: Keep your Facility view tidy. Your settings remain the next time you open it.
4. Capacity clarity for customers: Reduce back-and-forth by showing availability right in the portal.

Watch the Recording

Missed the webinar or want to revisit what was covered? Watch the webinar recording on-demand.

Additional Resources

If you have questions or want help configuring calendars for your workflow, head to the question mark icon → Get Support in your Gingr app to connect with our team.

Learning Links

• Facility Calendar 2.0 (Topic Outline)
  
• Lodging Calendar (Topic Outline)
• Enable Availability Calendar (How-To)
• Capacity Limits (Topic Outline) 

Log in to your Gingr app to configure your calendars today! New to Gingr? Streamline booking and take control of your day with our pet-care business software — made for pet lovers, by pet lovers! Book a demo today.