The HoneyBook Calendar is the hub through which almost everything in your account—projects, payments, meetings, etc.—can be tracked and seen at a glance. And with all that you have going on, we also want to make sure that scheduling time with leads, clients, and anyone else you might need is as easy and organized as possible. Enter: session types!
📣 Note
Members on the Starter plan can create up to 1 session type, while Essentials and Premium plan members can create unlimited sessions. Learn more about the features included in each plan here.
Session types allow you to create the framework for various kinds of meetings, sessions, or events you might schedule regularly, and that generally have similar attributes—durations, available days, meeting instructions, etc.
These can be as simple as chunks of time on your calendar, like 15-minute call, a 30-minute call, and so on; or, you may want to create types that are more specific to your business! You can create session types to easily schedule things like intro calls, mini sessions, design consultations, business coaching calls, and more. You can even create session types for individual team members, if you need clients to be able to book each team member separately!
With each session type, all you need to do is set your availability, then either share your session link or share a smart file with a scheduler block with anyone who might want to book time with you. Then, clients can simply pick a meeting time that works for them from your real-time availability—you can even sync with your external calendar (Google, Outlook, or iCloud), to make sure all availability is taken into account! Since you’ll have already set the main details of the session, you get to keep control of your calendar while eliminating the back-and-forth of “when are you free?!” emails.
Creating a session type
You can create any number of session types—which, again, are the different kinds of meetings you might schedule—to best suit your business, and each session type will have its own set of parameters. For each type, you can customize:
Session type: indicate whether this is a phone call, in-person meeting, etc.
Session title: what your event invitees will see as the name of this calendar event
Session time zone: which time zone this session should be scheduled in. Learn more about setting the correct time zone here
Session duration: how much time this session will fill in your calendar
Session window: when in the future this session can be scheduled
Using session date as project date: Gain access to project features, like the meeting appearing in your pipeline and on your calendar as a project
Session instructions: visible to meeting invitees in the session confirmation, reminder emails, and in the calendar event itself
Session reminders: set up automated reminder messages for your invitees
Session availability: when you are able to meet for this particular type of session
Session confirmation: the confirmation message that will appear once a client has scheduled this session
Session preferences: whether clients are allowed to reschedule or cancel sessions
✅ Note
Before creating session types, make sure you've set the correct time zone for your business in your company settings, so all times show correctly!
To create a new session type:
1. From your HoneyBook home page, click the Tools menu.
2. Select Scheduler. From this view, you can view and editing any existing session types, or proceed to the next step to create a new one.
4. Click + New Session Type.
5. Enter the session’s details:
Session type: phone call, in-person, video, etc.
Title of session: Consultation, Mini Session, 15-minute Call, etc.
Timezone: which timezone the session will be scheduled in (learn more here!)
Duration: amount of time allotted for session
Window: when the session can be scheduled*
Session date is project date: Whether the project date will be set as this session's date
Session color: what color will designate this session type in your calendar
Instructions: what session invitees will see upon scheduling
More about using session dates as project dates
More about using session dates as project dates
A specific setting you can toggle on when creating and editing session types is whether the session date should be used as the project’s date. Toggling on this setting opens your project up to using automations, sets the project to appear on your pipeline according to the session's date, and adds project details that otherwise couldn’t be added (since no project date previously was set).
This will only set the project date if it’s the first session scheduled for that project.
There are some instances where the session date booked by the client will override the related project’s date, and instances where the project date will be unaffected by a session with this setting toggled on. Here’s when the related project’s date will and will not change according to changes in the session date.
Project date is affected by session date change when:
You or a team member has not set the project date at any time
The client reschedules the session (the project date reflects the new session date)
The client cancels the session (the project date will be removed
Project date is not affected by session date when:
A project date was already set by you or a team member and a session with this setting toggled on is booked
You or a team member edits the project date after a session is scheduled
Future session reschedules or cancels will no longer affect the project date
6. Then, if you’d like, set up automated session reminders. You can add up to two reminders, to be emailed to meeting invitees any number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks before a meeting.
Check Also send to me if you'd like to receive the reminders as well
Click the X in the reminder field to remove one or both reminders
7. Click Next: Availability.
8. This is where you can determine which days and hours you'd like to make available for this particular session type. Click a day of the week to set availability for that day. Here, you can:
Set a window (or multiple windows) of time in which this particular session type can be scheduled
Apply this window(s) to all days (e.g.: all Mondays have availability from 9:00am-11:00am, but all Tuesdays have availability from 1:00pm-3:00pm)
📣 Note
If you do not check Apply to all [days], this availability will only apply to the specific date that you’re editing.
Make sure you've set the correct time zone for your business in your company settings, so all times show correctly!
9. Click Save when you’ve completed the day's availability. Repeat the process for any other days for which you need to add, remove, or edit availability.
a. You can also sync with your external calendar to make sure all availability is taken into account when your client sees your open times!
10. Adjust the additional availability settings: buffers, notice, custom increments, and team members by toggling them on or off. These settings aren't required, but can be helpful!
Buffers: ensures that extra time is added before or after scheduled meetings—so you have some breathing room. If you set a buffer for 15 minutes after meetings, for example, and you already have a session in place from 9:00-9:30am, your client will not see available time slots prior to 9:45am on that day.
Notice: designates the minimum amount of time between when a client is looking at your calendar and when they can book a meeting. If you set 3 hours of notice and a client is looking at your calendar at 9:00am today, they will not see any open time slots before 12:00pm in today's availability.
Custom increments: by default, your availability will be displayed in 30 minute increments (e.g. if your meeting duration is 30 minutes long, clients will see available meeting times a 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, etc.). Setting your own increments allows meeting start times to be customized (e.g. if you set your meeting increment to 15 minutes, available meeting times will be 9:00, 9:15, 9:30, 9:45, etc.).
Team members: selected team members will be assigned externally-scheduled sessions (and any corresponding projects, created automatically), in a round robin fashion.
📣 Note
Only company owners and admins can create sessions that include multiple team members.
11. Click Next: Confirmation.
12. In the Confirmation section, customize the message your client will see upon successfully scheduling this session.
✅ Note
The gray session details fields cannot be deleted. They will automatically populate the relevant information based on the details of the scheduled session.
13. Adjust the additional confirmation settings by toggling them on or off.
Allow rescheduling: offers your client the option to reschedule a session without contacting you. Selecting this option brings them back to your availability to pick a new meeting time. Upon reschedule, you and your client will both receive an email confirmation, and the event will automatically update in your calendar.
Allow cancellation: offers your client the option to cancel a session without contacting you. Upon cancellation, you and your client will both receive an email confirmation, and the event will be automatically removed from your calendar.
Send confirmation email: automatically sends an email confirmation to your client, including the meeting details and an option to add the meeting to their calendar.
14. Once all details have been filled out, click Save and Finish.
15. In your main Scheduler view, you should now see your new session listed! If you’re ready for clients to begin scheduling this session type, make sure the session is toggled to Active. You can also click the eye icon to preview what your client will see, or click the link icon to copy this session's link and start sending it out!
* Window refers to when in the future, or how far in advance, a client might book you for a session. You can either select Indefinitely, which would enable them to book as far into the future as they'd like; set a Rolling Window of any of number of days, weeks, or months from the current date; or, select a Fixed Date range in which the session can be booked. For example, if you set a rolling window of 2 months, clients would only be able to see your calendar and book time a maximum of 2 months from today's date.
Your availability overview
Once you've created one or more session types, you can get a bird's eye view of your availability for all sessions in your Availability Overview. This simply allows you to see your week as a whole, and also offers a quick way to edit or add availability!
✅ Note
This view is intended to be an overview of your potential availability. It will not offer a preview of your real-time availability, which will vary based on meetings and sessions that are scheduled—by you, or by your clients—in any of your HoneyBook companies.
Editing or deleting a session type
1. From your HoneyBook home page, click the Tools menu.
2. Select Scheduler.
3. Click Edit on the session type you’d like to update or delete.
4. To edit, make any changes you need, then click Save and Finish. To delete, click Delete Session.
Duplicating a session type
1. From your HoneyBook home page, click the Tools menu.
2. Select Scheduler.
3. Click the duplicate icon by the session type you’d like duplicate.
4. Make any changes you need (these will take effect only in the new, duplicated version), then click Save and Finish.
Creating session types for individual team members
📣 Note
Multiple team members are available for HoneyBook’s Essentials and Premium plan members. Learn more about the features included in each plan here.
If your clients need to book specific team members within your business (for example, clients booking at a salon may want to book with a specific stylist or artist), those team members can either create their own session types, or you can create session types for them! Either way, if you're an owner or admin of the HoneyBook account, you'll then be able to toggle between team members to see each person's session types.
📣 Note
Only company owners and admins can create sessions for other team members.
To create a session type for an individual team member:
1. Follow all the steps above for creating a new session type.
2. Under the Availability section, make sure Team Members is toggled on.
3. Select the team member who this session type is for—and make sure to deselect yourself, if you don't want to be scheduled for this session type!
4. Finish selecting any remaining settings, and be sure to click Save when you're done.
Now, you and the team member you selected can share that session, so any bookings through that link will end up in your team member's pipeline and Calendar!
Once you've set up some session types, you can start:
Creating and sharing smart files with scheduler blocks, so clients can book time with you through your files (HoneyBook Tip: You can add other content and actions to your smart files, so clients can take multiple steps at once—like scheduling, signing, and paying!)
Creating session types for multiple team members
If you have a particular session type that any number of team members could handle, you can set that session to rotate through them when assigning scheduled sessions. That way, sessions can be evenly distributed between relevant team members, with no need to manually assign or reassign.
📣 Note
Multiple team members are available for HoneyBook’s Essentials and Premium plan members. Learn more about the features included in each plan here.
This will also increase availability for the session type! For example, if team members 1 and 2 are both available for a session type and someone books team member 1 for 3:00pm today, the next client to view the scheduling link will still see 3:00pm as an available time slot. If they select that time, team member 2 will automatically be assigned the session, and 3:00pm will not appear as available to any further clients.
📣 Note
At the moment, clients are not able to schedule a single session with multiple team members at once, nor are they able to select which team member they'd like to schedule with; this feature functions as a round robin, rotating which individual team member is assigned a session.
To create a session type for multiple team members:
1. Follow all the steps above for creating a new session type.
2. Under the Availability section, make sure Team Members is toggled on.
3. Select the relevant team members.
4. Make sure to click Save when you're done!
Check out this post for more on using round-robin scheduling for your team.
Still have questions? Feel free to send us a message by clicking the Question Mark icon on any HoneyBook page. Our team is always happy to help!