Setting Your Availability
Set your weekly hours, minimum notice, and the buffer around each shoot in Spatiko, and block time off so clients only book real estate shoots you can make.
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Your availability is what tells Spatiko when agents can book you. Get it right once and the order form only ever offers times you can actually shoot.
Your hours live on your own page under Settings → Team & Availability: open your row (it’s marked You) and your page opens on the Availability tab. If you don’t manage the team, the section is called My Availability and opens straight onto your page. For a teammate, it’s Settings → Team & Availability → their name → Availability.
The tab opens with your Google Calendar card, then your weekly hours, then your booking rules.
Weekly hours
Weekly hours sets a start and end time for each day of the week, in your own timezone (shown as a pill beside the heading). These are your default working hours — the outer boundary within which any shoot can be booked. A line under the heading adds it up for you, for example “5 days · 36h a week”, and each working day shows its own total.
- Switch a day off with its toggle. It shows as Day off; click it (Add hours) to switch it back on.
- Copy a day’s hours with the copy icon next to its total: send that start and end to Weekdays (Mon–Fri) or Every day in one click, then adjust the odd day out.
- Fix mistakes before saving. A day that ends before it starts is marked Ends before start, and Spatiko won’t save until you fix it.
On a wide screen the hours show as a week table; on a phone, as a list of days.
Minimum notice
Minimum notice sets how far ahead a booking has to be, in hours — clients can’t book with less notice than this. A few hours (or a day) stops an agent from booking you for a slot that’s minutes away, giving you room to prepare and get on the road. The Team list shows this as each member’s Lead time.
Buffer around each shoot
Buffer around each shoot adds padding, in minutes, for parking, setup, and teardown. Spatiko keeps this time free on both sides of each booking, so agents can’t book you back-to-back with no breathing room — the buffer that keeps you from arriving flustered or running late to the next job. It goes up to 120 minutes.
Buffer is separate from travel: Spatiko also reserves estimated drive time between shoots. The buffer is your on-site cushion; travel time is the trip in between.
Accepting orders
Each photographer has an Accepting orders / Not accepting orders status, in the top corner of their page. Set it to Not accepting orders and you’re removed from new bookings entirely — handy when you’re fully booked, on a break, or pausing intake without changing your hours.
Blocking time off
Spatiko doesn’t have a separate “vacation” tool — and it doesn’t need one. You block time three ways:
- Switch a day off in your weekly hours for a recurring day you never work.
- Mark it busy on your connected Google Calendar for one-off time off — a doctor’s appointment, a personal trip, another job. Busy calendar events automatically remove those times from booking, and that works on any calendar you’ve chosen to check for conflicts — a personal or shared calendar counts, not just the one your shoots are written to (see syncing Google Calendar).
- Set yourself to “Not accepting orders” to pause everything at once.
Important: working hours alone don’t know about your personal commitments. Without a connected Google Calendar, Spatiko has no way to see that Tuesday afternoon is taken — it will happily offer it. Connecting your calendar is the step that makes “block time off” work.
If you don’t set anything
Every new member starts with standard weekday hours, Monday to Friday 9 to 5, so your booking page works from day one. It’s worth setting your real hours anyway — most photographers don’t work a flat 9–5, and your calendar should match your life.
Switching every day off isn’t a way to stop bookings. Spatiko warns you when you try: with no working days, scheduling falls back to Monday–Friday, 9 AM–5 PM. Your online booking page stops offering you, but a client moving a booking they already have with you is shown weekday 9-to-5 times. To pause properly, set your status to Not accepting orders instead.
Changes apply right away
Availability isn’t frozen at booking time. When you change your hours, buffer, or minimum notice, Spatiko recomputes what’s bookable immediately — including around existing orders. Widen your buffer and tighter slots disappear; open a new day and it becomes bookable at once.
On a team
Every team member has their own hours, minimum notice, and buffer. Spatiko looks at each person’s settings independently when deciding who can take a booking, so one photographer’s day off never blocks another’s calendar. If you manage the team you can edit a teammate’s hours for them, but only they can connect their own Google Calendar — their card gives you a Copy setup link button to send them.
Go deeper
- Calendar & availability — the full picture of what decides which slots a client is offered.
- Syncing Google Calendar — the connection that lets personal commitments block bookings.
- Travel time & travel fees — set the home base and the drive time reserved around each shoot.
- Managing shoots on your calendar — reschedule, split, and reassign the bookings your hours let through.
- Inviting and managing team members — add a photographer who then sets their own hours and buffers.
Frequently asked questions
How do I block time off for a vacation?
There's no separate vacation tool, and there doesn't need to be. Switch a day off in your weekly hours for a day you never work, mark the time busy on your connected Google Calendar for one-off absences, or set your status to Not accepting orders to pause new bookings entirely without touching your hours.
What's the difference between a buffer and travel time?
The buffer is your on-site cushion for parking, setup, and teardown, reserved on both sides of every shoot. Travel time is the estimated drive between properties, reserved separately — so the two add up rather than replace each other.
What happens if I never set my working hours?
Every new member starts with standard weekday hours, Monday to Friday 9 to 5, so your booking page works out of the box. It's worth setting your real hours anyway, since most photographers don't work a flat 9 to 5. Switching every day off doesn't pause bookings — use Not accepting orders for that.
Do changes to my hours affect bookings that already exist?
Availability isn't frozen at booking time. Change your hours, buffer, or minimum notice and Spatiko recomputes what's bookable immediately, including around existing orders — widen your buffer and tighter slots disappear, open a new day and it becomes bookable at once.