If you're a regular Cal.com user, you're probably familiar with our buffer times feature. Buffer times make it easy for you to ensure that you have enough time between events. Some people use buffer time to have an extra window of error in case anything goes sideways or a meeting runs over time. In contrast, other people use buffer times to ensure they have the time to travel to different meeting venues. However, Cal.com users can access more than just buffer times when setting event-level time limits. We also have features like minimum notice, time-slot intervals, limit booking frequency, limit total booking direction, and limit future bookings. All of these event limits work together to help reduce the likelihood of double bookings and other scheduling-related snafus. Since we've covered what buffer times are and how they work in previous posts, we will focus on all the other options within the booking limits feature today.
Minimum notice:
The way minimum notice works is relatively straightforward. It is the shortest lead time required before booking a meeting. This means that once you set up your minimum notice, regardless of your availability perspective, bookers can only request a meeting time based on that window. Since this is an event-level setting, each meeting type's minimum notice can differ. This means the minimum notice can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 8 hours or 10 days; it's up to you. The minimum notice feature works with your availability schedule and connected calendars. If someone wants to book an appointment for you at 4:00 and you set your minimum notice to 2 hours, they would have to book that appointment by 2:00 p.m. at the latest. If a person tries to book an appointment at 2:01, even if you were available on your calendar at 4:00 p.m., they would be unable to.
Time-slot intervals:
Time-slot intervals allow you to specify the frequency of booking slots within 24 hours. Time-slot intervals work by using the default time-slot interval, which is the length of your event, or you can set a custom one. Let's say, for example, you create a meeting type that is for a 45-minute consultation over Zoom. If you leave the time-slot interval to the default setting, then when the prospective Booker looks at your availability, they'll see that they can book meetings once every 45 minutes. Suppose your availability for the day started at 9:00 a.m. In that case, this means that you would have openings at 9:00, 9:45, 10:30, 11:15, etc. Using the time-slot interval feature lets you change this, which means that instead of the meeting lengths dictating the frequency of available time slots, you can specify it yourself. You can choose from 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes, and so on when using time-slot intervals. The length of your meeting itself will not impact these intervals. What this means is that if you had a 60-minute meeting and you selected a 5-minute time-slot interval, when someone goes to your booking page to choose their time slot, they would see one meeting slot every 5 minutes rather than one meeting slot every hour. Just like with minimum notice, time-slot intervals will still reference your availability schedule as well as your calendar to ensure that you are not double-booked.
Limit booking frequency:
Limit booking frequency is a super simple and useful feature. Once you've enabled this setting, it lets you dictate how often a specific event can be booked. You can set this limit so that it impacts the event daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Let's say you had a meeting type and only wanted to offer it six times per month. In this scenario, you would turn on the limit booking frequency feature, specify the number as 6, and select the frequency per month. One thing to note is that you can have more than one booking limit frequency. For example, in addition to providing a specific type of event six times per month, you may only want to offer up to 60 times per year. In this case, you would click the [+ add] option, enter 60 in the number field, and select yearly as the frequency.
Limit booking duration:
Limit booking duration works in a similar way to limit booking frequency. Once you've enabled this setting, you can specify the total time allowed for this specific event type. For example, this event can only be booked for a total of 120 minutes per day. Just like with the booking frequency section, you can add additional limits. You could also specify that a specific booking cannot exceed 900 minutes or 15 hours per week. This is a valuable feature, especially for teams and organizations that utilize managed event types, as it can help reinforce healthy boundaries and reduce unplanned or unauthorized overtime.
Limit future bookings:
Limiting future bookings is a simple feature with a significant impact. It gives you an extra layer of control over when people can book meetings with you. Like all the other settings, it naturally references your availability schedules and digital calendars. This feature allows you to limit when sessions can be booked based on specified dates. You can do this in one of two ways. Your first option is to restrict future bookings by a set number of days into the future. Your second option is to limit future bookings to a specific date range. If you choose to restrict bookings based on option one, it means that if you set the parameter as 14 days, people will only see available slots up to two weeks into the future. Alternatively, you could limit future bookings based on option two: a specific date range.
Let's imagine that you're planning on working out of an overseas office from September 12th to October 17th. In this scenario, you would choose an event, perhaps called "Auckland Office," and enable the date range limit to ensure that meetings could only be booked while you are in that city. As you can see, enabling this feature makes it easier to manage many of the scheduling complications that arise when business is going well, and your skills are in demand.
If you're interested in using Cal.com's booking limits on their own or in combination with other time-saving features, all you have to do is sign up for a free Cal.com account. It only takes a moment to do; once you've done it, you can immediately start saving time.
From there, check out our plans to see which is best for you.
Next, hit the sign-up button.
Then, choose a username and enter an email address.
Remember to create a password and then click the sign-up button.
Alternatively, you can also create an account using SAML SSO or Google.
Next, enter your full name and select your primary time zone.
Select the black button labeled "Next."
Choose the calendars you would like to connect with.
Next, set your default availability schedule.
Then, upload a profile picture and some bio text.
Next, click the finish button.
Finally, create some bookable events and share your meeting link.
This deep dive into Cal.com's various booking feature limits has provided new insights into how to use the product to protect your interests and maximize your impact. We know that life is complicated, and we want to do everything we can to simplify at least one key aspect of time management: scheduling. Using Cal.com is a great way to take ownership of how and when you meet and eliminate the needless back and forth that often comes with cross-comparing schedules. Using Cal.com is an easy way to reduce the stress that comes with scheduling, so you can focus on what matters.
