Calendar & Availability
Block time, sync an outside calendar, and control when clients can book you.
Your Calendar and Its Views
Your calendar is at Calendar in the sidebar, headed My Events. It holds everything that makes you unavailable — confirmed bookings and time you've blocked out yourself. Two kinds of block | Type | Colour | Comes from | Can you edit it? | |---|---|---|---| | Event | Purple | A confirmed DJfindr booking | No | | Busy | Amber | You, or a synced outside calendar | Yes | Event blocks are created automatically when a booking is confirmed and removed if it's dropped or canceled. You can't edit or delete one directly — the booking controls it. Busy blocks are yours. See Creating a Busy Block. Views Use the view dropdown to switch between Day, Week, Month, and Year. Month is the useful default for spotting free weekends; Day is worth switching to when you have two bookings in one day and need to see the gap between them. Filtering Above the calendar: - Search events — find a booking by name - Type — filter by occasion - Status — filter by booking status Opening a block Select any block to see its Date & Time, Duration, Your Local Time with the timezone, Location, and the client or DJ involved. It also shows where it came from — Created via Google Calendar on 4 March, for example. For an event block, View Event takes you to the booking. For a busy block, you can delete it from here. Timezones Blocks show both the event's local time and yours. This matters more than it sounds — a client booking you in another timezone sets the time in theirs, and the calendar shows you both so you don't turn up three hours out. How this affects bookings When a client picks a date on your profile, we check it against your calendar. If you're blocked, they see a warning that you're unavailable. Everything on this calendar — event blocks, your own busy blocks, and anything synced in from outside — counts. See How Your Availability Affects Incoming Requests.
Creating a Busy Block
A busy block is time you've marked as unavailable. Clients trying to book over it are told you're not free. Creating one 1. Go to Calendar. 2. Select + Add Busy. 3. Set the Start Date/Time and End Date/Time. 4. Choose the Timezone. 5. Give it a Block Title. 6. Select Add. The block appears in amber on your calendar. What to block Travel and setup either side of a gig. A confirmed booking blocks the performance hours only. If a venue is two hours away and you need ninety minutes to set up, block that too — otherwise you can be booked into it. Holidays and time off. Easier than declining requests one by one. Bookings taken elsewhere. Anything you've agreed outside DJfindr should be blocked here, or you can be double-booked. If those bookings live in another calendar, syncing it does this automatically. See Syncing Google Calendar or Outlook. Days you won't work. If you never play Sunday nights, a recurring block saves the conversation. Titles Only you see the title. Something you'll recognise in a month — "Wilson wedding travel", "family, unavailable" — beats "busy". Editing and deleting Select the block on your calendar. Busy blocks can be deleted from that panel. Blocks synced in from an outside calendar are managed in that calendar, not here — delete the entry there and the block follows. What you can't block Event blocks from confirmed bookings. Those are controlled by the booking itself. If you need to get out of a confirmed event, message the client — see Cancellations, No-Shows, and What They Cost You. Timezone care Set the timezone deliberately when you're blocking around travel. A block created in the wrong timezone can leave a gap exactly where you needed cover.
Syncing Google Calendar or Outlook
Connecting an outside calendar pulls your existing commitments in as busy blocks, so you can't be booked over something you'd already agreed elsewhere. Available on Pro and Platinum. Connecting 1. Go to Calendar and open Calendar Settings. 2. Under Direct Connections, find your provider and select Connect. 3. Sign in and approve access. 4. Choose which calendar to sync under Select a calendar. 5. Select Connect. Which providers | Provider | Available | |---|---| | Google Calendar | Yes | | Microsoft Outlook | Yes | | iCloud Calendar | Not currently — the button shows Unavailable | If you're on iCloud, use the iCal subscription below instead. Which calendar to pick Pick the one that holds your actual commitments. If you keep work and personal in separate calendars, connect the one that would stop you taking a booking — usually personal, since that's where the wedding you're attending sits. Going the other way — putting DJfindr in your calendar Two options in the same Calendar Settings dialog: Subscribe via iCal — copy the iCal URL and add it as a subscribed calendar in whatever app you use. It updates on its own. Some calendar apps cache subscribed calendars and only refresh every few hours, so a brand-new booking may take a while to appear. Manually export — download an ICS file for a one-time import. It won't update afterwards. What syncs, and what doesn't Events from your connected calendar arrive as Busy blocks and stop clients booking over them. We don't read the details of your entries — the block exists to protect the time. Blocks that came in from an outside calendar are managed there. Delete the entry in Google Calendar or Outlook and the block goes with it. Disconnecting Use the same Calendar Settings dialog. Blocks already synced in are removed with the connection, so check you're not leaving genuine commitments unprotected.
Subscribing by iCal or Exporting Your Events
If your calendar app isn't one of the direct connections, two other options get your DJfindr events into it. Both are in Calendar → Calendar Settings. Subscribe via iCal A read-only calendar URL you add to any app that supports subscriptions. 1. Open Calendar → Calendar Settings. 2. Find Subscribe via iCal. 3. Copy the URL. 4. In your calendar app, add a subscribed calendar and paste it. It updates on its own, so new bookings appear without you doing anything. The refresh delay Calendar apps decide how often to check a subscribed calendar, and some only refresh every few hours. A booking confirmed this morning may not show until later. So treat the subscription as a convenient view, not the authoritative one. Your DJfindr Calendar is always current. Manually export Download an ICS file and import it into your calendar. This is a one-time snapshot. It won't update — new bookings and changes won't appear. Fine for a one-off, not a substitute for subscribing. Which to use Subscribe for ongoing use. It's the closest thing to a live view. Export for a specific need — sending your schedule to someone, or importing into something that can't subscribe. Direct connection if you use Google Calendar or Outlook. That's a two-way arrangement — your outside commitments block DJfindr bookings as well. See Syncing Google Calendar or Outlook. The important difference A subscription or export puts DJfindr events into your calendar. It does not bring your other commitments into DJfindr. So a gig you booked elsewhere still won't block a DJfindr booking unless you add a busy block or use a direct connection. This is the thing that causes double-bookings. See Creating a Busy Block. Keeping the URL private The iCal URL shows your booking schedule to anyone who has it. Don't publish it or share it more widely than you need to. Per-event calendar entries Each confirmed booking also has an Add to calendar option on its details, if you only want one event rather than the whole schedule.
How Your Availability Affects Incoming Requests
When a client picks a date on your profile, we check it against your calendar. If you're busy, they see a warning that you're unavailable on that date or time. What counts as busy Everything on your calendar: - Event blocks from confirmed DJfindr bookings, created automatically - Busy blocks you've added yourself - Blocks synced in from a connected outside calendar They can still send the request The warning doesn't stop them. Clients do send requests anyway — sometimes because their times differ from your booking, sometimes hoping something will change. So you'll still see occasional requests for dates you're blocked on. Accept or decline as normal. Why accuracy matters An under-filled calendar wastes your time. Requests for dates you can't take, conversations that go nowhere, and the awkwardness of declining after a client got their hopes up. Worse, it risks double-booking. A gig you agreed elsewhere and didn't block is a date DJfindr believes is free. If a client books and pays, you have two commitments and one of them ends badly. What to block Bookings taken elsewhere. The critical one. Anything you've agreed outside DJfindr. Travel and setup around confirmed bookings. An event block covers your performance hours only. If a venue is two hours away, block the travel too or you can be booked into it. Holidays and time off. Days you won't work. If you never play Sunday nights, block them. See Creating a Busy Block. The easier route If your other commitments live in Google Calendar or Outlook, connect it and they block DJfindr dates automatically. Available on Pro and Platinum. See Syncing Google Calendar or Outlook. Search doesn't filter on availability Worth knowing: clients can't filter search results by date. You appear in searches regardless of whether you're free, and availability is only checked at the request stage. This means an accurate calendar doesn't reduce your visibility — it just means the requests you get are ones you can actually take. Freeing a date Event blocks are removed automatically when a booking is dropped or canceled. Busy blocks you delete yourself. Blocks from a synced calendar are removed by deleting the entry in that calendar.