Product Availability Rules are the first layer of availability in Viking. They determine when products can be booked and scheduled, and let you set different availability times for different products or product categories.
You can create rules for individual products, product categories, or all products, and use filters such as date ranges, weekdays, time slots, and locations to define when those rules apply.
Product Availability is one part of the overall availability in the booking form. Other conditions can also affect whether a product is actually bookable.
On this page
- Create an availability rule
- Choose which products the rule applies to
- Set dates, days, locations, and time slots
- Set optional capacity limits
- Use multiple availability rules
Create an availability rule
Go to Settings → Product Availability → Availability Rules and create a new rule.
Give the rule a clear description that helps you recognize what it does.
For example:
Private lessons – weekends 09:00Rental products – summer afternoonsKitesurfing – mornings
A Product Availability Rule can include:
- Available slots
- Maximum number of students
- Product category
- Product
- Location
- From date
- Until date
- Week days
- Weeks in month
- Time slots
Choose which products the rule applies to
A rule can apply to:
- one specific product;
- one product category;
- all products.
If a rule applies to a category, it also applies to all products in that category.
A product can be covered by more than one rule. When multiple rules match the same product and time, they all contribute availability.
This makes it possible to build more complex schedules, but it also means broad and specific rules can overlap.
Set dates, days, locations, and time slots
Use the rule filters to define when the availability applies.
You can restrict a rule using:
- a From date and/or Until date;
- specific Week days;
- specific Weeks in month;
- specific Time slots;
- a specific Location.
You do not need to configure every field.
If you leave a restriction open, Viking does not restrict the rule by that field.
For example:
- no date range means the rule is not limited to a specific period;
- no weekday restriction means it applies to all days;
- no weeks-in-month restriction means it applies to all weeks;
- no selected time slots means it applies to all available time slots.
Create multiple rules when one schedule cannot be described with a single rule.
For example, if a product can be booked:
- Wednesday at 11:00; and
- Saturday at 15:00,
you can create separate rules for those schedules.
Set optional capacity limits
Availability Rules include two optional capacity fields:
- Available slots — the maximum number of instructors that can be assigned during the same time slot.
- Maximum number of students — the maximum number of students that can be booked during the same time slot.
Only use these fields on rules that apply to either:
- one specific product; or
- one specific product category.
Do not use overlapping capacity rules that make the same product match more than one rule.
For example, avoid creating:
- one capacity rule for the Kitesurfing category; and
- another capacity rule for Kitesurfing Private if that product already belongs to the Kitesurfing category.
In that situation, both rules apply to the same product and the resulting capacity may not be what you expect.
In most setups, these fields are optional. Capacity is usually determined mainly by the product's group size and the number of available instructors.
Use multiple availability rules
You can create multiple Availability Rules for the same product when different schedules are needed.
Matching rules are additive.
For example, you could create:
- one rule for weekday mornings;
- another rule for weekend afternoons.
Both rules create availability when their conditions match.
If you want to use the same availability criteria for another product, you can duplicate an existing rule by clicking the duplicate icon in the Availability Rules list. This is a quick way to reuse the same dates, days, time slots, locations, and other criteria without creating the rule again from scratch.
After duplicating the rule, change the product or category and adjust any other settings that should be different.
Because rules are additive, broad rules can also overlap with more specific rules.
For example:
- one rule applies to the entire Kitesurfing category;
- another rule applies specifically to Kitesurfing Private.
Kitesurfing Private will match both rules.
The order of normal Availability Rules does not affect how they are applied.
Rule order only becomes important when you use rules to block availability.
For blocking specific times or closing availability completely, see Block product availability.