Viking has already prepared your products and at least one booking form. Now it's time to complete the availability settings and make sure customers can book your activities the way you want.
Start with availability, then finish your booking forms. This makes it easier to check whether the correct lessons, dates and times appear.
1. Check your start times
Start times determine when lessons and other activities can begin.
We've usually configured these during your initial setup, but it's important to check that they match your school's schedule.
- Go to Settings → Planning.
- Scroll down to the start times.
- Check whether the times your school uses are available.
- Add or adjust start times where needed.
Start times are shared across Viking. You don't need to create separate start times for every product. Product Availability Rules determine which of these times can be used for specific activities.
Tip: Keep your start times as simple as possible. A limited number of start times can make it easier to group students and organize lessons.
For more information, see Make a product bookable.
2. Configure product availability
Your products have already been added, but they still need the right availability settings.
Go to Settings → Product Availability → Availability Rules and check whether the existing rules match your school's schedule.
For each activity, consider:
- On which days can customers book?
- At which start times?
- At which location?
- Are there seasonal dates or other restrictions?
- Do you need specific capacity limits?
Add or adjust rules where needed.
If your lessons follow a regular weekly schedule, normal Product Availability Rules will usually be sufficient.
If start times change frequently, for example because lessons depend on the tide, you may need the Product Availability Schedule as an additional layer. A normal Product Availability Rule is still required.
See Set product availability for the full instructions.
Decide how far ahead customers can book without instructor availability
Go to Settings → Planning and find Allow bookings regardless of instructor availability.
By default, this is set to one month. This means customers can book lessons more than one month in advance based on your Product Availability Rules, even if your instructors haven't entered their availability yet.
For bookings within that period, Viking still checks instructor availability for lessons that require an instructor. Other availability conditions can also apply.
Choose a period that works for your school:
- Shorter period: Customers can book without confirmed instructor availability sooner. This gives you less control over instructor availability for bookings further ahead.
- Longer period: Viking checks instructor availability for a longer period before allowing bookings without it. This gives you more control, but can limit how far ahead customers can book if instructors haven't submitted their availability.
Important: Allowing bookings without confirmed instructor availability may mean you need to arrange instructors after customers have already booked. Choose a period that matches how your school manages its planning.
For the full explanation, see Make a product bookable.
3. Set instructor availability
If your lessons depend on instructor availability, make sure your instructors are ready to be scheduled.
You should already have added your instructors and assigned the products and locations they can teach during the previous onboarding step.
Now you need to make them available.
You can manage instructor availability yourself, or let instructors manage their own availability through their instructor dashboard.
For instructors who follow a regular weekly schedule, recurring availability can save time.
See Set instructor availability.
How does Viking decide whether a lesson can be booked?
For most course products, several conditions need to match:
- The requested start time must exist.
- A Product Availability Rule must allow the product at that date and time.
- An instructor must be able to teach the product at the selected location.
- Instructor availability must allow the booking, unless your settings allow customers to book further ahead without confirmed instructor availability.
Additional settings, such as an Availability Schedule or inventory limits, may also affect availability.
Not every product type works in exactly the same way. Rental and camp products, for example, don't depend on instructor availability.
For the complete explanation, see Make a product bookable.
4. Complete your booking forms
We've created at least one booking form for your school. Open it under Settings → Booking forms.
Review the information customers will see, including:
- Products and variants available for booking
- Form language and customer-facing text
- Sidebar information and frequently asked questions
- Customer details and any custom questions
- Checkout images
- Date and time selection
- Whether customers are redirected to online payment
Make any necessary changes and save the form.
For detailed instructions, see Set up a booking form.
Need more than one booking form?
Many schools use different booking forms for different activities or website buttons.
We recommend completing one booking form first. Once you're happy with its settings, you can duplicate it and adjust the products or content for another activity.
This avoids configuring the same information repeatedly.
5. Add waivers if needed
If your school requires customers to sign a waiver before participating, make sure the appropriate waiver is configured.
You can set a default waiver or assign a different waiver to specific products.
Also check whether your customer emails should include a waiver link. Assigning a waiver to a product doesn't automatically add that link to your email templates.
6. Check what customers can book
Once you've configured availability and booking forms, check the result.
- Open your booking form under Settings → Booking forms.
- Click Show form, or open the Booking form URL in a new tab.
- Select one of your activities.
- Check whether the correct dates, times, products and prices appear.
- Repeat this for the main activities your school offers.
If an expected date or time isn't available, first check the availability settings.
You can also use the Availability Tester under Settings → Product Availability → Tester to see which availability condition is preventing a specific booking.
See Test product availability.
What's next?
Continue with Add booking and login links to your website.
You'll add booking and login links to your website so customers can book easily and existing customers can access their accounts. After that, you'll test the complete booking process.
If you still have questions or settings you're unsure about, make a note of them so we can discuss them during your onboarding video call.