If you run group walks, walk slots are your best friend. Instead of creating a separate booking for each dog at each time of day, you create templates, recurring time blocks that repeat every week. Clients book into these slots, and Barclo tracks how many dogs are in each one automatically. When a slot is full, it's full.
To manage walk slots: click Walk Slots in the left-hand menu.
The concept: one service, many slots
Here's the mental model to get right before you start:
You create one Group Walk service (in the Services section), and then multiple walk-slot templates for the different times of day. You do not create separate services called "Morning Walk", "Afternoon Walk", and "Evening Walk". That leads to a messy service list and confused clients.
Instead: one "Group Walk" service, and then three walk-slot templates: Morning (09:00 to 11:00), Afternoon (13:00 to 15:00), Evening (16:00 to 18:00). Each template runs Monday to Friday and has its own capacity, say, 6 dogs maximum.
The key idea: Walk-slot templates are the recurring times. The service is what clients are booking and paying for. They're two separate things that work together.
Walk slots only attach to a Timed-session service with the Use walk slot scheduling option turned on. If your Group Walk service is set up differently, walk slots won't be available to attach to it.
What a walk-slot template contains
Each template defines:
- Name, something descriptive like "Morning Walk" or "Early Birds". This appears on the calendar so you can tell slots apart at a glance.
- Service, which service this slot belongs to (e.g. "Group Walk"). This links the slot to the right price and service settings.
- Lead walker (optional), the team member who normally takes this slot. Leave blank if you'll assign on the day.
- Days of the week, which days this slot runs. At least one day must be ticked. You might run morning walks Mon to Fri but not weekends, or run an extra Saturday slot in summer.
- Start and end time, the exact times the walk runs. This is what appears on the calendar and what clients see when booking.
- Maximum dogs, the capacity limit. Once this many dogs are booked into a slot, it shows as full and no more can be added. Set this to the number you can safely and comfortably handle, think about the size of the dogs too.
- Colour, a calendar colour so this slot's bookings stand out from others.
- Active from (and optional Active until), the date range during which this template generates slots. Use "Active until" for seasonal slots, or leave it blank to run indefinitely.
The weekly walk-slots view
The Walk Slots page shows a weekly grid, Monday through Sunday across the top. Each slot appears as a card under the day(s) it runs. A typical Monday to Friday setup with a single "Morning Walk" (09:00 to 11:00, max 6 dogs) shows that card on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu and Fri, with Sat and Sun empty.
How capacity works
Every time a dog is booked into a walk slot, the count goes up by one. The calendar shows this live, for example, "Morning Walk · 4/6" means four dogs are booked out of a maximum of six. Once it reaches 6/6, the slot is full.
On the calendar month view you can see capacity counts for every slot across the month, so at a glance you know which days are busy and which ones have space. This is what you check in the morning to plan your day.
If a client tries to book a full slot through the portal, Barclo won't let them. They'll be prompted to pick a different time. You'll never accidentally overbook a walk.
How clients book a walk slot
When a client visits your booking portal and selects your Group Walk service, Barclo shows them the available slots for their chosen date, for example, "Morning Walk 09:00 to 11:00 (3 spots left)". They pick the slot that suits them and confirm. Done.
If you've enabled multi-session discounts on the service, clients can select more than one slot in a day for their dog and get a discount on the second slot, great for the "Bella stays busy all day" crowd.
Create your templates before taking bookings. Walk slots need to exist before any walk bookings can be made. Clients book into slots, not into open time. Set up your templates as part of your initial setup, right after creating the Group Walk service.