Booking and Readiness Blockers

When To Use This#

Use this page to understand what to check when a booking action is unavailable, a dog is blocked from booking, a service or date is not shown, or a cancellation action is missing.

Before You Start#

• Confirm whether the issue is in the customer portal or staff app.
• Identify the dog, service, date, and visible blocker text.
• Approval, capacity, cancellation, and refund outcomes depend on the business's policy, so they aren't guaranteed here.

Visible Blocker#

• Start with the warning or disabled action shown on the page.
• Check whether the blocker points to dog readiness, onboarding, documents, service availability, a closed or special-hours date, or account setup.
• If the page links to a customer task, complete that task before retrying the booking action.
• If the blocker does not explain the next step, contact the business before assuming the booking should be accepted.

Customer Checks#

• Check the dog profile for missing required details.
• Check onboarding for unfinished household or dog setup. If you signed up from a business's public enrollment page, your details go to that business as an enrollment request. Staff review it, then send you a setup invite to finish your household, dog, and vaccination records, agreements, and payment details. Booking access opens only after you complete that setup and staff approve your application and the services your dog is allowed to book, unless the business has opened a given service to all customers or to established customers, in which case that service does not need a separate per-dog approval.
• Check the Documents page for missing, pending, rejected, or expired documents.
• If a date is unavailable, check whether the business is closed or has special hours on that date; booking is blocked when the requested time falls outside the hours the business has set for that day. Some special-hours notices are announcement only: the date stays fully bookable and you'll simply see the business's message alongside the usual times, rather than losing any slots.
• For a class request, choose one dog and the class date and time before looking for eligible classes. The portal does not show a general class catalog before those choices are set.
• When starter classes are configured, a new student sees the age-appropriate Peaceful Integration option first and Basic Obedience second. The dog's age is checked on the requested class date. A returning student sees classes supported by that dog's previous approvals or class history.
• If the dog's birthdate is missing or is in the future, Basic Obedience remains available and the portal tells you that the birthdate needs attention. Correct the birthdate or contact the business before relying on an age-based class choice.
• Request one class for one dog and one date. Make separate requests for another dog or date; class requests do not repeat automatically.
• If you are requesting a boarding stay, set the stay details before you submit: a drop-off date, a pick-up date, a valid range (the pick-up date must be later than the drop-off date, so a same-day drop-off and pick-up is not a valid boarding range), and both a drop-off time window and a pick-up time window chosen from the times the business offers. The request is blocked until each of these is filled in. If a time you picked is no longer available, choose another and resubmit.
• If you are booking grooming, pick a date and then an appointment time from the times shown for that date. The request is blocked until an appointment time is chosen, and a time will not work if it falls outside the business's grooming hours, if that appointment length is no longer offered, or if the slot filled up while you had the page open. Pick another open time when that happens. If you are booking more than one dog, the time you pick also has to have enough openings left for all of them; when it does not, the page tells you how many openings remain so you can choose fewer dogs or a different time.
• If the business offers stay add-ons for a boarding stay, you may see a "Stay add-ons" step. When an add-on can apply in more than one way, a "When should it apply?" choice appears with whichever options that business allows for it: every day, certain days, arrival day, or pickup day. Add-ons are optional unless the business marks a group of them as a required daily choice; then you have to pick one option from that group for every day of the stay. If you choose certain days, pick at least one date, or the date list shows a "Choose at least one date." message. While any add-on selection is incomplete, the submit button stays disabled and a note beside it asks you to choose the required care option for each day of the stay.
• If a saved card is required before booking, the portal shows a callout instead of letting you submit. "Add a payment method before booking" links you to Billing to save a card and return; "Online payments are not ready" means card setup is not finished on the business's side, so contact the business rather than retrying. A payment callout takes priority over any other note beside the submit button, so clear the card requirement first and then check whatever note appears next.
• Use the booking action only when it is shown in the customer portal.
• What happens after you submit depends on the service and on the day you picked. Some services book right away and are confirmed the moment you submit; others go to the business as a request and stay in a requested state until staff approve or decline them. The service summary tells you which to expect, showing either "Books right away" or "Staff confirmation required". Even a service that normally books right away can turn into a request when the day is full, when the visit is last minute, when you asked for a drop-in, or when the business is closed until further notice and you picked a later date. The message shown after you submit says which of your dogs were booked and which were requested.
• If your booking is in a requested state, the portal does not offer a way to speed it up, so contact the business if it has been waiting longer than you expect.
• If cancellation is not shown, do not assume the booking can be canceled from the portal.

Timing And Availability#

Some blockers and warnings are about the timing you asked for rather than about the dog's readiness.

• If the day's overall cap is full, the business can often still take the booking, but it goes to staff review rather than confirming right away. This does not apply to boarding stays. A separate limit set on the individual service is different: if the business has that limit set to turn bookings away once it is reached, the request is refused instead of going to review; if not, reaching that limit shows a general capacity note but does not stop the booking.
• If the business has posted a "closed until further notice" notice, same-day booking is paused while that notice is active. A request you submit for a later date is still accepted, but it is held for staff to review once they reopen.
• The service summary shows "Advance notice preferred" for a service that does not take last-minute bookings. Usually this means a last-minute request still goes through, just routed to staff review instead of confirming right away. Some businesses set a stricter policy for a service that refuses last-minute requests outright instead of sending them to review.
• A drop-in request has to use a same-day visit time.
• A visit time that has already passed, or that falls outside the window the business is currently booking, is not accepted. Pick a time inside that window.
• If your household has been set to inactive, online booking stays closed until staff reactivate it, so contact the business. This applies when the business requires a saved card before booking, which is the default; a business that has turned that requirement off does not block an inactive household this way.

Staff Checks#

• Use the Bookings page for booking requests and booking details. Requests waiting on review collect in a dedicated Booking requests view, reached from the button of that name on the Bookings page; the button carries a count when requests are waiting. This includes requests staff created themselves in the app, not just ones customers submitted. Requests stay in that queue until you approve or decline them.
• A review item covers several dates submitted at once for the same dog, so Approve and Decline decide that whole set in one go. Different dogs are separate items even when the customer submitted them together, so decide each dog on its own. Grouping holds only while every booking in the set is still waiting; once part of a set has been decided, the rest is handled one booking at a time. Any add-ons on those bookings follow the same decision. Declining asks you to type an internal reason before it will go through; that reason is recorded for your team rather than shown as the customer's explanation.
• Approving re-checks every booking in the review item against the current booking rules before anything changes. If any one booking in that item is no longer eligible, for example a document lapsed, the service was turned off, or the date moved outside the window you are currently booking, the whole approval is refused and nothing in that item changes. Clear the blocker, then approve again. On a service with a strict per-slot capacity limit, this recheck can occasionally refuse the approval even though nothing looks wrong on the page, because the still-pending request itself can count toward that slot's limit. If approval keeps failing with no visible blocker to clear, contact support rather than continuing to retry.
• Approving or declining a request needs the booking edit permission and an account in good standing. When the buttons are replaced by a "Review only" marker, the queue is still readable but the decision cannot be made from that page. That happens, for example, without the booking edit permission, or while a read-only or canceled subscription is locking booking changes.
• When a booking is placed from the staff app for a day that has already reached its cap, the booking is still allowed but is flagged as booked past capacity so the team can see it. Customers do not get that flag; a full day sends their request to review instead.
• Use the Onboarding page to review new families, including those who signed up from your public enrollment page. New enrollment requests start as new, move to invited once you send the setup invite, then move through in progress to ready for review; you can filter the board by these stages. Send a setup invite so the family can finish their records, agreements, and payment details, then approve the application and choose which services the dog is allowed to book once it is ready for review.
• Use the Documents page when readiness depends on submitted files.
• Use the Schedule page or Today's view when the issue is tied to day-of operations.
• For a class issue, confirm the customer chose one dog and a class date and time. Then review the dog's birthdate, Allowed services source labels, prior approvals, and confirmed class history before changing access.
• Do not grant both age-based Peaceful Integration classes to work around missing birthdate information. Correct the birthdate so the portal can use the dog's age on the requested date.
• If a date is blocked by special hours, check the business's special-hours settings; a booking can still be placed outside those hours as a deliberate staff exception when a reason is recorded. The same reason-recording exception lets staff place a booking during an active emergency closure.
• If a staff action should be available but is missing, an owner or admin can review staff access on the Access page.

What May Need Business Review#

Some blockers clear after missing information is saved. Others may require staff review, service setup changes, document review, schedule changes, or a business policy decision.

Policy Boundaries#

• Start from the blocker or warning text shown in the app. It may not list every reason a booking is being held, and a few situations show up as a short generic phrase rather than a full explanation. Anything beyond that wording is the business's own policy and needs the business to confirm it.
• Service rules, capacity, cancellation, refunds, and approval outcomes are set by the business's policy.
• Whether a booking will be accepted, canceled, rescheduled, credited, refunded, or made available after a specific action isn't guaranteed here.

Troubleshooting#

• If a document is pending, wait for staff review or follow the business process.
• If a dog is missing required information, update the dog or household profile.
• If a service is not shown, or a message says it is not ready for online booking yet, staff can check whether that service is fully set up and available. A message that the service is no longer offered means it has been turned off, so staff would need to turn it back on before it can be booked. A message that the service has not been approved for this dog yet means the dog is not on that service's allowed list; staff can add it during onboarding review.
• If a message says staff requested onboarding changes, booking stays closed until you update the onboarding packet and staff approve it again.
• If no class options are shown yet, choose one dog and a class date and time first.
• If an expected class is missing, check the dog's birthdate and ask staff to review its approvals and confirmed class history. The presence of Basic Obedience and a Peaceful Integration option does not by itself make Peaceful Integration a required prerequisite.
• If a specific date is unavailable, check whether the business is closed or has special hours that day; pick a different date or contact the business.
• If a boarding request will not go through, pick your drop-off and pick-up dates and your drop-off and pick-up times, making sure the pick-up date is later than the drop-off date and both times are ones the business still offers, then resubmit.
• If a grooming request will not go through, pick a date and an appointment time that is still open, and make sure that time has enough openings left for every dog you selected.
• If a boarding submit button stays disabled after the dates and times are set, check for a payment callout first, then check the stay add-ons step: a required daily choice needs an option picked for every day, and an add-on applied to certain days needs at least one date selected.
• If a booking shows as requested and nothing has changed since, it is waiting on the business to approve or decline it from their Booking requests queue. A booking shows as confirmed either because the service books right away or because staff have already approved the request.
• If a booking you expected to confirm right away came back as requested, check whether the day was full, the visit was last minute, it was submitted as a drop-in, or the business is closed until further notice and the date you picked is a later one.
• If cancellation is not shown, contact the business or use the business-approved cancellation process.
• If only some dogs are blocked, compare the visible readiness state for each dog.