When CLEO can offer free times
The three things CLEO needs before it offers a time as free.
CLEO will only tell you a time is free when it can genuinely know. That takes three answers — and until it has all three, it offers nothing and says so.
The three things CLEO needs
- The hours you normally take bookings. Without them there is no week to reason about.
- Confirmation that CLEO sees everything. In Settings → Scheduling, under What CLEO can see, the question is Does CLEO know about everything that could make you unavailable? — answer Yes — CLEO has the whole picture or No — I keep some things elsewhere.
- How many bookings can happen at once. How many bookings can normally happen at the same time? — one for a single practitioner, more for a business with several rooms or staff.
Answer all three and CLEO starts offering times. Leave any one and it won't.
Why the second question matters
It is the honest one. If your dentist appointments, school runs and site visits live in a diary CLEO has never seen, CLEO's "free" would mean "nothing in CLEO", which is not the same thing — and a customer would be offered a time you can't keep.
Answering No doesn't switch bookings off. It tells CLEO to stop claiming times are free, while you keep booking people in yourself.
Why the number matters
The capacity question has no sensible default. One is a guess; so is any other number. Left blank, it stays unknown, and CLEO will not offer times it cannot stand behind.
Once it has a number, CLEO uses it: when a time already holds that many appointments, it stops offering it, and the booking form says the time is fully booked.
While something is still missing
CLEO doesn't hide the gap. On the booking form it says CLEO can't check which times are free yet
and names what it still needs — the hours, the whole picture, or the number.
You can carry on booking in the meantime. The form lets you type the day and time yourself, with a plain warning that You're choosing this time yourself — CLEO isn't checking whether it's free.
What changes once all three are answered
- The booking form offers only times it can see are free, for the length you chose.
- Online booking can offer times to customers, if you switch it on.
- Ask CLEO can book and reschedule, because it only ever books a time it can verify.
- CLEO's suggestions elsewhere — such as which days have room — start reflecting your real week.
The last piece is what people are actually booking: the kinds of appointment you offer, and how long each one usually takes — Appointment types.