Availability
What decides the times a guest sees when they look for a table at your venue, and what you can adjust to change them.
What you can adjust
#The times offered to a guest are computed from a handful of venue settings. HaiLa starts from the day opening hours and offers a time every 30 minutes, up to the last seating.
- Hours
- The days and hours during which booking is possible. A day marked closed has no times at all.
- Average time at table
- How long one reservation keeps a table occupied, 90 minutes by default. The last seating comes from it too: closing time minus that duration.
- Minimum lead time
- How close to the meal a guest can still book.
- Maximum online party size
- Above this number the guest no longer books on their own: they get your phone number. Unset, it is 10 people. On haila.md the picker stops at 10 regardless: a higher cap is only usable from the HaiLa apps, and a lower one is applied when the reservation is sent.
- Blackouts
- They close online booking for a period without changing your published hours.
In the dashboard they live in Settings, under Hours, Booking rules and Blackouts. In the Lite app they are in Settings, and in Pro under More, then Settings. The setting belongs to the venue, so changing it in one place applies everywhere. With one exception: a minimum lead time written from the dashboard does not reach the list of times on haila.md. See Minimum lead time, below.
How far ahead guests can book (Booking horizon, between 1 and 365 days) is changed only from the Lite app, under Settings. The dashboard does not carry that setting.
Minimum lead time
#The minimum lead time works in two places: it removes the times inside the window when a guest searches, and it stops the reservation on submit if they reached a time that is too close anyway. You want it working in the first place, so a guest never sees a time they cannot have.
The filter applies to every date, not only today. A one-day lead also cuts tomorrow morning if it falls less than 24 hours out.
The two-hour floor is always there
Even with the minimum lead time set to zero, HaiLa never offers a time less than two hours away. Anything closer than that you take yourself, by phone.
On haila.md, what a guest is shown is not always what is applied
A lead time set in the Lite app is taken out of the list of times in the apps and on haila.md. Set from the dashboard, it is still enforced when the reservation is submitted, but on haila.md the times inside the window keep showing as free: the guest picks one and is refused at the last step. The same pattern shows up in the party cap: on haila.md the picker offers 10 whatever you set, and your real cap is again applied at submit. The rule holds, the screen does not show it, and the guest finds out at the end. For the lead time there is a way around it: set it from the Lite app.
Blackouts
#A blackout closes online booking for a specific period without touching the hours published on your page. Use it for a private hire, a week of repairs or a closed event night.
Reservations you already accepted are untouched. The window stops new requests, it does not cancel old ones, so go through the day and cancel by hand whatever you can no longer take.
Your team can still enter reservations in the Pro app for a blacked-out period. The block is for the channels where the guest books on their own.
Tick Customer app, plus Widget if you run one
When you create the window you choose which channels it closes. Customer app is the tick that matters: it stops the HaiLa apps and haila.md, and it is the only one that removes the times from the list, so the guest never sees them. Widget stops reservations through the widget on your own site, but only when the reservation is sent: there the times stay visible and the guest finds out at the end. The ticks do not interfere with each other, so if you are unsure, tick them all: you close more, never less.
Capacity on the Lite plan
#A venue on the Lite plan has no tables in HaiLa. There is no floor plan, so there is no capacity arithmetic either: HaiLa never refuses a time because "there are no tables left".
In practice, on Lite every time inside your hours, outside the lead-time window and outside a blackout, is shown to the guest as free. Whether the party still fits is decided by your team, when they read the request.
So on Lite a full evening is held together by your answers: propose another time when the requested hour is gone, and decline when there is no room at all. A request left unanswered does not hold a table, it just expires.
A guest never sees how many tables you have left
No HaiLa app shows a customer a count of free tables, neither on Lite nor on Pro. They only ever see the available times.