Setting Working Hours and Availability
Trade2Base uses working hours to grey out unavailable time in the schedule view, warn you when a job is booked outside normal hours, and limit customer self-booking slots to times when engineers are actually available.
Setting default business working hours
The business working hours are the default for all engineers unless you set individual overrides.
In the main navigation, open Settings and select Schedule from the left-hand menu. Click "Working Hours".
Toggle each day on or off. Monday to Friday are enabled by default. Toggle Saturday and Sunday on if your business operates at weekends.
Enter the time the working day starts (e.g. 08:00) and ends (e.g. 17:30). These times apply to every enabled working day.
Enter the lunch break duration in minutes (e.g. 30 or 60). Trade2Base blocks this time in the middle of the day on the schedule view. If your team does not take a fixed lunch break, set this to 0.
Click "Save working hours". The schedule view updates immediately to reflect the new hours.
Engineer-specific availability overrides
Individual engineers can have different hours from the business default — for example, a part-time engineer who only works Tuesday to Thursday, or one who starts later on Mondays.
Open the Team section, click on the engineer's name, and select the Availability tab. You will see their current schedule, which defaults to the business working hours.
Toggle individual days on or off and set different start and end times for each day. For example: Mon off, Tue 09:00–17:00, Wed 09:00–17:00, Thu 09:00–17:00, Fri off.
Click "Save availability". The engineer's column in the schedule view now shows their individual hours instead of the business default.
Blocking non-working days (holidays and time off)
To block specific dates for an engineer — annual leave, bank holidays, training days, or sick leave — use the Time Off feature.
Open the engineer's profile and select the Time Off tab. Click "Add time off".
Choose a start date and end date. For a single day, set both to the same date. Add an optional note (e.g. "Annual leave" or "Training").
The blocked dates appear in the schedule view as unavailable for that engineer. Any jobs already booked on those dates are highlighted with a warning.
How working hours affect scheduling
Non-working hours are shown in a darker shade in the day and week schedule views, making it visually obvious when you are booking inside or outside working time.
If you drag a job into a non-working slot, Trade2Base shows a warning: "This job is outside working hours for this engineer". You can override the warning and save anyway for genuine out-of-hours jobs.
If you have enabled customer self-booking, appointment slots are only offered within the engineer's working hours. Customers cannot book slots that fall outside working hours or on blocked dates.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, if you grant them the Availability permission in their role. Go to Settings → Roles → [Role name] → Permissions and enable "Manage own availability". Engineers with this permission can update their own hours in the Trade2Base app.
The availability settings apply ongoing until changed. For seasonal changes, update the hours at the start of each season. Alternatively, use the Time Off feature to block specific date ranges.
Trade2Base shows a warning but does not block the booking. You can override the warning for legitimate out-of-hours or emergency jobs.
No. Bank holidays must be added manually via Team → [Engineer] → Time Off, or set the business working hours to exclude them. A future update will include automatic bank holiday imports for UK and Ireland.
Yes. Go to Team → Availability overview to see all engineers' working hours and time-off on a single calendar view.
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