Practical guide

Slot interval and service duration are different decisions

Last materially reviewed 2026-09-23

Quick answerChoose the interval between offered starts separately from the length of the appointment and its occupied time.
What to know

Read the grid correctly

A fifteen-minute grid does not mean every appointment lasts fifteen minutes. It can describe how often a customer is offered a starting time. A forty-five-minute service may occupy several grid units, plus any preparation or reset. Draw a sample day before changing the setting. This separates the number of displayed choices from the number of appointments the business can actually deliver and prevents a dense calendar from being mistaken for greater physical capacity.

What to know

Check the documented constraint

Trafft’s settings documentation connects the default time-slot step with service durations and offers choices for displaying slots using service duration and buffer time. Verify the current configuration rather than assuming every minute value is valid. A duration that does not fit the selected step can require a different setup. Do not silently round the real service down to make it fit the grid; that can create overlap later in the day.

What to know

Test a boundary rather than a screenshot

Choose a fictional working window with a known start and finish. Calculate which start times should accommodate the entire occupied interval. Then inspect the offered starts at the opening boundary, around an existing appointment and near closing. The purpose is to test the rule, not simply confirm that a calendar appears. A visually neat grid can still offer an appointment whose reset period extends past the available window.

What to know

Change the smallest relevant setting

If a slot is missing, first check service assignment, staff hours, resources and buffers. Do not reduce the grid step as a universal repair. A smaller step may create more choices without creating more usable capacity. Record the old and new settings and review any existing appointments affected by the change. Keep the customer-facing duration aligned with the service you deliver even when the internal scheduling grid uses a different interval.

Continue when useful

Next: Calculate preparation and reset time correctly

Calculate the occupied interval from preparation, service and reset. The customer-facing duration is only one part of it.

Open Calculate preparation and reset time correctly →

Sources used for this page

These records support the facts and comparisons above. Merchant-controlled records are labelled so you can separate product claims from independent evidence.

  1. Trafft booking settings — Merchant documentation · trafft.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-23
  2. Trafft service configuration — Merchant documentation · trafft.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-23