Schedule and calendar

Your schedule is what the agent uses to offer slots. Anything you block or have busy stops being offered instantly.

Views

Calendar has three views: Month, Week and Agenda. In the month, an orange dot under the number marks the days with bookings, and closed days (blocked, or that your week does not open) go in a striped box, like their columns in the week. The Agenda view is the list of your bookings by day and time from the chosen day on, and it loads more as you scroll down. Tapping the month shows you the whole year, and tapping a month takes you back to it. In the month, the week and the year, swipe left to go to the next one and right to go back to the previous one: the one next door slides in following your finger, already loaded; at the top, next to +, Today takes you back to today in any view. With VoiceOver, the title of the month, the week or the year has the Previous and Next actions. Each booking appears as a card with the client, the project and the state; tapping it opens the booking. Cancelled, expired or no-show bookings leave the calendar; you still see them in their project's detail (see Projects and bookings). Below the month and above the week, a switch opens or closes the chosen day: off, the day is blocked; on, on a day your week does not open, it asks you in which location and from what time to what time to open extra hours. On an open day, Open extra hours opens more hours, or changes or removes the ones it has.

Hours and duration

In Settings → Agenda in the app you set the default duration of a session (30 minutes or more) and the gap between sessions (15 minutes or more), which apply in all your locations; and in Settings → Locations, within each location, the days and hours you tattoo there. Each card in the list sums up its hours. Slots last as long as the project does: the duration you set for it, which always wins and the agent does not change; otherwise, that of the chosen Flash piece; otherwise, the one the agent estimates by comparing with your Flash pieces (in half hours, up to 8 hours); and otherwise, your default duration.

Blocks and extra hours

A block is a time when you cannot tattoo even though your hours say you can: a whole day or a few hours. It applies in all your locations, because if you cannot tattoo you cannot do it anywhere. Extra hours are hours you open in one location on a specific day, whether that day is open or closed in your week. They only open slots in that location and on the days when it is the one in charge: a guest spot on its dates and, otherwise, the default location.

Today you set them in Settings → Locations → (a location) → Days that differ: mark a day as Closed so no bookings come in, or expand Open hours on any day, open or closed, to open extra hours in that location. It saves when you tap it, and the list loads more days as you scroll down. If another location is in charge that day (a guest spot on its dates), the day says so: there, extra hours would open nothing. You can also do it from the Calendar tab, with the day's switch in the month or the week; blocking stretches of hours from the week view will come later.

A block always wins. If the same day has a block from 11 to 12 and extra hours from 10 to 14, the agent offers slots from 10 to 11 and from 12 to 14. With a whole-day block nothing is offered that day, even if you opened extra hours on that day.

Closing your agenda

If you are travelling, fully booked or simply want no more appointments for a while, close your agenda in Settings → Agenda in the app. Turn on From, Until or both and pick the day: with only Until, it closes now; with only From, it stays closed until you open it. The Until day is still closed, and the agenda opens by itself the day after. There is one closure at a time and it applies in all your locations; you can change it whenever you like or tap Remove closure to open it now.

While it is closed, no new bookings come in from clients for any day. The agent keeps answering and gets projects ready, but it does not offer or hold slots, and it says until when you are closed. What is already booked and the held slots stay as they were, and you can book by hand as always. Your page and the directory say so ("Agenda closed until…; you can still share your idea"), and Home reminds you with a notice that takes you to Settings → Agenda. To take the slots of a few specific days away, use a block, not a closure.

Held slots that expire

When a client chooses a slot, the agent leaves it held until you confirm or reject it, for the time you choose in Settings → AI assistant (2, 12, 24 or 48 hours; 24 if you change nothing). If you do not answer in time, the slot is offered again at the very moment it expires, without waiting for anything, and the agent offers the client other slots. The gap between sessions you set in your hours is always respected, also if two clients try to hold back-to-back slots at the same time.

Locations and guest spots

You can work in more than one place. Each location has its address, its time zone, its hours and its extra hours, and it can have start and end dates. The address is chosen from the Apple Maps suggestions as you type, and the time zone and the point on the map come from it: there is no zone to choose. A guest spot is a temporary location: "Berlin, November 3 to 10". On those dates the agent offers slots there and the times are shown to the client in the location's local time.

You always have a default location: the first one you create, and whichever you later mark with Make it the default on its card or in its detail. It is the one the agent proposes when the client does not say where, the one in charge on the days no guest spot covers and the one that sets your time zone. A guest spot cannot be the default, and to remove the default you first have to mark another one.

Locations per plan: 1 on Zero, 3 on Trace, 10 on Ink. A location whose dates have already ended takes no room in your plan; if you reopen it, it counts again, and you will not be able to reopen it if it takes you over the limit.

If you move down and have more locations than the plan allows, you choose which ones stay when you confirm the move; the default always does. The others are marked Out of your plan: they stop offering slots and leave your page and your agent, but they are not deleted, and the bookings they already had stand and stay in your agenda. If you do not choose (after a failed payment, for example), the default and the first ones stay. When you move up, as many as fit come back.

Google Calendar and Apple Calendar

Drop does not sync with Google Calendar or Apple Calendar: your whole schedule lives in Drop. The agent does not see what you have in another calendar, so block in Calendar or in Days that differ the days or hours when you cannot tattoo. And if a client still holds a slot that does not suit you, you reject it and the agent offers them others.

Your clients receive each confirmed appointment by email, with a file to add it to their calendar. You do not: your appointments reach you through your calendar link, so they are not duplicated.

Seeing your appointments in your calendar

Your calendar link is a secret address you subscribe to from Apple Calendar or from Google Calendar to see your Drop appointments there, alongside the rest of your life. You have it on all plans, in Settings → Calendar link in the app and in the Calendar section of your account on drop.ink. It is read-only: whatever you change in that calendar changes nothing in Drop.

• On the iPhone: in Settings → Calendar link, tap Add to Calendar and then Subscribe.
• On the Mac: in Calendar, choose File → New Calendar Subscription and paste the link (or, from your account on drop.ink, click Open in my calendar).
• In Google Calendar: copy the link and, on the computer, open calendar.google.com, click + next to Other calendars, choose From URL and paste it. Google does not allow it from its mobile app.

Each appointment appears with the project and the client's name, at its location. Confirmed bookings and sessions that have already passed show as appointments; held slots waiting for your answer, as tentative, with “To confirm” in front, so you can see whether they clash with anything before confirming them. If you move an appointment, it moves in your calendar; if it is cancelled, it disappears.

When it updates is decided by your calendar, not by Drop: Apple's, in minutes or hours depending on its setting; Google, every 8 to 24 hours, with no way to force it. If you have just confirmed or moved an appointment, the app always has it up to date.

Anyone with your link sees your appointments. If you have shared it by mistake, tap Renew link: the previous one stops working right away and you will have to subscribe again with the new one.

Frequently asked questions

In which time zone does the client see the times?
In that of the location where the appointment will be, and we tell them so.