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Scheduling an Overnight
Scheduling an Overnight

There is more than 1 way to schedule overnight services. Here's how I schedule overnights in Scout

James Dixon avatar
Written by James Dixon
Updated over a week ago

Background

My personal preference is to not stay checked into the Scout for Dog Walkers App all night. You can certainly do this, but I prefer not to. I also like to give my clients at least 2 updates per overnight. One in the evening when I arrive and one in the morning, before I head out.

Additionally, I like to schedule overnights manually. Yeah, I said it. I'm typically against doing things manually, but I always have extra questions about overnights that don't apply to dog walks. Without getting too far into the weeds, here is my recipe.

Ingredients

Start out by creating 2 HIDDEN primary services. 

1. "PM Overnight Walk" or check in.
     a. Duration = 180-minutes = 3 hours
     b. Amount = your full overnight price

2. "AM Overnight Walk" or check in.
     a. Duration = 30-minutes
     b. Amount = $0

Note* You could also split the fees across the two appointments for invoicing purposes, I like to keep all the fees together on one line item.

Cooking

Our overnight service includes two 30-minute walks, one when we arrive in the evening and one when we leave in the morning. We also do a quick outing before bed. Any additional walks are just scheduled as a separate walking service.

I schedule the "PM overnight walk" around 6PM or 7PM and the owner gets the photo check in, so they know I've arrived. It's a 3-hour duration so I stay signed in until about 9PM or 10PM. At that time the pet owner gets the report card, updates and any photos I've taken in the evening. In the morning, I sign in around 7AM or 8AM, do a 30 min walk and send the morning report card. If they have additional walks during the day, I sign into those and they get an additional update.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions or recipes you would like to share, please feel free to share.

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