Set up your default availability for interviews before building your first study. You can update your availability at any time, including blocking out-of-office days or adjusting specific dates.

You can also edit your availability from a study's Scheduling tab by selecting Edit availability next to your name. Changes you save there apply to all your studies, not just that one. See Configure interview scheduling.

Set your availability

1. Navigate to Settings > Availability.

2. Select the pencil icon on your Working hours to edit.

3. Select your default Timezone.

4. Customize your Schedule to set interview availability.

   • Toggle each day on or off.

   • Set the times you are available for interviews.

   • Select + to add time blocks for days when you have a break (e.g., lunch or focus time).

   • Select the trash icon to remove a time block.

     

5. Availability blocks let you set dates and times when your availability differs from your normal schedule. Use this to block out dates, track out-of-office time, or add availability on a specific date.

   • To add hours: select the date(s), select Add hours +, enter your available hours, then select Add availability.

   • To mark a day unavailable: select the date(s) and select Add availability without adding any hours.

     An availability block only replaces your weekly hours on the dates it covers. Every other date still uses your weekly schedule.

     

6. Avoid meeting conflicts controls how Rally handles your existing calendar events when checking availability. This setting doesn't appear if your workspace uses calendarless scheduling. Select from the following options:

   • Default - Don't book over Busy events: shows tentative and "free" events as available. Note: "Busy" events with tentative or unconfirmed attendance will also show as available.

   • Strict - Don't book over any events (Free or Busy): shows any event (even tentative) as unavailable.

   • Off - All events can be booked over: ignores all external calendar events. Rally still won't book over your existing Rally interviews, in any study.

     

7. Interview limits across all studies lets you cap how many interviews can be booked for you per day and per week, across all studies in your workspace. Set a Daily limit, a Weekly limit, or both. Leave a field blank for unlimited.

   • When both a per-study limit and a personal limit are set, the more restrictive applies.

   • Timeslots where you have hit your cap will not appear as available to participants.

     

8. Select Save changes at the top of the page.

Troubleshoot availability

Fewer timeslots than expected

Check your connected calendar for events that overlap the missing times. Depending on your Avoid meeting conflicts setting, these can block timeslots:

• All-day events

• Colleagues' out-of-office events you've accepted

• Recurring meetings marked tentative or free (blocked under Strict)

Also check these settings:

• Interview limits across all studies above, and the study's own Daily and Weekly interview limits. Once a limit is reached, no more timeslots show for that day or week.

• The study's Minimum booking notice. Timeslots inside that window are hidden, so a 24-hour notice means no same-day slots.

• The study's Buffer time (see below).

More timeslots than expected

Make sure you've added Availability blocks for out-of-office or unavailable dates, and that Avoid meeting conflicts is set the way you want. Remember that dates without a block still use your weekly hours.

Then review your connected calendar. Events that shouldn't be booked over need to be set to Busy or Automatically decline meetings. For example, in Google Calendar:

• Set focus time events to Busy.

• Turn on Automatically decline meetings for out-of-office events.

Buffer time

Buffer time gives you breaks between meetings, but limits available timeslots close to existing calendar events. To check buffers, open the study's Scheduling tab and look under Limits > Buffer time, where you can set time before the interview, after it, or both. Buffer time is added before and after any new bookings.

• For example, with a 15-minute buffer and a 30-minute interview, you need 60 open minutes to book a slot (15m before, 30m interview, 15m after).

• Rally also respects the buffer time around interviews that are already booked, so a new slot can't start right after an interview that has an after-buffer.

• Buffers apply to calendar events as well as Rally interviews. When Avoid meeting conflicts is set to Off, calendar events are ignored, but buffers around Rally interviews still apply.

If you're still seeing unexpected timeslots, contact Rally support with the study name and the dates and times you expected to see.