Visual Buffers: See Your Actual Capacity

Most calendars are optimistic. They show appointment start and end times, but they ignore the time you actually spend getting ready, traveling, wrapping up, or recovering. That hidden time is real, and if you don’t account for it, your schedule fills up fast, leaving you with back-to-back appointments and no breathing room.

DayBack’s online booking already includes buffers between events, but sometimes you need to see them to really understand your capacity.

That’s where visual buffers come in.

Buffers let you define padding before and after your events so you can see the time you need, not just the time you booked. Instead of squeezing appointments into every available minute, your calendar starts to reflect the reality of how your day unfolds.

What Are Buffers?

A buffer is a bit of reserved time around an event. You decide how much, and DayBack visualizes it for you.

You can specify:

• Buffer Before — time needed to prepare, travel, gather tools, or set up
• Buffer After — time for cleanup, wrap-up notes, returning gear, or travel
• Manual or automatic application — on a per-event basis or via rules
• Contextual logic — drive times, job types, or custom business rules

When a buffer is present, DayBack draws extra “virtual” blocks before and after the event. These aren’t separate appointments — they’re visual padding that tells you, “This time is reserved even if no one else is scheduled here.”

Why Buffers Matter

Without buffers, your calendar only tells half the story. You see when events start and end, but not when you’re truly available again. Buffers change that:

• You protect your actual work time, not just scheduled hours
• Your team sees how tightly they can book your day
• You reduce stress from unrealistic back-to-back scheduling
• Your schedule becomes a tool that mirrors your real workflow

Buffers are especially useful in scenarios where prep and travel are significant and not always the same:

• Clinical practices — build in time for charting or decompression time between clients
• Field service and installations — add travel time before and after jobs
• Inspections and site visits — account for setup, teardown, and notes
• Sales routes — factor travel, prep, and follow-up
• Personal rhythms — respect lunch, focus time, or energy breaks

How It Works

This set of app actions implements visual buffers in DayBack using two simple rules:

• Buffer Before — time added before the event
• Buffer After — time added after the event

When either is specified, DayBack renders a shaded block that represents that padding. It looks like another appointment on your calendar, but it’s a visual cue: a way to defend your schedule without adding real bookings that block others from inviting you.

Right now, buffers are visual and advisory. They don’t stop someone from scheduling over them. But because this system is built as app actions, which you can extend or enhance it to enforce rules that fit your business logic. For example:

• Prevent new events from overlapping buffer times
• Automatically calculate buffer length based on drive time or job type
• Apply different buffer rules for different users or calendars

What You Get

With visual buffers in place, you’ll notice your schedule starts to behave more like your real day:

• Less double-booking
• Fewer rushed transitions
• Visibility into travel and prep time
• A calendar that defends your time automatically

This extension doesn’t just add visual padding, it adds intentional space back into your schedule so you, and your team, can plan with confidence.

Add This to Your DayBack

Setup & Configuration

Installing buffers requires a small amount of field setup and a few app actions. Once configured, the system runs automatically for any events that contain buffer values.

1) Choose Which Calendar Sources Will Use Buffers

Buffers only work on events that have start and end times. They will not appear on, All Day events, or calendar sources where time fields are not mapped in DayBack. Decide which calendar sources (e.g., Events, Tasks, Jobs, Appointments) should display buffers.

2) Add Two Number Fields to Each Source

Each source that will use buffers needs two number fields:

• Buffer Before (minutes)
• Buffer After (minutes)

You can name these anything you like. These fields should store the number of minutes to pad before and after the event.

Then map these fields in your Calendar’s field mapping.

3) Install the App Actions

Download the extension files. You’ll see two types, plus a file with additional CSS.

• App Actions
• Event Actions

Install the App Actions first.

4) Configure the Sources in buffer-load-functions.js (On Startup)

After installing the App Actions, open the On Startup action and locate the file buffer-load-functions.js. At the top of this file is a configuration object called:

inputs.bufferFieldsMap

This is where you tell DayBack:

• Which calendar sources use buffers
• Which fields store the buffer values for each source

Example:

inputs.bufferFieldsMap = {
  Events: {
    bufferBefore: 'Buffer_Before__c',
    bufferAfter: 'Buffer_After__c',
  },
  Tasks: {
    bufferBefore: 'Prep_Minutes__c',
    bufferAfter: 'Wrapup_Minutes__c',
  }
}

Important:

• The left-side key (Events, Tasks) must match the calendar name
• The values are the field names for your buffer fields

Add additional sources here if you want buffers to work across multiple calendars.

5) Set the Minimum Visible Buffer Size

In the same file, you’ll see a setting for the minimum buffer size (default is 10 minutes).

If your calendar uses a tighter time scale, you may want to reduce this so smaller buffers are still visible.

6) Install the Remaining Actions and CSS

Next, install:

• The additional App Action: buffers-render-buffers.js (runs After Events Render)
• The six Event Actions included with the extension

If you are using buffers on multiple sources, the Event Actions must be added to each of those sources.

Finally, add the included CSS to your DayBack setup so the buffer blocks render correctly.

7) Test

Switch to a Schedule view (buffers do not appear in Month or non-time-grid views).

1. Open an event from a buffer-enabled source
2. Enter values into your Buffer Before and Buffer After fields
3. Save the event

You should immediately see the buffer blocks appear before and after the event on the calendar.

If you’d like help adapting this buffer framework to your specific scheduling rules, our team can help you extend it to enforce conflicts, calculate drive times, or apply logic automatically. Simple contact our team to get started.