# Buffer times You can add buffer times before or after scheduled events to prevent back-to-back meetings and avoid being late in case a meeting runs over. ### **How buffer times work** Invites can have a before buffer, after buffer, or both. *When a buffer is added to an invite, it affects new events created from that invite as well as all previous events created from that invite.* When an invite has a buffer time set, zcal won't allow an invite time slot to be booked if its buffer overlaps with any other event on your calendar. Likewise, for invites without buffer times, zcal won't allow a time slot to be booked if it overlaps with the buffer of an existing zcal event on your calendar. Let's look at a quick example. Say you want to invite someone to book a meeting with a 30 minute duration and you have an existing lunch event from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm. With a before buffer of 2 hours the earliest afternoon time that will appear on the invite page is 3:00 pm because there must be at least 2 hours of buffer between the start of the buffer event and end of the previous event. With an after buffer of 1 hour the latest morning time that will appear on the invite page is 10:30 am because there must be at least 1 hour from the end of the buffer event to the start of the next event. ### **Add buffer times to your invite** 1. Create a new invite link or edit an existing one. 2. Click the Next button until you get to Step 3 of the wizard. 3. Select a non-zero value from the Buffer Before Event or Buffer After Event dropdown menus. 4. Save your invite. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://help.zcal.co/invite-settings/buffer-times.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.