Hi, Curtis
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Let me address a few things.
"Lead Time" is the time between the current time and when the first appointment can be made. The intention is that, when you send someone your Page URL, or when someone gets to your public scheduling page, they can't set up an appointment for right then: there's some lead time before they can schedule. This is because it takes time for the appointments to be emailed out, etc. If someone schedules an appointment for right now, there's a good chance you will never know. THat's why there's time built in.
Regarding "Lead Time for New Appointments", we purposefully didn't allow "0" as an option. This is because there is the likelihood that schedules would be all out of whack if you had, say, 5 appointments back-to-back with 0 lead time, as there's no guarantee that each appointment would last their allotted time. Sure, some may end early, but you can't count on that. When was the last time you went to the doctor or dentist and got in at your scheduled time? With Lead Time, you can plan for those instances where a 30 minute meeting goes 40 minutes without having to hope that you have one or two earlier meetings that last only 20 or 25 minutes. I certainly understand your point, however, and I'll add it to our notes for discussion.
As for Appointment Length, I'll add that as well. We defaulted to the most common times based on looking at other services out there. Some DO offer a ton of flexibility for sure, but it is kind of ungainly. Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily, but that Length dropdown is huge if you offer 5 or 10 minute increments.
Derek Curtis
COO
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com