Navigate to: Admin > Scheduling > Settings

The Settings tab controls how your scheduling calendar looks and behaves.

The Schedule Interval sets the smallest appointment block available on your calendar. Appointments snap to these intervals when placed on the schedule. Choose an interval that matches or evenly divides your most common appointment durations—for most clinics, 15 minutes works well.

Options: 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour.

The Calendar Column Width setting adjusts how wide each provider column appears on the scheduling calendar. Small (150px) fits more providers on screen at once; Default (250px) gives more visual space per column.

Column width remains responsive to the page. With a small number of providers defined, columns expand to fill available screen space regardless of your width selection.

When Auto-hide unavailable providers on schedule is enabled, any provider column with no scheduled availability and no appointments for the day is automatically hidden from the calendar for all users. Provider columns are hidden—not deleted—and can be shown at any time using the provider visibility controls on the scheduling calendar. This logic applies to pinned provider columns as well.

To enable scheduling template features, toggle on Enable Scheduling Templates and click Save. Once enabled, the Scheduling Templates tab appears and two additional settings become available on the Settings tab:

Choose whether to organize scheduling templates by Day or by Provider. Only one style can be active at a time. When you switch between styles, existing templates from the inactive style are preserved — they are not deleted. The templates for the inactive style will be unavailable until you switch back.

When enabled, appointment scheduling is not restricted to the defined schedule template, and manual block-off events are allowed at any time. When disabled, scheduling is locked to the template.

Navigate to: Admin > Scheduling > Settings > Appointment Types

Appointment types define every service your clinic can schedule. They appear as selectable options when booking appointments—but only for providers who have each type listed in their Services Offered.

To create a new appointment type, click + Add New. To edit an existing type, select the edit pencil icon in that type's row.

Each appointment type includes:

The appointment type form also includes three additional sections:

Attach forms that are associated with this appointment type
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View and manage which communication templates are assigned to this appointment type and when they send
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Add products or services that are automatically added to the Order Treatments section of the SOAP Plan when a patient is checked in from a scheduled appointment of this type

To remove an appointment type from future scheduling, select the archive icon at the far right of its row. Archiving removes the type from future scheduling options. Existing appointments already booked with that type are not affected and remain in the system.

Navigate to: Admin > Scheduling > Settings > Providers

Scheduling providers define the columns on your appointment calendar. A provider column does not need to represent a single doctor—providers can represent any scheduling resource your clinic uses.

Common examples include:

To create a new provider, click + Add New on the Providers tab. To edit an existing provider, select the edit pencil icon in that row.

When creating or editing a provider, you can configure the provider name, initials, color, and optionally associate the column with a specific doctor in your system using the Doctor field.

Services Offered controls which appointment types appear as options when booking with a specific provider. If an appointment type is not listed under a provider's Services Offered, it will not appear when scheduling an appointment with that provider.

Office Hours define the provider's standard recurring schedule—the days and times they are regularly available each week. You can set different hours for different days and configure recurring breaks within each availability block. Use the + Add New Routine Availability button to add multiple blocks for different hour ranges or days.

Direct Booking Hours set the hours during which this provider accepts client self-scheduled appointments. These can differ from the provider's general Office Hours if your clinic restricts direct booking to certain times

Use Additional Availability and Out of Office to handle exceptions to a provider's standard Office Hours:

If you've added additional availability, you can apply a standard break across all days or configure a custom break for each specific date.

The order of providers in the Providers tab determines the left-to-right display order of columns on the scheduling calendar. To change the order, drag and drop providers within the Providers tab.

Cancellation reasons are prompted whenever an appointment is cancelled directly from the scheduling calendar. A default list of reasons is provided, but the list can be fully customized—add, edit, or remove reasons to match your clinic's needs.

Navigate to: Admin > Scheduling > Settings > Cancellation Reasons

Customized cancellation reasons support scheduling analytics, appointment trend tracking, and a clear history of scheduling actions. Cancellation reason details also appear in the appointment's history and in the patient activity log.

There is also a setting to require a cancellation reason when deleting scheduling blocks. When enabled, a reason and note must be entered before a scheduling block can be removed. When disabled, scheduling blocks can be deleted without entering a reason.

The Automated Appointment Schedule Export automatically emails a PDF of tomorrow's appointment schedule to selected team members each day. This eliminates the need to manually export the schedule and helps staff prepare for upcoming appointments—especially useful for mobile clinics or locations with limited internet access.

Navigate to: Admin > Scheduling > Settings

To enable automated schedule exports:

Once enabled, the Auto Export Calendar tab appears. If it is not immediately visible after saving, refresh the page.

Select the Auto Export Calendar tab to configure your export settings.

Set the time at which the schedule PDF is emailed each day.

Choose to include all providers or select specific providers to include in the exported schedule.

Optionally include additional context in the exported PDF:

Select the users who should receive the daily schedule PDF in the Automatically email a PDF of tomorrow's appointment schedule to field.

If an appointment type doesn't appear as an option when scheduling with a specific provider, it hasn't been added to that provider's Services Offered. To fix this, go to Admin > Scheduling > Settings > Providers, open the provider's settings, and add the appointment type under Services Offered.

If a provider column is no longer visible, Auto-hide unavailable providers on schedule is likely enabled. When this setting is on, Shepherd automatically hides provider columns with no availability and no appointments for the day. The column is not deleted—it can be shown again using the provider visibility controls on the scheduling calendar.

The Scheduling Templates tab only appears after Enable Scheduling Templates is turned on and saved on the Settings tab. After enabling the toggle and clicking Save, refresh the page if the tab doesn't appear immediately.

The Auto Export Calendar tab only appears after Enable Automated Daily Appointment Export is turned on and saved on the Settings tab. After enabling the toggle and clicking Save, refresh the page if the tab doesn't appear immediately.

If no appointments are scheduled for tomorrow, Shepherd does not generate or send an export email for that day. The automated export only runs when appointments exist on the upcoming schedule.