Configuring your schedule settings will ensure your clinic's appointment calendar supports your ideal scheduling workflows.
To access your Schedule settings follow: Admin -> Scheduling
Appointment Types
Schedule Interval
You can customize the time slot blocks on your appointment calendar using the Schedule Interval setting. Ensure that your schedule interval selection aligns with your default appointment type durations.
Create New Appointment Types
Appointment types should include all practice-wide 'services offered' which can be narrowed down by which provider offers which service(s). Appointment types are the options you can select under ‘Services Offered’ on the provider level.
Click 'Add New' to create a new appointment type or select the edit pencil icon to edit an already existing appointment type.
When you are adding or editing an appointment type, you can enter a name, default duration time, select a color, and enable (or disable) appointment notifications.
Note: an example where you might have notifications disabled are euthanasia appointments because you do not want to send email or text message notifications to clients about their upcoming appointment.
TIP: The schedule calendar is color-coded by appointment type color. Keeping each appointment type a different color is a helpful way to quickly see what is on the schedule for the day. You can group similar types of appointments in the same color family.
Archive Appointment Types
If you are no longer offering an appointment type, you can archive any using the archive box icon located at the far-right of any appointment type row.
Providers
Scheduling providers defines the columns that are displayed on the appointment calendar. Providers may be set up as doctors or even by exam rooms. You may also have a provider column for teams or suites such as technician appointments, drop-offs, surgery, etc.
To update your provider scheduling settings, select the 'Providers' tab.
Provider Column Visibility
You can customize your default calendar behavior to automatically hide unavailable provider columns. When enabled, any providers with unavailability and no appointments scheduled for the day, will by default be hidden from the scheduling calendar view for all users. The hidden provider column can be retrieved by manually adjusting provider visibility settings on the schedule calendar. This logic will also apply to pinned provider columns.
Managing Providers
Under the Providers tab, select 'Add New' to create a new provider or select the edit pencil icon of an existing provider row to update any details.
When creating or editing a provider, you can title the provider column and create initials for quick reference on various schedule views.
The order of providers within the settings is the order in which they will be listed on the appointment schedule. You can drag and drop to change the order.
Services Offered
Services offered are appointment types that can be listed under different providers to help with incorrect scheduling. For example, if doctor A offers acupuncture, but doctor B does not, acupuncture would not be listed as a service offered under doctor B and would not be available when scheduling an appointment.
Routine Availability
Here is where you will create routine availability for the provider (or doctor). You can select what hours the provider has available on what days of the week and even recurring breaks.
In the example below, Dr. Jones works every Sunday from 8-6pm and Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays from 6-8pm.
Additional Availability & Out of Office
If a provider is going to be available on a day that is normally not available, you will add additional availability. If the provider is going to be unavailable on a day that is normally available, you will add an out of office.
Cancellation Reasons
12/19/24 There is a current known technical issue where the Cancellation Reason + Notes are not visible within the Appointment History. We are working to resolve this as a priority.
Appointments can be cancelled from the scheduling calendar, and a cancellation reason is required during the cancellation process. A default cancellation reason list is provided, which you can freely customize to update, edit, or create new reasons. Your cancellation reason list will support appointment overview analytics.
Rotating Doctor Schedule
To define a rotating doctor schedule, you have several scheduling management methods.
You will first create any routine availability and then use the additional availability for the other days that rotate with another doctor.
You can add routine availability for all days and then use out of office entries for the rotating days when that provider is not available.
You can prepare a schedule template to block rotating unavailability. You will first define full office hour availability for all providers, and then restricts unavailability via blocks through the schedule template. Learn more about schedule templates in our help guide.