Working in the calendar
Moving appointments, blocking time, appointment states, and what the server refuses to accept.
The calendar is the working surface for the front desk: one column per doctor, drag an appointment to move it, click empty space to create one.
Appointment states
| State | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending | A request that needs someone to approve it. Only appears if you require approval. |
| Confirmed | Booked and counted. Reminders only go to confirmed appointments. |
| Completed | The visit happened. This is what triggers a recall if one is configured. |
| Cancelled | Called off, by you or by the patient. |
| No-show | The patient did not arrive. Kept separate from cancelled because the analytics treat them differently. |
Marking a no-show as "cancelled" to be polite costs you the one number that tells you whether your reminder policy is working. They are different events and the reports know it.
What it will not let you do
Drop an appointment on top of another one, or into blocked time. The refusal happens on the server, so it holds regardless of how the booking arrived — the front desk, the widget, or the assistant.
Zero double bookings the server will accept is a property of the system, not a habit of your staff. If you need two people in one slot deliberately, model it as two doctors rather than fighting the guard.
Blocking time
Block a range to hold it — a meeting, a training afternoon, equipment maintenance, a public holiday. Blocked time is invisible to patients and refuses bookings in exactly the same way a taken slot does.
Use a block for anything one-off. The weekly hours page is for the pattern that repeats; a block is for the exception, and an exception you can see on the calendar is one nobody forgets.
Moving an appointment
- Drag it to the new slot, or open it and change the time.
- The server checks the new slot for a collision and refuses if there is one.
- The patient is notified of the change if they have an email on file.
Common questions
- Can I recover a deleted appointment?
- Cancel rather than delete — a cancelled appointment stays visible and countable. Deletion is for records created in error.
- Why can I not book at 08:30 when the doctor starts at 08:00?
- Check the clinic working hours as well as the doctor's. A doctor's hours narrow the clinic's; they never widen them.
- A slot looks free but will not accept a booking.
- It is inside your minimum-notice window, past your booking horizon, or overlapped by blocked time. All three are invisible as gaps and all three are refusals.