How do I set up my Appointment Types?

This article will help you configure your Appointment Types on your Vetstoria Online Appointment Booking system.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Appointment Types  
• How to navigate your appointment type screen  

• Overview of the Layout

• Appointment details 

• Customizable appointment options 

• Email confirmations 

• Payments

• Availability 

• Hourly slots 

• Reserved slot count 

• Gap to the earliest available slot  

• Max appointment count 

• Duration to the furthest available slot 

• Appointment reason  

• How to add a new appointment type 

• Understanding how to map appointment types 

• How to know if the appointment types are mapped correctly  

• How to Remove Appointment Types   

• New Client Features  

• Best practices, commonly used for creating appointment types.

Introduction to Appointment Types

Vetstoria allows you to create appointment types of your choice which are displayed in your booking tool. These appointment types can be customized using a range of different options. The following video will help you understand how the appointment types are configured.

How to navigate your appointment type screen 

Once you are logged into your Vetstoria dashboard, navigate to: Settings > Configuration > Appointment Types

Overview of the Layout

Your appointment type screen is split into two different sections.

The settings on the left-hand side represent general settings while the settings on the right-hand side change based on the options you choose on the drop-down on the top left of your screen. 

The appointment details

1. Display Name
The name of the appointment type as displayed to pet owners on your online booking tool.

2. PMS Name
Select the appointment type from your PMS (if supported) that will be used when booked.

3. Duration
Appointment duration

Appointment restrictions

4. Client Type
You can indicate if your appointment type is available for new or existing clients or bot

5. Excluded Species
Include all the species that an appointment type is not applicable to (adding every species will effectively deactivate the appointment type as it will not show)

Customizable appointment options

6. The drop-down 

This drop down will allow you to configure your appointment types further. There are five option categories.

• Email Confirmation Message
• Payments
• Availability
• Appointment Reason

Email Confirmations

When sending a confirmation email to the pet owner who books an appointment using this particular appointment type, the message entered here will be included in the email confirmation.  

Payments

These options provide everything you need to capture credit card details for pre-authorization payments.

1. Request Payment
   Indicate if the pre-authorization is required for the appointment type.
2. Appointment Fee
   The value to be requested from the pet owner for a pre-authorization, or to re-populate your checkout payment request field. 

Availability

1. Hourly Slots
Set when the appointment should always be booked, i.e at top of the hour/on the half hour/15 minutes passed/45 minutes passed etc.

1. More info on Hourly Slots can be found here

2 .Reserved Slot Count
Specify the threshold below which slots will not be available for online booking - e.g. 5 would mean that once a calendar’s or a clinician’s remaining slots for the day reaches 5, no more appointments will be bookable online on that calendar or for that clinician.

3. Gap to Earliest Available Slot
Change the gap between the current time and the earliest available appointment.

4. Max Appointment Count

• When a number is set in this field, it will define the max number of these types of appointments for a day.
  1. If the field is left blank, or a '0' is entered, then it will be considered as no limit.
• The limit is applied across all calendars and not a single specific calendar.
• When this count is reached for a given day, the pet owner will not be able to schedule an appointment for that day.
• A slot may be available on another day given that the max count is not reached yet.

5. Duration to the Furthest Available Slot

The “Duration to the Furthest Available Slot” allows clinics to set the furthest available slot per appointment type. For example, if you don’t want a pet owner to wait too long to book an appointment for a sick/injured pet consultation you can offer the furthest available slot as 1 week.

You might also find “Duration to the Furthest Available Slot” in advanced settings and under slot availability. Clinics can use this section to set up the furthest available slot across all appointment types. If you have not set the ‘Duration to the Furthest Available Slot’ for a single or specific appointment type, the duration specified in the advanced settings will apply

Note: If a 'Duration to the Furthest Available Slot' has already been set for a specific appointment type, it will override the "Duration to the furthest available slot" in advanced settings.

Appointment Reason

Indicate if the appointment reason is required for this appointment type.

How to add a new Appointment Type

1. Make sure to sync Vetstoria with your PMS appointment types

Click on the retrieve appointment types button at the bottom to refresh the listing of the sync'd appointments. 

2. Click Add New Type

3. Enter the "Display Name"  (this is what the pet owner will see when booking an appointment)

4. Select the "PMS Name"  ( this is the appointment type which will show up on your PMS - refer below section)

5. Set the "Client type"

6. Set any species exclusions

7. Set options  

Understanding how to map appointment Types to PMS appointment types 

Every appointment created on Vetstoria can be mapped to any of the appointment type on your PMS by using the drop down. 

After you click on “retrieve appointments types” on the bottom of the screen, you will see all the PMS appointments loaded under the “PMS name” drop down. 

Once you retrieve PMS appointment types, they are loaded into the new drop-down menu. If you are using a new account, you should ‘sync’ the appointment types first. Then create a new appointment type in Vetstoria and map it to your PMS appointments, as they appear in the drop down. Then you can set the display name, duration as well as other specific settings.

Once configured, the Vetstoria appointment settings will remain following any subsequent PMS Appointment Retrievals, adding only any new PMS appointment types to the drop-down.

How to know if the appointment types are mapped correctly

Once you map the appointment - you will see a cloud sign appear next to the appointment number. 

If it’s not mapped, a cloud sign will not appear (meaning the PMS name you have chosen is “unassigned”).

How to Remove Appointment Types 

To remove an appointment type, simply click the small Trash Can icon.

New Client Features

Restrict Appointment Types to Specific types of Clients

Appointment types can also be displayed based on the type of client which are: 

1) Returning client

2) New Client

Once this is enabled, you will have an additional setting in the configuration screen of your appointment types as shown below

This setting will have three options, where you opt to display the particular appointment type for:

1) All clients

2) New clients only

3) Returning clients 

Best practices, commonly used for creating appointment types.

1. Manually add appointment types manually to avoid unnecessary data synchronizations.
2. When categorizing, add New Clients, Vet Consultations and Vaccinations on the top and Nurse Consultations and other Procedures after them.
3. Always double-check the appointment duration and the applicable species for an appointment type.
4. Hourly slots need to be added only if slots need to be filtered accordingly. For example, if "00" and "30" are selected, it should be applicable to an appointment type with 30 minutes appointment duration. Therefore, the online booking tool will display slots from the top of the hour and mid of the hour only. (10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30)
5. Message to be Included in the Email Confirmation can be verified by making a test appointment with a known email address as the pet owner's email address.

If you have any questions or if you need further help, please login to Vetstoria to chat with our team or use the Contact Support form linked at the top of this page.