How do I block out time in my diary?
Whilst you may work regular hours/days, occasionally you may wish to block out time for holidays, conferences, supervision etc.
The best way to do this is as follows:
Go to Settings -> Scheduling and stay on the Appointment Types tab
Click Create New Appointment Type and create an appointment type called Unavailable, or something similar. IMPORTANT: ensure it has the following attributes:
You should set the default duration to correspond with your working hours. So for example, if you work 9-5pm, that is 8 hours or 480 minutes. If you are going to be unavailable for a full day, then this makes it really easy to block out that day. If you want to block a shorter period of time, you can simply adjust the duration when you come to block out the time in your diary.
Having set up the appointment type, you can start blocking out time in your diary.
If you want to block out a full day, just go to that day in the diary and click at the start of the day to bring up the appointment modal.
Select Non-patient (as highlighted below), add a label (for example Holiday) and select the Unavailable appointment type. Check that the date and the From and To times are correct - if you are only going to be unavailable for part of the day, then this is where you can alter the duration using the Time fields:
To block out more than one day, set the Recurrence to Daily and specify the end date in the Repeat Until field:
Make sure that the status you use when blocking out time in your diary has the setting 'Does it mean the Patient is attending?' as Yes. This is important because it tells WriteUpp that the slot is unavailable.
Click Save
Doing this means the following:
This time will be blocked out for availability searches in Create -> Appointment and Online Booking
You will have a record of Unavailable time that you can access by going to to Menu -> Business Views and unticking the 'Only show Patient related appointments' box to include non-patient appointments in the list
If you have time blocked out in your diary, but you are finding that patients are still able to book into these slots, then please check the appointment status you have used against the slots. Check the set-up of the status by going to Main Menu -> Settings -> Scheduling -> Appointment Statuses and make sure the 'Does it mean the Patient is attending?' setting is set to Yes:
The best way to do this is as follows:
Go to Settings -> Scheduling and stay on the Appointment Types tab
Click Create New Appointment Type and create an appointment type called Unavailable, or something similar. IMPORTANT: ensure it has the following attributes:
You should set the default duration to correspond with your working hours. So for example, if you work 9-5pm, that is 8 hours or 480 minutes. If you are going to be unavailable for a full day, then this makes it really easy to block out that day. If you want to block a shorter period of time, you can simply adjust the duration when you come to block out the time in your diary.
Having set up the appointment type, you can start blocking out time in your diary.
If you want to block out a full day, just go to that day in the diary and click at the start of the day to bring up the appointment modal.
Select Non-patient (as highlighted below), add a label (for example Holiday) and select the Unavailable appointment type. Check that the date and the From and To times are correct - if you are only going to be unavailable for part of the day, then this is where you can alter the duration using the Time fields:
To block out more than one day, set the Recurrence to Daily and specify the end date in the Repeat Until field:
Make sure that the status you use when blocking out time in your diary has the setting 'Does it mean the Patient is attending?' as Yes. This is important because it tells WriteUpp that the slot is unavailable.
Click Save
Doing this means the following:
This time will be blocked out for availability searches in Create -> Appointment and Online Booking
You will have a record of Unavailable time that you can access by going to to Menu -> Business Views and unticking the 'Only show Patient related appointments' box to include non-patient appointments in the list
If you have time blocked out in your diary, but you are finding that patients are still able to book into these slots, then please check the appointment status you have used against the slots. Check the set-up of the status by going to Main Menu -> Settings -> Scheduling -> Appointment Statuses and make sure the 'Does it mean the Patient is attending?' setting is set to Yes:
Updated on: 11/09/2023
Thank you!