In the Online Booking section, you can offer online appointment scheduling for your clients (if you'd like) by using OptiMantra Online Booking and setting up your booking preferences and availability
- Adding Online Booking to Your Website
- Overview of Modalities and Online Booking
- Additional Options
- Provider Availability for Online Booking
- Patient's View of Online Booking
- Custom Confirmation Page
- Online Booking Troubleshooting
Links to review before setting up Online Booking:
Overview of Online Booking Loom Video Link:
> Location Settings (Settings-> Scheduling-> Online Booking-> Location Settings)
On the Location Settings page
- You can set your Online Booking settings by location, including configuring the Scheduler appearance, choosing text confirmations, and setting up online payments.
- Generate your custom Online Booking and Online Booking Modalities link to embed in your website.
- Preview Online Booking from here as well.
Note that:
- All the settings here are by Location, so you will generate one booking link by Location to embed in your calendar or emails. This helps reduce confusion and ensures patients know exactly where to book appointments.
- Keep in mind that practitioners and their calendars can be open across locations. This flexibility, which you've likely already set up in the Practitioner Schedule section above, offers convenience and ease of use for both staff and patients.
Adding Online Booking to Your Website
- Adding a button that opens up our scheduler
Get the OptiMantra URL
You will want to get a snippet of code from OptiMantra to add to your website
- Go to Settings > Scheduling > Online Booking > Location Setting
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page > Preview Online Booking
To add a button that opens up our scheduler, copy the Booking URL to Clipboard and add that as a link in a button icon on your website - here are some instructions on how to do that for the most common website providers:
- SquareSpace - https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206543617-Embed-blocks#:~:text=Click%20Share%20or%20Embed%2C%20then,manually%20into%20the%20text%20field
- Wordpress - https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/embed-block/
- Wix - https://support.wix.com/en/article/embedding-custom-code-on-your-site
- Using another service? Just search online for 'embed code' + 'name of your website service' for tailored instructions
Overview of Modalities and Online Booking
Modality-specific Booking
If you offer several services, you may want to group them into categories to limit the amount of scrolling patients do on the site - to do that, use our Modality-specific booking tool, which allows you to group your services by type to make it more digestible.
- Add your modalities under Settings > Services > Services (Fee Schedule) > More options > Define modalities
- Then use the Modality booking link under Settings > Scheduling > Online Booking > Location Settings > Book Modalities
- Copy URL from the browser if link is needed elsewhere
Additional Options
Ordering of Services
You are able to re-order the list of services under the Settings > Services > More Options (top right) > Sort Services.
- Please note if you are not seeing the same order online you will want to re-save this section.
- Modalities are not currently able to be sorted and will appear alphanumeric
- If you have desired sorting you can add an A., B., etc. to the beginning of the modalities to sort them.
Classes Booking
If you offer classes, you can similarly use our classes link to embed Classes into your website
- Set up your classes under Settings > Services > Classes
- Then use the Modality booking link under Settings > Scheduling > Online Booking > Location Settings > Book Modalities
- Copy URL from the browser if link is needed else where
Provider Availability for Online Booking
You then have two options to open up your schedule for online booking:
- Availability by Shift (Highly Recommended)
- Availability by Week
>> Availability by Shift
First and foremost, please make sure you have selected the Available for Online Booking box for the services you would like available.
Settings-> Services-> Services (Fee Schedule)-> Edit Service-> Select Available for Online Booking also select Practitioners and Locations indicated for this service
NEXT: You will need to customize your schedule and services available under the Settings-> Scheduling->Online Booking-> Availability By Shift (Select Tab at the Top). Note: Make sure you have selected the appropriate Practitioner and Location for this occurrence.
Then you will click in the schedule on an indicated time and drag the curser down to the appropriate end time of this availability time block. You will then be prompted to customize this availability block.
Set start and end dates + recurrence as well as services you would like available for scheduling during these times (Save & Close).
>> Availability by Week (not recommended)
Use this 'Availability by Week' tab to open your schedule for online booking if you have will always have availabilities over time; e.g., you want to open M, W, F from 9-12. You'll of course still be able to block off periods of time where you are unavailable on your calendar.
Patient's View of Online Booking
Once your booking link has been added to your website (this requires a web design— OptiMantra does not assist with website or booking-link setup) and your availability and settings are configured, patients can book appointments using the flow described below.
In this section:
- Step 1: Select a Service
- Step 2: Choose a Practitioner and Time
- Step 3: Patient Information
Step 1: Select a Service
On the first page, patients choose the service they'd like to book. A few settings affect what displays here:
- Filter by Practitioner – when this Location Setting is enabled, patients can narrow the list down to a single practitioner and see only the services that practitioner offers. Services the selected practitioner does not provide are filtered out of the list.
- Price – displays for each service.
- Duration – can be shown or hidden under Location Settings. When enabled, the appointment length displays next to the service.
- Add-ons – if a service has add-ons assigned, patients can select them here; the total price updates to reflect the additional cost.
Step 2: Choose a Practitioner and Time
After selecting Proceed, patients move to page 2 to choose a time.
- If Filter by Practitioner was used and the selected practitioner has no availability, no time slots will display.
- If practitioners were not filtered, all practitioners who offer the service are shown. Unavailable practitioners are filtered to the bottom of the list, with available times displayed for eligible practitioners.
- If a time slot has only one practitioner available, selecting that time automatically moves the patient forward to the next page.
- If a time slot has multiple practitioners available, those practitioners are listed on the left; the patient must select both a time and a practitioner to proceed.
- Patients looking for a specific practitioner can use the practitioner's next available opening, which clears the time selector and refreshes to show it.
- The scheduler defaults to the current week. Patients can navigate to future weeks to view additional availability.
Step 3: Patient Information
Once a time (and practitioner, if applicable) is selected, patients move to page 3, which confirms the service, practitioner, date, and time.
The fields patients are asked to complete on this page are determined by your settings under Settings > Communications > Patient Portal and Kiosk > Demographics Profile.
*Note: The Modalities adds and additional page to select the modality prior to selecting the Service.
Custom Confirmation Page:
If you would like to redirect patients, such as back to your main website, after booking you can add a "Confirmation Page" on the Settings > Scheduling > Online Bookings > Location Settings in the "Confirmation Page" field:
Online Booking Troubleshooting
Common Issues Online Booking Loom Video Link:
Why are some services not showing up on my calendar?
- If you're seeing that certain services are not showing up on your calendar, it's possible that you haven't selected them as showing up for online booking! Make sure you have them tagged for online booking under your Services setting AND selected them to show up for that booking slot under your booking calendar time slots.
- Only one of the scheduling methods can be used ie By Week or By Shift for a time slot. If both are configured the program will prioritize the by week listing. Please check if you have both areas setup. We recommend only using the By Shift method and using recurring availability to cover multiple weeks/months.
How do patients cancel their appointments?
- You can set the cancellation policy for your clinic under the Settings > Communication > Patient Portal.
- This will determine if and how far in advance the patient is able to cancel on the portal.
- We recommend including this policy in your Online Booking Description and in your consent forms.
How do I make myself unavailable for specific dates?
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To make yourself unavailable for specific dates, you can just create time blocks - an appointment on the schedule without selecting a patient - on your calendar. Time slots with appointments will automatically not be shown online.
To block recurring appointments, you can make the time blocks recurring (Daily, Weekly, Monthly).
How can I create buffer between services?
Under the Settings > Services > Edit section you can create Buffers between services.
For example, if you want 15 minutes to clean up after a massage, add a 15 minute block in the Service settings.
How do I overlap/stagger my patients?
Under the Settings > Services > Edit section you can create Buffers between services; buffers can be both positive and negative.
For example, if you want to stagger patients every 15 minutes, then you can change the Buffer above to -45 (so effectively your service is 15 minutes long for online booking purposes).
Why is the time zone different for different patients?
When a time zone is set for your location, the online booking will automatically adjust to the patient local time zone. Their time zone is recorded in their demographics when booking (new patients) and is used for appointment reminders ie 1pm EST = 11am MST. See this article for more on time zone settings: Time Zone Selectors.
*Note: if you are using a third party booker, the patient time zone will be recorded as the third party's time zone. You would need to either have the booker manually update their device location each time they book or manually adjust the patient demographics after the appointment is booked.
How do I set Email Templates by Service?
For online bookings, you can now pick different confirmation email templates for the different services. So, for example, if you want to send a different welcome email for office consultations vs. video chats, you can do that!
Settings > Services (Fee Schedule) > More Options > Assign Email Template To Service
Syncing Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar (Connect your Google Calendar to OptiMantra)
This feature offers the ability for Provider to sync their personal/professional Google calendar with their EHR schedules. This feature is great for getting an overview of the Practitioners schedule.
- Go to Settings > Scheduling > Provider Calendar > Connect Google Account
Proceed with prompts and review Advance Settings for further feature options
Related Articles:
Requiring Deposits for Online Booking