Time Zone selector
In OptiMantra, you are able to set your location time zone and adjust the display time zone for online booking and appointment reminders to your patient’s local time zone.
The schedule will always display in the location time zone. If a practitioner is located outside that time zone, they will need to mentally adjust the time of the schedule to their location.
The location time zone option allows you to lock your practice location into a specific time zone for reference while the patient time zones configuration allows you to adjust reminder email and text messages to use the patient’s time zone (instead of your own).
To start, you need to make sure you set your location time zone (without it, the patient time zone won’t work).
Toggle the Appointment Booking Time Zone field under Settings > Business > Locations.
See image below:
This button locks in your location time zone so that the time for these appointments will display on your calendar regardless of the time zone the person viewing them in is located.
When manually booking a patient and adding their demographic information under the Patient Profile, you’ll now see this option to set a patient’s time zone:
This setting will email and text reminders to your patient’s local time.
See image below:
So, for example, if the Location Time Zone is set to EST and the Patient Time Zone is set to CST.
The appointment is set for 1pm EST and will display for 1 pm on your practice calendar.
However, the patient reminders will flag that the appointment is at 12pm CST.
For online booking, the appointment times will display in their browser time zone and the patient time zone will default to their browser time zone.
A few notes
- If no patient time zone is set, the reminder will default to the practice time zone.
- Patients can adjust their time zone under their patient profile in the Patient Portal.
Common Related Issue:
- If a patient books while traveling, the program will pull in the time zone for the location they are booking from. This will set the patient time zone to the incorrect time zone and their reminders will be received in the incorrect time zone until updated.