Learn how to identify and fill Gaps them efficiently using the Waitlist feature in Principle.
This helps keep your appointment book full, reduces downtime, and improves patient satisfaction by offering earlier appointments when available.
From this module you'll learn how to:
Identify open time slots (gaps) in the appointment book.
Use the Gaps View to quickly find available times.
Add patients to the Waitlist when they’d like an earlier appointment.
Fill cancellations and reschedules using the Waitlist.
Keep your schedule organised and efficient throughout the day.
Contents:
Waitlist Management
Every appointment has the option to be added to the waitlist with its own individual Waitlist Settings:
Waitlist settings that can be configured per appointment include:
Date range of availability.
Preferred days and times.
Appointment Urgency.
Any notes related to the patients availability.
Enable Waitlist by Default
Settings > (Brand) General
Toggle 'Enable Waitlist By Default' on to ensure that every appointment has waitlist settings active during the booking process. This will ensure that waitlist settings are added to every appointment unless deactivated during the booking process.
Alternatively, toggle this setting off if you only want select appointments to have waitlist settings, to be added on a case by case basis. Regardless of which option is set here, waitlists can be switched on or off for each appointment during or after the booking process:
Using Gaps
The Gaps workflow lets you use your patients waitlist settings to fill any Gaps that occur in your Timeline - Whether due to cancellations, FTA's, or previously unbooked slots in the practitioners books.
Clicking the Gaps button on the Timeline will highlight any available gaps within the selected date range and open the Gaps Sidebar. Each Gap can be selected from the Sidebar or clicked on directly from the Timeline to bring up the waitlist options.
The 'Smart Waitlist Suggestions' will match the specific waitlist preferences of individual appointments with the selected Gap while the 'All Waitlist Suggestions' list will show every appointment that has a waitlist, regardless of whether or not the selected gap matches the appointment's waitlist settings.
Each Waitlist can be sorted by Appointment Date, Urgency, and Score and can be filtered by the Appointment Practitioner.
When reviewing waitlist options for a Gap there a variety of indicators and options:
The Urgency of the appointment as set in the waitlist settings.
Edit the waitlist settings of this appointment.
View and add Scheduling Notes.
Add this appointment to the Shortlist to fill the Gap.
Confirm this appointment for the selected Gap.
The Current Booking details of the appointment being considered.
Principle will attempt to Score the suitability of the appointment based on the practitioner, duration, and patient preferences.
Adding Candidates For a Gap
After selecting an available Gap, Candidates can be selected from the waitlist and added to the shortlist to fill the Gap by clicking the 'Add to Shortlist' button:
Once candidates have been added, contact options for those patients will be available from the shortlisted cards in order to confirm their availability and potentially approve moving their appointment forward to fill the gap.
Any Gaps with pending shortlist selections will be saved and can be revisited at any time to edit or once confirmation from the patient is received. These 'Pending' Gaps can be returned to by either:
Selecting the Gap again from the Timeline or Gaps workflow.
Selecting the 'down' arrow next to the Gaps button and selecting 'Pending Gaps'.
There will also be a red number visible next to the Gaps button indicating how many Gaps have pending shortlists awaiting approval:
In this way, the Gaps workflow can be used to quickly identify potential candidates to fill any gap in production as they appear, and patients can be notified and offered the Gap.
Patient Notification and Confirmation of Gap Filling
Once candidates for a Gap have been selected, various contact options will become available depending on which contact details are saved for that patient:
Both the SMS and Email options include a message template which, when sent to the patient, will provide them with a link to approve and confirm the rescheduling of their appointment to fill the selected gap:
(These templates can be edited via Settings > Document Templates)
Each method of communication attempted with the patient will be denoted by the respective icon changing colour to blue as shown below:
Multiple patients can be offered the same Gap and sent Emails and/or SMS's. The first patient to click the link and approve the move of their appointment will be confirmed for the Gap and their appointment will automatically be saved in the new time. Any subsequent patients who try to accept the Gap will be notified that the Gap has already been filled.
A shortlisted appointment can be manually confirmed to fill a gap by clicking on the 'Confirm For Gap' button shown below:
This will then load the appointment into the Gap and once 'Save Appointment' is clicked, the move will be confirmed and saved.