Online bookings allow patients to request appointments directly through your practice website.
This module will show you how to manage these requests, confirm appointments into the schedule, and prevent duplicate patient records.
After completing this module you'll be able to:
Review incoming appointment requests.
Confirm, decline, or edit online bookings.
Avoid creating duplicate patient records.
Contents:
Viewing your Booking Link
Find your Online Booking link in the top right of the Appointment Requests page under the Scheduling section of your main menu. Add this link to your website to allow your patients to book directly online.
How Online Bookings Work
Patients are shown a list of available treatments and suitable time slots based on practitioner schedules and your online booking settings.
Once the patient submits a request, a placeholder appointment is created in your system for you to review.
Managing and confirming appointment requests
Once an online booking is placed, the timeslot on the timeline will be reserved and an entry in Appointment Requests will be created:
The Appointment Requests page allows you to confirm or decline the Online Booking:
When confirming an Online Booking, Principle will compare the patient details with your patient records and suggest any patients that match the details provided. This ensures that duplicate patient records aren't created:
If no matching record is found, a new patient record will be created using the supplied information from the online booking.
If the Online Booking is being placed on behalf of someone else (for example a parent making a booking for their child), The confirmation step will ask you to match both the parent and the child to records already existing in your database.
Once the records are matched and the appointment is confirmed, the placeholder Appointment Request on the Timeline will be replaced with the actual appointment and Treatment details.
When confirming the appointment request, you'll be prompted to complete the appointment confirmation workflow before the appointment is confirmed:
Patient Details
Appointment Details
Select a Time
Waitlist
Automations
💡 Tip
Review Appointment Requests first thing in the morning and again after lunch.
This keeps your diary up to date, and prevents the Timeline from being blocked by unconfirmed placeholder appointments.
Configuring Treatment Templates for Online bookings
Within each Treatment Template are options to:
Name the Template: This is how the Treatment will appear on the Online Bookings page.
Link the Template to a Treatment: When the appointment is confirmed, this is the treatment that will be assigned.
Set the duration of the Template: This will dictate how much time is needed for the booking and will affect which time slots are offered to the patient when selected.
Make it Available for Online bookings: Only Templates with this option checked will appear on the Online Bookings page.
Select which Practices (if applicable) are offering this Treatment.
Select which practitioners offer this Treatment.
Override the default Treatment linked to the Template: Individual practitioners may want to link the Template to different or personalised Treatments.
Override the default duration: Some practitioners may want extra or less time for this type of booking.
Available Treatments
The treatments available for your patients to select online are determined using Treatment Templates, found via: Settings > Treatment Templates.
The order of the templates here in Treatment Templates will be reflected on the online booking page. Each Template can be configured by clicking the the Pencil icon or deleted with the Rubbish Bin icon.