Appointment Type Blockouts

Your organisation may need to temporarily prevent specific appointment types being booked for certain users. As an example, when a clinician is unavailable or a specific service is not offered on certain days.

Appointment type blockouts allow you to control this directly within HearLink, ensuring that affected appointment types cannot be scheduled, either online or within the calendar, for the chosen assignee during the blocked period.

In this article we'll cover how to:

• create an appointment type blockout.
• duplicate an appointment block.
• edit or delete and appointment block.
• filter appointment blocks.
• understand how blockouts affect appointment scheduling.

Only users with the correct permissions can create appointment type blockouts. If you think you should have permission to perform such an action please contact the organisation owner.

Create an appointment type blockout

• Navigate to Organisation settings. 
• Locate and click the Appointment Types section of the settings.
• Locate the Add appointment type blockout button.

• Click the Add appointment type blockout button.
• Complete the form with the relevant appointment type(s), user(s) and the date and optional start and end times.

If the start and end time are left blank the appointment type will be blocked out for the selected date all day.

• Click Submit to block out the appointment type for the specified duration.

Duplicate an appointment type blockout

A user can quickly duplicate an appointment type blockout. Once an appointment type blockout is set, it can be reused instead of editing the blockout.

• Locate and click the Duplicate icon next to the relevant entry. 

• Change the details in the form to the new appointment type blockout.
• Click Submit to save the new appointment type blockout.

Edit or delete an appointment type blockout.

Edit:

• Locate and click the Edit iconnext to the relevant entry.

• Update the details in the form to the new requirements.

• Click Submit to apply the changes.

Delete:

• Locate and click the Delete icon next to the relevant entry.

• You'll be shown a warning message.

• Click Delete to confirm and remove the entry.

Warning: Once an appointment type blockout has been deleted this action cannot be undone. Please proceed with caution!

Filter appointment type blockouts

A user can filter the list of blockouts by user or date range.

• In the filters section select the start and end data and/or assignees to filter the list of appointment type blockouts.

Understanding appointment type blockouts.

• When a blockout is active, users attempting to book that appointment type for the selected assignee will see warning messages appear on the start and end time when creating a new appointment. 

• Blockouts apply only to the chosen appointment type and assignee, other appointment types remain available.

By using Appointment type blockouts, your organisation can manage clinician availability more effectively, preventing scheduling conflicts and maintain a smooth and accurate booking process.

An appointment type blockout also applies to the online booking widget. A patient will not be able to book the appointment type while there is a blockout in place.