Scheduler Settings controls when appointments can be offered, who or what must be available, and whether clients can book online. Use this guide when setting up Scheduler for the first time or troubleshooting missing appointment times.
Not sure which capacity model fits your center? Start with Scheduler Setup Patterns: Match How Your Center Works. Need to find a specific page? See Where Scheduler Settings Live.
The key idea: a time is bookable only when every required layer is available. Location hours, appointment-type availability, staffing, resource groups, booking rules, and closures all work together. The narrowest rule wins.
Before you begin
Confirm that you are an organization admin (or a Scheduler module admin). Only admins can open Scheduler Settings.
List each location, its time zone, and its normal operating hours.
List the appointment types you offer, their duration, and whether they require staff, rooms, or equipment.
Decide which appointment types should be available for public online booking.
Open Scheduler Settings
1. From the left-hand menu, select the Settings gear. Under Modules, choose Scheduler Settings. This gear is only shown to organization admins.
2. You can also open Scheduler and select its Module settings gear. Scheduler Settings opens on Locations.
Tip: Visit Board stages are managed under Scheduler Settings → Visit Board → Visit Statuses, not under Care Settings. See Where Scheduler Settings Live.
1. Configure Locations and Operating Hours
1. Open Locations and create or select a location.
2. On the Schedule tab, use the Schedule menu to choose the schedule that defines when the location is open. Choose Custom schedule when the location does not use an existing schedule.
3. For split-day hours, add another time period. Disable a day when the location is closed.
4. Set the time zone on the location's schedule, not on the location page. On the Schedule tab, select Schedule settings, time zone and capacity, then set Time Zone under Template details. The time zone affects displayed appointment times, reminders, calendar feeds, and online booking.
5. On the Appointment Types tab, select Add appointment type for each service offered at this location, and remove services no longer offered. Adding or removing an appointment type saves right away.
2. Set Location Display Order
After your locations exist, open Scheduler Settings → Location Display Order. Drag active locations into the order you want them to appear. The list saves as you drop each location.
This order controls the By Location view on the Scheduler. When staff set Group By to By Location on the Calendar (the split-screen day view with one column per location), the columns follow this display order from left to right. The first location in the list is the leftmost column. By Location only appears when you have more than one location.
This order is organization-wide. It is not a personal preference on one staff computer.
Staff can also change it from the Calendar using the Column order button in the By Location view. It is the same list.
Online booking: This same order is used when clients pick a location on the booking widget, so the public list matches how your team sees locations on the calendar.
Only active locations appear here. Inactive locations stay out of the list and out of normal scheduling.
Reordering locations does not change hours, appointment types, or who can book. It only changes the order locations appear.
If you add a new location later, return to Location Display Order and place it where it belongs in the list.
3. Configure Appointment Types
Open Appointment Types, create or select an appointment type, then review each tab: Overview, Scheduling, Rules, Booking, Reminders, and Visit Defaults. A service can only be booked at locations that are assigned to it.
Scheduling
Add every location where the appointment type is offered.
Choose Use Location Hours when the service follows the location's normal hours.
Choose an existing schedule, or New schedule..., only when the service is offered during a smaller window of time. Clients can only book times that fall inside both the appointment type's hours and the location's hours.
Use the Scheduling readiness panel on this tab to see what still needs setup.
Choose the correct staffing model
Staffing controls whether staff availability limits booking. It does not change who actually works the appointment.
Anyone can be scheduled: Staff availability does not limit booking. The appointment can occur regardless of staff schedules.
Position pool: at least one qualified person in a required position must be working and available for that appointment.
Create positions in the Serve module.
Give staff work schedules (on each person's Availability tab).
Add the required position to the appointment type. Must-have positions limit bookable times; nice-to-have positions are preferences only.
Specific staff: choose one or more named people who can perform this appointment. Bookable times follow each person's work schedule.
Set Scheduling Rules
Open the Rules tab to define how appointment times are generated.
Duration (minutes): How long the appointment lasts.
Start Time Increment (minutes): How frequently start times appear. For example, a 45-minute appointment can still start every hour. Leave it blank to use the duration.
Lead Time (hours): The minimum notice required before a client can book.
Online booking window: How many days ahead clients can book. New appointment types start at 14 days.
Advanced scheduling: Optional buffers and daily or weekly limits. Leave these blank unless your workflow needs them.
Configure online booking and intake
The Booking tab is where you control what clients see online, what questions they answer when they book, and which forms and consent documents go with the appointment type.
Turn on Enable Online Booking only for appointment types that clients should see publicly.
To share an appointment type with a partner or third-party scheduler without listing it publicly, create an unlisted link. Go to General Settings → Embed Widgets (or select Open Embed Widgets on the Booking tab), create a widget for the appointment type, and set Access to Unlisted link.
Add short Booking Questions for a couple of brief facts needed at booking time. Keep it to one to three questions.
Use Intake Forms for longer forms clients complete after booking. Do not use booking questions as a replacement for a full intake form.
Under Consent Documents, link the client consent forms that go with appointments of this type. Nothing is sent when an appointment is booked: online bookings show the documents as pending in the client portal, staff send them from the appointment with Send Forms & Consents, and Incomplete intake nudges on the Reminders tab can send them on a schedule.
Consent templates are created in Care Settings → Intake & Documents → Consent Documents. Organizations with the Care module also see this page under Scheduler Settings → Intake & Documents.
Only active, client consent documents appear in the picker.
Mark each linked document as Required if the client must complete it, and choose a Renewal frequency: Once, Each visit, Yearly, or Every N days.
Reminders and Confirmation Auto-Reply
Open the appointment type's Reminders tab to override your organization's reminder schedule for this appointment type only.
Under Confirmation Auto-Reply, set the text that clients receive after they reply YES to an appointment reminder for this appointment type. Only use this if you intend to override the default confirmation reply.
By default, the appointment type inherits the organization-wide confirmation reply set in Scheduler Settings → Reminders → Confirmation Reply.
Saving a different reply here overrides the default for this appointment type only. Select Save Confirmation Reply when you finish editing.
Visit Defaults and charts
Appointment types no longer have a Charts tab. Default charts come from the visit type:
Set the default charts, and their order, in Care Settings → Intake & Documents → Visit Types.
On the appointment type's Visit Defaults tab, choose the Default visit type (Care organizations) so visits of this appointment type start with that visit type's charts. You can also set visit reasons here.
4. Add Resource Groups only when capacity matters
Resource groups represent limited rooms, equipment, or shared capacity. They are optional: an appointment type with no linked resource group is not limited by capacity. Skip them when they do not affect whether an appointment can occur.
1. Open Resource Groups and create a group for each set of interchangeable rooms or equipment (for example, one "Medical Rooms" group with a count of 2, not one group per room).
2. On Location & Group Size, choose the Location where it is used and how many appointments it can hold at once. A group with no location assigned applies at every location.
3. Connect the group to the appointment types that use that capacity, on the group's Appointment Types tab.
5. Set up reminders and booking notifications
Open Scheduler Settings → Reminders to set your organization's reminder schedule, the Confirmation Reply, and client-facing languages.
Automatic text message reminders are included in the Plus and Premium plans. On any plan, you can send reminders manually from Scheduler → Reminders.
Make sure at least one active user is subscribed to new-booking notifications (in their profile under Notifications) so someone is told when a client books online.
6. Review availability and closures
Availability shows the schedules used by locations, appointment types, and positions.
Availability Blocks close otherwise available time for holidays, weather closures, meetings, or other exceptions. A block can apply to one location, one appointment type, or everything.
Use a block (or the schedule's Exceptions & holidays tab) for a one-time closure. Change the normal schedule only when operating hours have permanently changed.
Final readiness check
1. Confirm every location has the correct hours, and each location's schedule has the correct time zone.
2. Confirm Location Display Order matches how you want locations lined up in the By Location view and in online booking.
3. Confirm each appointment type is assigned to the correct locations.
4. Confirm duration, start time increment, lead time, and online booking window.
5. Confirm the required staff have the correct positions and work schedules.
6. Confirm resource groups have the correct location and group size.
7. Confirm online-booking visibility, booking questions, intake forms, consent documents, reminders, confirmation auto-reply (if needed), and the default visit type.
8. Add known closures. Then open each appointment type's Scheduling tab and review the Scheduling readiness panel, which flags anything that needs setup and previews available times with the reason any time is unavailable.
9. Save changes on every settings page. Some changes, such as adding appointment types to a location and reordering lists, save automatically.
Common questions
Why does an appointment type show no available times?
Check each layer in order: location hours, the appointment type's schedule, staffing, resource groups, booking rules, and availability blocks. One unavailable required layer is enough to remove a time from being available for scheduling. The Scheduling readiness panel on the appointment type's Scheduling tab shows which layer is blocking a time.
Should I use location hours or a custom appointment-type schedule?
Use Use Location Hours when the service is offered whenever the location is open. Use a custom appointment-type schedule when the service is offered only during part of those hours or only certain days.
When should I use Position pool instead of Specific staff?
Use Position pool when any qualified person can cover the appointment. Use Specific staff only when the booking must depend on particular named people.
What is the difference between Duration and Start Time Increment?
Duration is the time the appointment occupies. Start Time Increment controls how often clients see a possible start time.
How should I schedule a holiday closure?
Create an Availability Block, or add the date on the schedule's Exceptions & holidays tab. Do not rewrite the regular weekly schedule for a one-time closure.
Why are my location columns in the wrong order on the Scheduler?
Open Scheduler Settings → Location Display Order and drag the locations into the order you want, or use Column order in the Calendar's By Location view. That list controls left-to-right columns when Group By is set to By Location, and it also orders locations on the online booking widget.
Related guides
For a click-by-click visual reference, open the Scheduler Settings Arcade guide.