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, rooms and equipment, 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: Basics, When, How many at once, Online, and After booking. A service can only be booked at locations that are assigned to it.
Fields on the appointment type itself save with the Save button at the top of the page. Locations, hours, per-location limits, rooms and equipment, and staff save as soon as you change them.
Basics
Set the Name, Client-facing name, Color, and Description.
Length (minutes): How long the appointment lasts. Turn on Show clients a different length if clients should see a different length than the time reserved, and Leave the length out of the confirmation email if the booking confirmation email should not show it.
Status: Active or Archived. Archived services can't be booked; appointments already booked for them stay on the calendar.
Scheduler card display, at the bottom of the tab, controls what appears on calendar cards for this type.
When
Under Locations offered, select Add location for every location where the appointment type is offered.
Choose Same as location hours when the service follows the location's normal hours.
Choose Its own hours only when the service is offered during a smaller window of time. Pick existing hours, or New hours… to create them. Clients can only book times that fall inside both the appointment type's hours and the location's hours.
Start times every (minutes): How frequently start times appear. For example, a 45-minute appointment can still start every hour. Leave it blank to use the length.
Prep before (minutes) and Cleanup after (minutes): Optional protected time around each appointment. Leave these blank unless your workflow needs them.
Use the Availability preview beside this tab, and its Needs attention list, to see what still needs setup.
How many at once
This tab is the one place that sets how many appointments of this type can overlap. Each line can only lower the number, and the lowest one wins: the location's own-hours limit, a limit for This service at the location, a linked Room, Staff, Per day / week, and Spread out starts.
Under Staff, Who has to be on duty? controls whether staffing limits booking. It does not change who actually works the appointment.
Nobody: Staffing doesn't limit booking. Hours, rooms and equipment, and the limits you set decide.
A staff position: bookable times are limited by the position's coverage hours, shared by every service that needs it. Who is actually working never limits booking.
Create positions in the Serve module.
Add the position to the appointment type. Must have positions limit bookable times; Nice to have positions are a note for staff only.
Specific people: choose one or more named people who can perform this appointment. Bookable times follow each person's own working hours (on each person's Availability tab); with nobody's hours set, it doesn't limit.
Online
The Online tab is where you control what clients see online and what questions they answer when they book.
Turn on Online booking only for appointment types that clients should see publicly. Turn on Clients can reschedule if clients may move their own appointments, and Partner integrations if a partner scheduling integration should offer this service.
Minimum notice (hours): The minimum notice required before a client can book.
How far ahead (days): How many days ahead clients can book. New appointment types start at 14 days. Both settings apply to online booking only; staff can always book.
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 Online 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.
After booking
The After booking tab has four parts: Forms & consents, Reminders, When it becomes a visit, and Assessments.
Under Forms & consents, 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 under After booking → Reminders 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
In the Reminders part of the appointment type's After booking tab, turn on Its own reminder schedule 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.
In the When it becomes a visit part of the appointment type's After booking 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 Resources only when capacity matters
Resources represent limited rooms, equipment, or shared capacity. They are optional: an appointment type with no linked resource is not limited by capacity. Skip them when they do not affect whether an appointment can occur.
1. Open Resources and create one for each set of interchangeable rooms or equipment (for example, one "Medical Rooms" resource with a count of 2, not one resource per room).
2. Under Location & how many at once, choose the Location where it is used and how many rooms or devices it has. Each appointment uses one, so a count of 2 lets two appointments overlap. On an appointment type it shows as Medical Rooms — 2 at once. A resource with no location assigned applies at every location.
3. Connect the resource to the appointment types that use it, on the resource's Appointment Types tab or from Needs a room or equipment on each appointment type's How many at once 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 length, start times, minimum notice, and how far ahead clients can book.
5. Confirm each appointment type's Staff setting, that positions have the correct coverage hours, and that specific people have the correct working hours.
6. Confirm resources have the correct location and how many at once.
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 When tab and review the Availability preview beside it, whose Needs attention list flags anything that needs setup, and which 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, rooms and equipment, booking rules, and availability blocks. One unavailable required layer is enough to remove a time from being available for scheduling. The Availability preview beside the appointment type's When and How many at once tabs shows which layer is blocking a time.
Should I use location hours or a custom appointment-type schedule?
Choose Same as location hours when the service is offered whenever the location is open. Choose Its own hours when the service is offered only during part of those hours or only certain days.
When should I use A staff position instead of Specific people?
Use A staff position when any qualified person can cover the appointment. Use Specific people only when the booking must depend on particular named people.
What is the difference between Length and Start times every?
Length (minutes) is the time the appointment occupies. Start times every (minutes) 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.