Create appointment availability

1. Choose the calendar that you want to create appointments for.
2. Create an availability period by selecting start and end dates. A repeating one week schedule can be set up.
3. Add time segments on your chosen days by selecting start and end times.
4. Choose the number of appointments you can offer at the same time.
5. Choose which appointment types can be booked into each time segment.
6. Select 'Save and Update' diary to publish appointments to the calendar.
7. Check appointments are reflected correctly in the calendar.
8. Provided your site is online (in content management) eligible citizens will then be able to book appointments for that service.

1. Select Site Management > Diary Manager from the left-hand bar.

2. The diary manager/calendar structure is designed to offer site managers flexibility based on their site requirements. You may choose to use the main vaccination calendar to add all of your appointments to, or you may prefer to manage different appointment types, for different age groups or vaccines, in multiple optional calendars.

3. Select the calendar that you want to set up appointments for from the drop-down box next to Calendar. Ensure you click the '+' icon each time until you see the calendar selection field.

4. Select the calendar icon next to the Start date field to choose the first day of your availability period. 

5. Select the calendar icon next to the End date field to choose the last day of your availability period.

6. Select either 1 week or No Repeat from the Repeats every drop-down.

The appointment schedule can be set up within this date range to repeat every week. Alternatively, you can create each week separately (No Repeat).

7. Click the Save button at the bottom left.

Once you have created availability periods, you need to add time segments into those periods.

1. Click the Select button to choose the availability period you want to add appointments for.

This opens a view where you can see the individual days within your availability period.

2. Click Edit next to the tile of the first day.

This opens a screen showing time segments during the day. If you have just created the availability period, it will be empty.

For each day in the availability period, you can create the same or different time segments by entering when appointments will start and finish.

3. Select New time segment. In the Start time field, start typing the time of your first appointment, using the 24-hour format - for example if your first appointment is at 6am, type 06.

A drop-down will appear showing times within that hour.

4. Select a time for the first appointment time segment.

5. In the End time field, start typing when your time segment ends, then choose a time. This will set the arrival time of your last appointment.

6. Select the number of appointments you want to offer simultaneously in the 'Max Simultaneous Appointments' field. For example, if you select 4, then 4 appointments will be offered per time slot. 

Here is a further illustration:

• 1 simultaneous appointment is equivalent to 12 appointments per hour for 5-minute appointments and 6 appointments per hour for 10-minute appointments
• 4 simultaneous appointments are equivalent to 48 appointments per hour for 5-minute appointments and 24 appointments per hour for 10-minute appointments

7. Click Save and a green banner with The record was saved should appear. 

You can now see the time segment you have created.

8. You can add multiple time segments per day but they must not overlap. Click New time segment and repeat the steps above if required.

After you have created time segments, you must choose the types of appointments available during those time segments. 

1. Use the Select blue square button to choose the time segment you want to add appointments to. 

The Available appointment types box will appear below.

2. Use the check boxes to select the appointment type(s).

3. Click the green plus + sign in the middle of the boxes to add the selected appointments to the Allowed appointment types box.

4. Click Save.

5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 for all time segments you created.

6. Repeat this process for each day, saving after each change you make.

Once you have made all changes, you must upload them to the calendar.

1. Select Save to finalise your calendar.

2. Click Update diary.

The message Process is working behind the scenes will appear in the blue bar at the top of the screen. This means Q-Flow has started creating your appointments. This process can take a few minutes when Q-Flow is busy.

3. After the diary has been updated, the days of the week will reflect the total number of available 5-minute appointments created. Refreshing the page will update the numbers if there is a delay in seeing the correct available appointments.

Following our manage bookings section to see your appointments in the calendar.