The Group Appointments Recurrence features give you a functional way to create and manage a series of linked ongoing group/class sessions.
Start by creating your Class Types in File -> System Information -> Appointment book -> Class types
Click Add to create a new Class Type
Specify a class title and the maximum class size. If you use the Patient Booking Gateway, you can also set a description that patients will see if they have access to book this type of class online.
Once you’ve created some Class Types, you can then set a default type to be used in general when creating a new Group Appointment:
Group Appointments can be created in the appointment book right-clicking and selecting Add Group Appointment.
You can then setup the Group Appointment details, specify a maximum number of patients that can be booked in and allocate any necessary resource.
The Recurrence tab of a Group Appointment allows you to create a linked set of Group Appointments into the future.
Once the recurrence pattern and range have been set, Front Desk will check if the times are available. A time may show as unavailable if another appointment is already booked, or if an appointment book rule does not allow the scheduler to make this appointment at that time.
Closing and saving will create a linked series of Group Appointment placeholders, ready to allow you to book in clients for these sessions, on your Appointment Book at the scheduled times.
Managing Patients in Recurring Group Appointments
Double-clicking on a Group Appointment from the Appointment Book allows you to edit the Group Appointment details as well as add patients. When editing a recurring Group Appointment, the following options will appear:
Edit this Group Appointment only: Any changes made will be applied to only this Group Appointment in the schedule. This useful is for making a once off change such as a Group Appointment reschedule, or adding a patient from a single Group Appointment in the schedule.
Edit future Group Appointments in schedule: Any changes made will be applied to this Group Appointment and all future Group Appointments in the schedule. This is particularly useful if adding a patient to multiple Group Appointments in a schedule.
When you Add a patient while editing future Group Appointments in a schedule, you have the option of adding the patient to all Group Appointments in the schedule, or only select instances of the class.
Once you have added patients to your Group Appointment, simply right click to get your usual interaction options just like you would for a single appointment.
For users of the Patient Booking Gateway, you can also select which Class Types the patient has access to online from the Appointments tab of their file.
