Adding appointments in Digitail is a straightforward process designed to streamline your workflow. Whether you are managing routine check-ups, urgent visits, or follow-ups, the system offers a user-friendly interface to ensure all appointments are accurately scheduled and easily accessible.
Ways to Add an Appointment
Depending on your workflow and the step you are at, Digitail makes it easy to create new appointments from different screens. See below from where you can add one!
From the Calendar
Add appointments directly from the Calendar screen using the purple button or by clicking on any available slot. This method associates the appointment with a specific user and time.
From the Flowboard
Utilize the purple button from the 'Scheduled' section to add appointments through the Flowboard.
From the Patient's Profile (Timeline)
Adding an appointment from the patient's Health Card pre-fills client and patient names, streamlining the process.
From the SOAP/Record
In the Plan section under Follow-ups, you can quickly add a follow-up appointment directly linked to the specific patient record.
From the top menu
You can add a new Appointment on any page, by clicking on the top menu and selecting the 'Add Appointment' option.
Quick Steps to Add an Appointment
Select Client and Patient: Start by searching for appropriate client / patient from your database. This ensures the appointment is linked to the correct profiles.
Multi-Location Setup: If applicable, select the appropriate location from the dropdown field for practices with multiple locations.
Kennel or Room: The room/kennel field is only displayed if you have configured at least one in your Admin. Check this article for more information on how to set them up.
Assign Responsible Person: The responsible person is pre-filled with the user doing the action, but can be adjusted as needed.
Choose the Visit Type: Specify the type of visit / appointment. This could range from a routine check-up to a specialized procedure.
Services: You can select multiple service packs when scheduling an appointment, providing an estimated price and automatically adding these services to the patient's record.
Appointment Status: Set the appointment status to either 'Pending' (which triggers a confirmation request to the client) or 'Confirmed' (sends a confirmation message).
Set Date and Time: Choose the desired date and time for the appointment. The system will notify you if the selected slot is already booked or falls outside working hours.
Message for Client or Internal Notes: You can add a message for the client (e.g., important notes before the visit), or internal notes for staff only.
Notification and Reminders: Adjust notification channels based on your settings, ensuring clients receive reminders and updates via their preferred method.
Appointment Information Breakdown
Preview Client and Patient Information
On the left side of the Appointment modal, you can see all the important information about the client and the patient at a glance.
Just below the search field, you can see when their last appointment was, and who was the responsible staff member.
You can quickly see the patient's profile picture, name and IDs (if you are part of a multi-location, then a patient can have multiple IDs). Next to the ID, there is a copy button that you can use to copy the patient's signalment.
The client information will display any relevant client tags/alerts, the name and contact information. You can click on them to quickly start an email or a phone call or to navigate to their address in Google Maps.
The patient information will display basic details such as relevant tags/alerts, breed and gender, age, weight and medical information such as allergies, medications, diagnoses and upcoming reminders.
Appointment Status
When adding a new appointment, you have two options for the status:
Pending - this is the default status and it sends a notification asking the client to confirm the appointment request; no reminders will be sent before the appointment, if the status doesn't change to 'Confirmed'
Confirmed - this sends the client a confirmation for the appointment and no other action is required from their side
Date and Time
Easily modify the default duration by adjusting the end date and hour to accommodate the specific needs of the appointment.
A warning will appear if the selected time slot is already booked or outside working hours.
Appointment Recurrences
With the new Appointment Recurrences feature, you can effortlessly set up recurring appointments. The feature allows you to set up recurring appointments for clients efficiently, ensuring that regular treatments or services are easily managed.
To set up a recurrence, click on the icon next to the 'All day' checkbox. You'll see multiple quick options that you can choose from (such as a Daily or Weekly recurrence) or you can customize a specific one.
When clicking on 'custom', you'll be able to set if the task should repeat every few hours, days or weeks, if it should repeat only on specific days, and when the recurrence should end.
When using the appointment recurrence feature, appointments aren't created all at once far into the future. Instead, we generate appointment gradually based on the recurrence interval. Here’s how it works:
Hourly appointments: Not supported for recurrence.
Daily and weekly appointments: Created up to 3 months in advance.
Monthly and annual appointments: Set up for up to 2 years in the future.
Every day, new appointments are automatically added to your calendar, ensuring that you can focus on what matters most—providing top-notch care to your patients.
When you edit or delete a Recurrent Appointment, you'll be asked if you want to modify only the specific appointment, this task and all the upcoming ones, or the entire recurrent sequence.
When previewing an Appointment, you'll also be able to see at a glance a summary about its recurrence, if any.
This feature is especially beneficial for clinics that schedule recurring appointments for:
Chronic treatments: Easily manage ongoing treatments such as for long-term medical conditions.
Recurrent boarding: Simplify the scheduling for regular boarding stays.
Membership programs: Perfect for recurring programs like physiotherapy or acupuncture sessions, where clients need consistent follow-up.
Forms & Documents
You can now easily attach Documents & Consent Forms when scheduling new appointments. These will be automatically included in the appointment notification email—whether the appointment is still pending or confirmed.
If any forms require signatures or need to be filled out, pet parents can complete them directly from their device, making the process quick and seamless. You'll be able to track the status of the forms and see whether they've been signed or not within the platform.
Once the appointment record is opened, all attached forms will be synced with the patient’s record, giving you quick and easy access from one place.
Appointment Notifications & Reminders
Notification channels and reminders are pre-filled based on your settings but can be adjusted during the appointment creation process.