Overview of Offset Scheduling
- Offset schedule allows customers to start their online schedule at an offset from the top of the hour.
- Online scheduling can be offset 10, 15 or 30 minutes - appointments can start 10, 15 or 30 minutes from the top of the hour. In other words, if the offset is set to 10 minutes, appointment slots will generate starting at 12:10 instead of 12:00.
- Appointments will generate at the same time intervals as before, determined by how many appointments are available per hour in capacity settings and will end at the start of the next hour. For example, if you have 4 slots per hour, there will be a time slot every 15 minutes, starting at the offset and ending at the top of the next hour.
- Some appointment slots will get cut off if they overflow into the next hour. For example, if you have an offset of 15 mins and 6 appointments per hour, then you will have appointments every ten minutes (6 per hour):
- 12:15, 12:25 12:35, 12:45, 12:55 ... There is no 1:05 reservation. There are only 5 appointments this hour since the sixth appointment overlaps into the next hour.
- Offset scheduling will disable high capacity scheduling if it is turned on for a facility. A pop-up message will show letting a user know that high capacity scheduling will be disabled.
- Here is a table showing an example of what Offset Scheduling might look like in various situations over a one hour time frame. The offset values (0, 10, 15, 30 mins) go across the x-axis from left to right and the number of time slots per hour (2, 3, 4, 6, 12) is on the y-axis from top to bottom.
How to set up Offset Scheduling:
Step 1: Navigate to Online/Walk-In Module > Patient Queue Settings.
Step 2: Scroll down to Offset Online Scheduling and click on it to open up the settings.
Step 3: Toggle the Switch to Online Scheduling? setting to be ON (blue). Set the Offset Minutes to the desired offset (10, 15, 30 minutes). Click Save.
If you need help reconfiguring your online inventory, please visit this help desk article: How to Edit Online Schedule Patterns