Creating flexible schedule templates

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📌 Note: To create flex schedule templates, you must have the Templates: Schedules permission. Refer to Modifying a user's permissions.

Flexible working hours, or flex schedules, are used when a provider's schedule is not consistent. If the same hours applies to more than one provider and/or more than one date, you can create a flex schedule template.

For example, the providers in your clinic work standard 9-5 office hours Monday to Friday but, every third Tuesday, the providers take turns staffing an evening addiction clinic. Because the providers do not normally work Tuesday evenings, you would add the addiction clinic as flex hours to each provider’s schedule on the dates they are scheduled to cover the addiction clinic. However, you can create a template to easily apply the addiction clinic hours to the appropriate provider on their scheduled dates instead of doing them one-by-one.

You first create the flex schedule template and then choose the provider(s) and date(s) to apply the template to.

Steps

1. From the main menu, click Settings > Scheduling > Templates.

2. The Flexible Schedule Templates window appears, listing any existing templates.

3. Click Add Template.

4. In the Template Name field, type a descriptive name for your flex template e.g. Addiction clinic.

5. On the calendar, click on a time to add working hours. The Add Work Hour window appears.

💡 Tip: You can change the zoom level on the calendar by clicking the magnifying glass in the top right corner.

6. Configure the specific working hours as follows:

Field	Description
Location	If your clinic has multiple locations, select the clinic location these working hours are for. 💡 Tip: The default is your primary location.
Visit type	Select Physical for in-person visits and Virtual for virtual visits. 💡 Tips: If the provider meets patients over the phone: use Physical so the patient isn't sent a video invite. To have both Physical and Virtual hours scheduled at the same time, create two Flexible Hours.
Start	Select the time the provider starts seeing patients for the specified services.
Until	Select the time the provider finishes seeing patients for the specified services (i.e. the end of the last appointment for the working hour block). 📌 Note: For example, if your day ends at 5:00 pm, select 5:00 pm. If you offer 30 minute appointments, the latest one can start is 4:30 pm.
Colour on schedules	Choose a colour you want to see on the schedule along the left side of these work hours.
Slot	Select the number of patients (1-10) that can be booked in one time slot.
Intervals	Select the start time intervals staff can pick when searching availability and see on the schedule if Show on scheduler is enabled. Patients who can book online also see the selected interval. You can choose increments of 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes. For example, if Intervals are 15 minutes, search and eBooking show times that start on the :00, :15, :30, or :45. If set to 10 minutes, then :00, :10, :20, :30, :40, or :50. For more details, visit Setting a schedule's appointment time intervals for eBooking.
Show on scheduler	Select this checkbox to display a thicker line on the schedule at each time interval - making it easier to book appointments at the correct intervals.
Stacking	This option is for eBooking only. When patients search for available appointments and they select a date, if this option is set to On, the CHR eBooking site provides only the first available appointment on that day as an option (without allowing the patient to select a time). This is known as "appointment stacking" because it fills up each day's schedule from earliest to latest and prevents gaps between appointments. For more details, visit Enabling appointment stacking for eBooking.
Services	Select the appointment type(s) you offer during these working hours, or click All to select all appointments your clinic offers. 📌 Note: When you book an appointment the services offered appear in bold and the others are greyed out. You can enable a feature that hides the greyed out appointment types. Refer to Limiting appointment type options when booking appointments.

📌 Notes:

To indicate lunch or administrative time, do not add working hours. Leave them blank or fill them by creating lunch or admin time templates. Refer to Creating vacation and off-time templates.
You can have more than one Flexible Schedule Template applied on the same work hours.

7. When you are finished adding the working hours, click Save.

8. After you’ve added all working hour blocks, click Save to save the template.

The template now appears in the list of your flex templates and can be applied to provider schedules. Refer to Applying flexible working hour templates to provider schedules.

Updated November 23, 2023