Cliniko's approach to the appointment calendar is to keep things simple, like a physical diary. A diary doesn't restrict you to 60-minute appointments, so we don't want the software to restrict you, either.

However, sometimes blocks can be useful for structuring your day, and we would hate to take away something that could be useful. So, if you want time blocks on your calendar, just follow these steps!

Head to Settings, and then Users & practitioners:

Select the practitioner you want to create time blocks for. Once you're on their page, scroll down to their Practitioner availability section:

Add a break five minutes before the end of each of your time blocks for the day (for example, 9:55 to 10:00, then 10:55 to 11:00, then 11:55 to 12:00, etc.):

Once you've added your breaks, click the Update user button at the bottom—this will save your changes! The calendar will now look like this (the breaks you just set up will be grey bars at the end of each hour):

That's the first step, completed! 🎉 Next, you'll be working with appointment types.

Head to Settings, and then Appointment types:

Select the appointment type you wish to edit. Change the Duration in minutes to 55 (again, this is using the example of time blocks for hour-long appointments):

Click the Update appointment type button, and this will save the changes. Do this for as many appointment types as you need!

Now, when you add a new appointment (one of the ones you'd edited the duration of), you will see that it automatically ends at the :55 minute mark:

When you create the appointment, it will automatically "fit" in the open time you have, leaving your break at the end:

And that's the process for setting up time blocks!

Again, in our example, we've created time blocks for hour-long appointments, but you can set them up for any appointments of any length.

If you've enabled online bookings, you'll also want to be sure that you hide the duration of your appointments, so that your patients don't get confused!