Please note that this is a workaround only. We ultimately want to offer a much easier way to do this in Cliniko, and it's on our agenda! At the moment, we don't have an ETA on when it will be available, though—so for now, setting it up manually is going to be the best way to go about it. It's a somewhat advanced setup process and can get a bit tricky if you try to rush through it. Please be sure to read all of the instructions to ensure that your custom URL works correctly!
While you can use Cliniko's custom bookings URL builder to create a specific type of URL (such as appointments for only a single practitioner, or only a particular business, or only one particular appointment type), there might be a time when you want to customise things even more.
In the example to follow, we're going to pretend that you want to share a special bookings URL with a select group of VIP patients—this URL will offer appointment types that are not normally offered on your regular online bookings page. (However, that's just an example—this could be used for virtually any scenario!)
With a little bit of copying and pasting, you can create your very own unique bookings URL—we'll walk you through the process with both a video and step-by-step instructions! 🙌
The example in this video, using "VIP appointments", is just one example of many. While it outlines creating a unique URL that shows a couple of appointment types, you can also create a unique URL that hides certain appointment types!
Create a custom online bookings URL with specific appointment types
Step one: set up your custom bookings URL template
Head to Settings, and then Online bookings:
Online bookings will need to be enabled for this to work. If you haven't set up online bookings yet, learn how to do so here.
Take note of your bookings URL under the Bookings URL builder section, and copy it:
Paste that into a new document somewhere—a basic text editor on your computer will be just fine. After where it says /bookings, paste the following (it looks funny—don't worry, this is expected!):
?appointment_type_id[]=######&appointment_type_id[]=######&appointment_type_id[]=######
Alternatively, you can copy and paste the template below, being sure to replace your-account with your actual Cliniko subdomain:
https://your-account.cliniko.com/bookings?appointment_type_id[]=######&appointment_type_id[]=######&appointment_type_id[]=######
So, now you have a really long, weird-looking URL with a bunch of number symbols and empty brackets. Onwards to the next step! 👉
Step two: add in the relevant appointment type ID numbers
You'll want to keep the empty brackets and only replace the hashtag symbols (the ones that look like ###) with appointment type ID numbers. These numbers are how Cliniko "talks" to your bookings page, and tells it which appointments to display!
The appointment type ID numbers can be found by selecting the appointment you want to offer in this custom bookings URL. The ID number will be the long number at the end of the displayed URL—it will be at least 6 digits long:
Copy this, and replace the hashtags (the ### symbols) with this number. Do this for as many appointment types as you want to offer on this custom page.
Continuing with the example from above, our custom URL for VIP clients would look something like this:
https://getting-healthy.cliniko.com/bookings?appointment_type_id[]=912751764933969353&appointment_type_id[]=912751617151862216#service
If we make that link "clickable", you'll see what it looks like as an actual bookings page. (Go ahead, try it!)
As you'll see, the bookings page only shows the two appointment types that we've selected:
If you'd like to see a quick demo of how setting this up it looks "in action", check it out below:
Keep in mind that the above steps show you how to display specific appointment types in a bookings URL. If you want to customise things even further (for example, show two out of three clinics, or only a couple of practitioners), there will be more to the process. You'll need to add in unique business and practitioner ID numbers to the URL. Below is a very basic template to use as a starting point:
https://your-account.cliniko.com/bookings?business_id[]=#####&practitioner_id[]=######&appointment_type_id[]=######
The key thing to remember is that you'll want to replace the # symbols with the unique ID for each item.
Using custom URLs for different purposes
The example above is just one way to do this. If you'd prefer to make a unique bookings page that includes all appointment types except a select few (such as the VIP appointments mentioned above), you can create another custom page that would include everything but those special VIP sessions.
As this is a fairly manual process, we understand you might have questions. Feel free to reach out to our support team if you needed help with any of this! 🤗