Group appointments allow you to book multiple patients at the same time, so if you offer any type of class or session with more than one person, this would be for you!
This guide will summarise how the entire process works from start to finish, and will cover each step:
Read on below 👇 for all the details!
Create group appointment types
First things first, you'll need to create the group appointments! Head to Settings, and then Appointment types:
Click the Add appointment type button:
Fill in the details, paying close attention to the "Maximum number of patients" field. It has to be more than 1 in order to count as a group appointment.
You aren't required to include a description or a category, but you can if you want to. These fields can be especially helpful if you're offering this appointment online, so patients can read more about what it involves.
When creating the group appointment type, you'll also see a number of other settings. You don't have to worry about them right now (you can come back and edit at any point), but each of these different settings can help streamline your process:
Relate various billable items or products, which means any invoices for this appointment type will be preloaded with your selections.
Enable email or SMS reminders and/or confirmation emails for this appointment type.
Choose which business the appointment will be offered at (relevant if you offer appointments at multiple locations).
Choose which practitioners will offer this appointment type.
Click the Create appointment type button! You'll then need to add it to your calendar, which we'll cover below. 👇
Add group appointments to your calendar
The next step will be adding the group appointment to your calendar. Unlike individual appointments, a group appointment requires that you "reserve" the space first.
You'll need to add the group appointment to your calendar in order to book in any patients manually, or if you're offering it online.
To add it to your calendar, go to the Appointments page, and find the date you wish to book for (you can use the arrows to toggle between months, and the blue circle will indicate the selected date):
Click on the day and time slot that you want to add the group appointment, and select the appropriate one from the drop-down list of available appointment types:
When you select a group appointment type, the field for the patient name disappears. This is expected!
Set the appointment to repeat if you need (this is handy for classes, such as if you're offering a weekly pilates class on the same day, at the same time every week).
Then, click Create group appointment type, and you will see it show up on your calendar:
You'll notice that it says 0/number in the upper-right corner. This is the number of patients that can attend that group appointment (which was selected when setting up the group appointment type).
You can change it if you need, just for an individual group appointment. When you're adding the appointment to your calendar, or if you edit it later, just change the number in the "Max. patients" field:
That's step two, completed! Now you can book patients in. Read on 👇 for details.
Book patients into group appointments
Now you can start booking patients into the group appointment. Since the space has already been "reserved", the process for adding a patient is a bit different than booking a "regular" (individual) appointment.
Find the group appointment on your calendar, and click on it. You'll see a pop-up box that looks like this:
Click the Add patient button, and you can type in an existing patient's name, or add a new patient:
There will be a few notable differences!
If you have the group appointment scheduled to repeat, you can add the patient to just this appointment, to all of them, or just select ones.
The way the patient(s) display in the group appointment will be different from the way a patient displays in a regular appointment.
Below is an example of adding a patient to all repeats of this pilates class:
However, if this patient can't attend each appointment, you can select specific ones:
When you've added your patient to the ones they can attend, click the Add to group button:
You'll now see that you've added your first patient to that group appointment, and it will look like this:
Follow that process for any patient that you need to add to a group appointment!
Important things to note after adding patients to group appointments
Group appointments will look a bit different on your calendar. Once you've added patients, you'll see the appointment display an updated number, which tells you how many people are booked in for this particular appointment:
If you click on the appointment, you will see a pop-up box that shows you who is attending, and you might see symbols next to each patient:
These provide information about whether the patient showed up or didn't show up, paid their invoice or still has an outstanding balance, if a treatment note has been written for them, and more. You can learn more about appointment symbols here.
The patient's name also acts as a button. If you click on it, you'll see information about this patient, such as a note about the appointment, arrival status, invoice status and a link to the treatment note:
Some quick notes about the buttons and fields on that page:
The Arrived & Did not arrive buttons: clicking these will mark the patient as "Arrived" or as a "Did not arrive (DNA)".
The Add a payment button: this will open an invoice, pre-loaded with the appointment information. We recommend using this button when invoicing to reduce potential error and save time!
The Add treatment note button: this serves as a shortcut to open a new treatment note.
An Edit attendee note & Add a note link: clicking this will let you add/edit the note for this patient.
A Cancel booking button: clicking this will give you the option to cancel the appointment for this patient.
An Archive button: this will let you remove the patient from this appointment.
Selecting Back to all patients will collapse the extra info and let you see the full group again:
That's it! 🎉 Next, if you offer online bookings, you can make group appointments available for any patients booking online. Read on for how that works!
Telehealth group appointments
Setting up the appointment type
If you see patients virtually, you can offer group telehealth appointments, too. The initial setup is the same (you'll want to create group appointment types specifically for telehealth), but there is one key difference:
Group telehealth appointments can only have 4 people total, including the practitioner—so your "Maximum number of patients" must be set to 3.
When creating the appointment type, you'll also want to be sure that you "Turn on telehealth for this service":
This will make sure that a telehealth link is generated for the appointment (so your patients can access the appointment via the link), and you'll be able to see which of your appointment types are telehealth-enabled in your settings:
Share the telehealth link with your patients
In order to access the telehealth appointment, your patients will need a link! Cliniko generates these automatically for you, but you will need to add the placeholder to your confirmation emails and reminders.
You will need to have templates set up for confirmation email and reminders first. If you've already done that, you can skip the first step!
The process for adding the link is going to be the same for both reminders and confirmations.
Head to Settings and select either Appointment confirmations or Appointment reminders (you'll repeat this process for both types of messages):
For appointment confirmation emails, press the New confirmation template button:
For reminders, press New email template or New SMS template (depending on the type of reminder you wish to send):
We strongly encourage that you add a telehealth link to both your confirmations and reminders for your telehealth appointment communications.
Next, give your template a name to help describe it (this is for internal use only, so the template name will only be visible to you, not to patients).
If the template is for an email, give it a subject (for telehealth appointments, it may be helpful to include "online consult" or something similar, so your patients can know it's specifically a virtual appointment):
🚨 The most important part comes next! 🚨
In order to make sure that your patients receive the link and can access the appointment, you'll want to make sure you're adding in the placeholder called TelehealthLink. This placeholder will ensure that your patient has the link to join in on the call.
Select the TelehealthLink placeholder from under the APPOINTMENT heading in the template:
While you can add this link to SMS reminders, please consider that the link is quite long, so it may use more SMS credits.
When you add the link to your message, it will look like this:
If you use the "View sample" button, there will be a preview of what the email will look like. The telehealth link will say "Join appointment":
This is just an example, and each patient will see a slightly different display, depending on what email program they use!
Finally, update the template to save the settings:
After that, you'll want to make sure that your templates are linked to the correct appointment types. Head back to Settings, and then Appointment types:
Select the one you want to edit (anything that has already been enabled for telehealth will have "Telehealth enabled" in yellow next to it).
Scroll down until you reach the confirmation/reminder area. Select the relevant template from the drop-down list:
Update the appointment type:
Your patients will now receive that link, and will be able to use it to access the appointment. You can also include the telehealth guide for patients in your emails to help provide additional instructions, if you'd like!
Offer group appointments online
You can also offer group appointments via online bookings. The online bookings system will automatically recognise how many spots you have available, and display the group appointment until it's full (it will then disappear from the online bookings page so it can't be overbooked).
Go to Settings, and then Appointment types:
Select the group appointment type you want to offer online. Scroll down to the bottom, and make sure that the box under Show in online bookings is ticked:
Make sure to save! Then, add the group appointment to your calendar, as outlined in these steps above.
If you don't add the group appointment to your calendar, it won't show up online, even if you have online bookings enabled for it.
The appointment will then show up under "Group sessions" on your online bookings page:
The options for time and date will show up based on Your patients will be able to book the appointment as long as it's not filled. Once the maximum number of patients has been reached, it will no longer appear.
For example, this class is available on Thursdays and Fridays:
But after all the appointments on one of those Fridays are booked, the option to select that day will no longer show up (Friday the 16th is greyed out, meaning there are no available group appointments):
You can also require payment at the time of booking, whether it be a deposit or the full amount.
If the appointments aren't showing up and you're not sure why, check out this guide on troubleshooting online bookings!
Have any questions about group appointments? Our support team is here to help! 🤗