When you log into your SimplePractice account, you’ll see your calendar. You can customize and filter your calendar view to quickly see your schedule.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Customizing the calendar view
• Using filters to view your calendar
• Enabling calendar privacy display
• Using calendar color coding filters
• Understanding appointment status colors
• Understanding the progress note indicator
• Printing your calendar
• Troubleshooting missing appointments

Note: To learn how to schedule appointments on your calendar, see Adding and managing appointments.

Customizing the calendar view

To customize your calendar view:

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling > Calendar
• Under Calendar display, choose the hours and days you want displayed

• You can choose to display the full week, Monday through Saturday, or weekdays only

• Click Save changes

Note: The calendar hours you set are fixed. This means you won't be able to scroll earlier or later than the times you have set. If you'd like to have more calendar access, expand your calendar hours.

Using filters to view your calendar

There are several ways to filter your calendar to be able to quickly find what you’re looking for.

Changing calendar dates

In the top left, use the left and right arrows to view previous and future dates. Clicking Today will bring you back to today’s date.

Choosing between Daily, Weekly, and Monthly views

By default, your calendar homepage will display in a weekly view as indicated by the toggle at the top of your calendar. You can click Day or Month to change the view.

Filtering by location and clinician

Note: These filters are only available on our Plus plan. For more information, see Which subscription plan is right for me?

If you have more than one location and clinician listed under Settings > Practice > Practice details, you can filter your calendar by multiple offices and clinicians.

To filter by office location:

• Open the All locations dropdown menu
  

• Uncheck All locations
• Check the boxes next to the offices you want to filter the calendar by

You can revert back to displaying appointments for all offices by unchecking and checking the box next to All locations.

If you’re in a group practice, you can also use the All team members dropdown menu to filter the calendar by specific team members. To do this:

• Open the All team members dropdown menu
  

• Uncheck All team members
• Check the boxes next to the team members you want to filter the calendar by

You can revert back to displaying appointments for all clinicians by unchecking and checking the box next to All team members.

Note: The office and clinician filters can be applied at the same time.

With either of these filters, your calendar will only display appointments that meet your selected criteria. Any appointments that don’t meet these criteria will be hidden from view.

Advanced filtering options

Note: Advanced calendar filters are only available on our Plus plan. For more information, see Which subscription plan is right for me?

With our advanced filtering options, you can also filter your calendar to view appointments that:

• Are for a new client
• Have incomplete documentation
• Are unpaid by client
• Have the Insurance billing type

Note: Only one advanced filter can be applied at a time.

To use one of the advanced filters:

• Navigate to the Calendar
  
• Click the filter button
  

• Select one of the filters:
  
  • New client
  • Incomplete documents
  • Unpaid by client
  • Insurance
    
    • If you select Insurance, choose which insurance provider(s) to include in the filter, then click Apply

Note: The number next to the filter name reflects the number of appointments on the calendar that meet the criteria.

After selecting a filter, any appointments that meet the filter criteria will remain highlighted. Appointments that don’t meet the filter criteria will be grayed out.

To remove the filter, click the filter’s name. If you’re removing the Insurance filter for a specified payer, check and uncheck All insurance, then click Apply. 

If an advanced filter is active and the filter names aren’t present in the calendar, you’ll see a red circle on the top left of the filter button to indicate that a filter is active.

To remove the active filter, click the button and select the name of the active advanced filter.

Enabling calendar privacy display

You can enable privacy settings on your calendar to add another layer of security while working outside of your office or in a public space.

Your current privacy status is listed in the upper right corner of your calendar. To update this:

• Click the gear icon
• Toggle Privacy to On or Off

Note: In a group practice, the team member’s preferred privacy setting will only affect their own calendar.

Privacy On

When your privacy settings are on, the appointments on your calendar will only display the clients' first and last initials.

Privacy Off

When your privacy settings are off, the appointments on your calendar will display your clients' full names.

Recently Viewed

Additionally, you can click Recently Viewed to the left of your calendar to view the full names of your five most recently viewed clients. You can also select the client’s name if you’d like to view their profile.

Using calendar color coding filters

By default, appointment colors on the calendar will indicate whether an appointment is in the future, the past, canceled, a no show, late canceled, or a calendar event. 

If you’re on the Plus plan, colors can also be used to indicate the clinician or the service code for the appointment.

To color code appointments by clinician or service code:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Open the Color dropdown menu

• Select one of the filters:
  • Status
  • Service code
  • Clinician

Team members can clarify what each color represents by viewing the Color Key, which is unique to your practice. To access this:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Click Color > View Color Key 

• Select a tab to view the colors assigned to each service code or clinician
• To exit, click X or Cancel 

Note: The color of the small vertical lines on the left of each appointment indicate its location. For information on customizing the color for each location, see Setting up additional offices.

Account Owners, practice managers, and clinicians with entire practice access can customize the practice-wide colors assigned to each service code or clinician.

To view and customize colors for service codes and clinicians in your group practice: 

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Click Color > Customize colors

• Choose the Service code or Clinician tab
• Use the dropdown menu next to a service code or clinician to assign a new color

• Click Save

Understanding appointment status colors 

Your calendar uses default colors to show each appointment's status. If you’ve selected Status as your Color filter, here’s what each color means for an appointment block:

Note: If you’re on the Starter or Essential plan, only the Color filter for appointment status will be used for the calendar.

A block on your calendar may also indicate a non-client event or that a team member is out of office.

Understanding the progress note indicator

For each appointment that has already occurred on your calendar, there may be a progress note indicator icon. This icon will let you know whether a progress note has been added for that appointment and whether that note has been locked and signed.

Add note

If a past appointment on your calendar doesn’t have an associated progress note, you’ll see an empty progress note icon.

You can click this icon to navigate to the Appointment page to add a progress note.

Note: For more information on progress notes, see Using progress and psychotherapy notes for individual appointments.

Sign note

If a past appointment has an associated progress note that hasn’t been signed, you’ll see a written progress note icon.

To sign the progress note, click this icon, which will take you to the Appointment page. To sign and lock a progress note:

• Click Sign
• Review your name and credentials for signature
• Click Sign and lock

An appointment with a signed and locked progress note will no longer display a note icon.

Note: For additional details on locking and signing progress notes, see Locking and signing notes.

Printing your calendar

In some instances, you may want to print a copy of your calendar. To do this:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Adjust the Day, Week, or Month view
  • If you need to set any additional filters before printing, see Using filters to view your calendar
  • Open the print window
    • If you're using a PC, press the Control + P keys
    • If you're using a Mac, press the Command + P keys
  • Adjust the settings in the print window as needed and click Print

Troubleshooting missing appointments

If you're no longer able to find your appointments on your calendar, you can try these steps to troubleshoot:

Filtering your calendar by clinician

If your calendar is filtered to show appointments for specific clinicians, you can update your calendar filter to All Clinicians. This allows you to see all appointments on the calendar, regardless of the clinician assigned to the client.

To display appointments for all clinicians:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Open the team members dropdown menu
• Check the box next to All team members

Note: You can also click Select all next to Clinicians and scroll to click Select all next to Admins.

Changing your calendar filter to show all offices

If your calendar is filtered to show specific offices, you can update the calendar filter to All locations to locate appointments in all locations.

To filter your calendar by all office locations:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Click the locations filter dropdown
• Check the box next to All locations

Changing your calendar view to Month

To view all appointments in the current month, navigate to the Calendar and click Month. 

This allows you to see any appointments that may have been scheduled outside of the Calendar display hours set in your Settings > Scheduling > Calendar.

Checking Account Activity

If another team member in your practice may have updated the appointment you’re searching for on the calendar, we recommend checking your Account Activity log.

This log allows you to see any changes made in your account and can be accessed by clicking Activity on the left navigation menu.

Note: Account Owners and practice managers can view all Account Activity, while other team members can view their own activity. To learn more about Account Activity, see Account Activity: Tracking changes and information access in your account.