In SimplePractice, you can easily indicate the times you're available for existing and prospective clients to request appointments online. You can also specify the services offered during these times.

Before you begin setting up your availability, you’ll want to enable online appointment requests at Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client portal permissions. To learn more, see Enabling online appointment requests. 

In this guide, we'll cover:

• Setting up availability for the first time
• Viewing your availability schedule
• Creating additional availability blocks
• Editing availability blocks
• Deleting availability blocks
• Scheduling time between appointments
• Scheduling available appointments on the half hour
• Displaying availability without enabling online appointment requests
• Troubleshooting your availability 

Note: For answers to commonly asked questions about availability, see Managing your availability FAQs.

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Setting up availability for the first time

For many clinicians, setting your availability means setting your practice hours. For others, it might mean setting up specific blocks during which clients can request appointments online.

You can use our guided setup flow to set up your availability for online appointment requests. To do this:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Select the gear icon in the top right corner
• Choose Set up appointment requests
  • Set up appointment requests will only appear if you have at least one office location listed in Settings > Practice > Practice details

Note: You'll only see the option to Set up appointment requests if you don't have any existing availability blocks. If you previously created availability blocks, skip to the Creating additional availability blocks section.

• Set your Scheduling preferences
• Click Next

Note: Scheduling preferences can also be customized in Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client portal permissions. These settings apply to the entire practice and can only be set by the Account owner, clinicians with entire practice access, and practice managers. To learn more about the different scheduling options, see Enabling online appointment requests for your practice.

• Adjust the day(s) and times you’d like to make available for online appointment requests
  • Click the + icon to add an availability block
  • Click the copy blocks icon to duplicate an appointment block

Tip: If your practice hours are from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, you can create an availability block with these times that repeats for each day of the week you’re available. To prevent clients from scheduling during specific times, you can create a calendar event or out of office block.

• Choose when you want the availability block(s) to start and end
  • If this availability is temporary, you can select after or on date from the Ends dropdown to specify your desired end point
  • If this availability is open-ended, you can select never from the Ends dropdown

• Select the Location(s) associated with this availability
  • For more information on adding or editing an office location, see Adding office locations
• Review the services you’d like to offer during the availability block(s)
  • Services that are enabled for appointment requests in your practice settings will automatically populate under Services
  • Click Add service to search for or create a new service and add it to the availability block(s)
  • Click the - next to a service to make it unavailable for appointment requests

Note: If you'd like to create or make changes to a service, you can do so at Settings > Services and products > Services.

• Click Next
• Confirm your availability details and Save

Note: Any client appointments, out of office blocks, or events you schedule will automatically block off that time so it doesn't appear as available when clients request appointments online.

If you have multiple office locations and would like to offer different services at each location (for example, you only offer initial consultations via Telehealth), you can create separate, overlapping availability blocks for each location. To do this, see Creating additional availability blocks.

Note: If you’re enrolled in the Optum referral channel, you’ll see an optional step to enable in-network client referral sources by toggling on Allow referrals and clicking Done.

If you’re offering appointments to new clients, make sure your Accepting new clients status is toggled on. When this toggle is off, new clients won’t see any availability blocks you’ve created.

Note: In a solo practice, if you’ve already enabled Allow requests from new clients from Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client Portal permissions, the Accepting new clients status will automatically be enabled.

To update your Accepting new clients status:

• Navigate to the Inquiries page
• Click the gear icon
• Toggle on Accepting new clients

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Viewing your availability schedule

After creating availability blocks, you can view your available times directly on the Calendar or on the availability schedule.

From your calendar

When viewing your calendar, you’ll see white and gray areas that indicate your availability. The white area indicates your open availability, while the gray area indicates when you’re unavailable.

If you’d like to display your availability blocks directly on your calendar, you can click the gear icon > Show availability.

Once you’ve enabled Show availability, your availability blocks will be displayed as blue bars when viewing your calendar.

Note: The option to show availability on your calendar is part of a phased rollout, and may not be available yet in your account.

To view the details for a specific availability block, you can click the blue bar. From the Availability block flyout, select Edit to make changes to the selected availability block.

Make sure to click Save when making changes.

Note: The gray/white areas and blue availability bars are only visible when viewing a single clinician’s calendar in Day or Week mode. This applies if you’re viewing another clinician’s calendar in a group practice. If you need to view availability for multiple clinicians at once, you can select the team members from the All team members dropdown, then click the gear icon > View availability schedule to see all availability blocks in one place.

If you’d like to remove availability blocks from your calendar, you can click the gear icon > Hide availability.

From your availability schedule

If you’d like to view your availability schedule only, you can select the gear icon > View availability schedule. From here, you’ll see all existing availability blocks. You can click into each availability block to make changes, or click anywhere on your calendar to create a new availability block. To go back to your main Calendar view, click View calendar.

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Creating additional availability blocks

There are a few ways to add new availability blocks to your schedule.

Tip: If you’re getting started with creating availability for online appointment requests, see Setting up availability for the first time.

From the top navigation bar

• From the top navigation bar, click +
• Select Add availability

From your availability schedule

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Select the gear icon > View availability schedule 
• Click anywhere on the calendar to create a new availability block

From your calendar

Additionally, you’ll see the option to create availability directly on your calendar, even if Show availability isn’t enabled. To do this:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Click anywhere on your calendar 
• Select Availability

• Enter your availability details and click Set up availability

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Editing availability blocks

If you need to update your availability, you can do so at any time. To make changes to an existing availability block:

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Select the gear icon > View availability schedule

Note: If you’ve chosen to Show availability on your calendar, you can also select a blue bar and click Edit to make your changes. To learn more, see Viewing your availability schedule.

• Select the availability block you'd like to edit 
• Adjust the title, days, hours, Location(s), and/or Service(s) offered
  • If you'd like to modify when or how often the availability repeats, select Edit

• Once you’ve made your updates, click Save

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Deleting availability blocks

To delete your availability block(s):

• Navigate to the Calendar
• Select the gear icon > View availability schedule
• Select the availability block you'd like to delete
• Click the trash can icon

Note: If you’ve chosen to Show availability on your calendar, you can also select a blue bar, click Edit, and select the trash can icon. To learn more, see Viewing your availability schedule.

• Click Delete availability to confirm
• If the availability block is recurring, you can choose to delete:

• Click Delete

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Scheduling time between appointments

If your online appointment requests settings allow clients to request appointments by service duration, you can automatically schedule breaks in between sessions, or add extra buffer time for paperwork between clients.

For example, if you have a 50-minute appointment and would like 10 minutes after to prepare for your next session, you can include this buffer time in the service duration so that the appointment will block off 60 minutes.

Important: A service's Default Duration and buffer time must be equal to or less than the availability block’s total duration in order for a time slot to appear for online appointment requests.

To adjust a service's duration: 

• Navigate to Settings > Services and products > Services
• Select the service code you'd like to edit
• Make sure Available for online appointment requests is selected to see all Booking options 
• Indicate how many minutes you'd like to add as a buffer before and/or after the appointment

• Click Save

Note: We recommend only blocking off time before or after a service, not both. This will help keep your availability streamlined and make troubleshooting easier if issues arise.

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Scheduling available appointments on the half hour

You have the flexibility to customize your availability for online appointment requests as needed. 

To offer appointments that start at the beginning of every half hour, such as 9:30 AM, 10 AM, 10:30 AM, or 11 AM, follow these steps:

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client portal permissions
• Select On the half hour under Appointment start times

• Click Save changes

Note: To allow appointments to be scheduled every half hour, first check that availability blocks have been created for the appointment times you’d like to offer. For more information, see Setting up availability for the first time.

Alternatively, to offer appointments starting at the middle of each hour only, such as 9:30 AM, 10:30 AM, or 11:30 AM, follow these steps:

• Set up an availability block that begins in the middle of an hour
• Check in Settings > Services and products > Services that the service’s duration, combined with its buffer times, is equal to one hour

• Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client portal permissions
• Select Based on service duration under Appointment start times

• Click Save changes

Tip: You can customize the buffer times between services if you’d like your appointments to be bookable every 1.5 hours or at other custom times.

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Displaying availability without enabling online appointment requests

You can create availability blocks to display your availability for yourself or your team members, without making these times available for online appointment requests. To do this:

• Navigate to the Calendar 
• Select the gear icon > View availability schedule

• Click anywhere in the calendar to create an availability block
• Uncheck Allow online appointment requests

• Enter a title for your availability block and adjust the days, hours, and Location(s) as needed
• Click Save

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Troubleshooting your availability 

You can use the checklist below to make sure your availability appears for online appointment requests as expected:

Review your availability blocks

• Make sure that the availability blocks you've created have Allow online appointment requests selected.

Check for conflicting appointments

• Review your calendar to make sure that you don’t have any conflicting appointments or All day events blocking times from appearing as available.

Review daily appointment limits

• Check your daily appointment limits on your Availability schedule. Availability won’t display for online appointment requests on days that have the maximum number of appointments scheduled or requested.
  • For more information, see How can I limit the number of appointment requests I receive each day?

Review your online appointment requests settings

• Double check your online appointment requests settings at Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Client portal permissions. Make sure that your appointment slots work within the parameters that you’ve set up, including when clients can request appointments and if new clients can request appointments.

Check your Accepting new clients status

• If your availability isn’t appearing for new clients, make sure your Accepting new clients status is toggled on in the Inquiries page.
• This setting determines whether new clients can view available appointment times on the Client Portal or Professional Website, Monarch, and in-network referrals from health plans.

Check your services

• Check under Other appointment requests to see the services offered in the availability.
  • A service must be selected in an availability block to appear available to clients.

Review time blocked off before and after appointments

• Navigate to Settings > Services and products > Services and review the time you’ve added as a buffer before and/or after each service. Keep in mind that this buffer time is added to a service's duration, and that the total service duration (the Default Duration plus any time you've added as a buffer) must fit within an availability block to appear for online appointment requests.

Check your clinician’s blocks

• Make sure that you have separate availability blocks set up for each clinician in your group practice. Each block is designated for 1 clinician.

Consider using longer availability blocks

• Instead of having multiple, shorter availability blocks, consider creating one full-day block. A longer block for your entire workday will allow for more seamless booking.