Filling canceled appointment slots

If a client’s appointment is canceled, you can offer the appointment's time slot to up to 3 clients using the Cancellation recovery feature. Each client will have a set time to respond. The first client to accept the offer will automatically be scheduled for the available slot.

Note: This feature is only available for the Essential and Plus plans.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Setting up Cancellation recovery
• Offering a time slot from a canceled appointment
• How clients receive offers
• Tracking and stopping offers
• Updating your Cancellation recovery settings

Note: This feature is being released in phases. If you don't currently see this feature in your account, it'll become available as the rollout continues.

Setting up Cancellation recovery

When a future appointment is marked as Canceled, Late canceled, or Clinician canceled, the appointment will appear with a Fill Slot button.

Note: Fill Slot will also appear in the appointment’s flyout. 

The Fill Slot button will only be available in the following conditions:

• The calendar is in the Day or Week view
• The initial appointment is scheduled more than 2 hours away
  • If the appointment is intended to occur within 2 hours, the button won’t be available
• You have permissions to edit the initial appointment

When you click Fill Slot for the first time, you’ll view an introduction to the Cancellation recovery feature:

1. Review the Overview of the feature
2. Click Next
3. If you’re the Account Owner or practice manager, you can:
   • Choose whether your practice’s offer type will be Exclusive or Non-exclusive:
     • Exclusive: Each client has a set window to accept their offer before it expires and passes to the next client
     • Non-exclusive: Offers are open to all notified clients until a client accepts the slot or the expiration time is reached
     • Offers will be sent to one client at a time under both offer types
       • For more information, see How clients receive offers
   • Select the Offer staggering duration for your practice, which determines how long a client will have till an offer is made to the next client
     • You can choose 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, or 6 hours

Note: If you’re not the Account Owner or practice manager, you’ll only view the selected practice settings for Cancellation recovery during this step. If these haven’t been selected by the Account Owner or a practice manager, the default settings are the Exclusive offer type with an offer staggering duration of 1 hour. 

4. Click Next
5. Choose between Email or SMS Text to see how an offer message will appear

Important: A client will receive their offer based on their contact permissions. They can either receive the offer via email, text, or both methods. For more information, see How clients receive offers. 

6. Click Try it now

After setting up Cancellation recovery, the Account Owner or practice manager can update the practice’s offer type and offer staggering duration in the settings. For more information, see Updating your Cancellation recovery settings.

Offering a time slot from a canceled appointment

After setting up Cancellation recovery, you can offer the canceled appointment’s time slot to your clients.

Selecting which clients to offer a time slot

To offer the time slot to clients, you’ll begin by determining which clients will receive an offer:

1. Click Fill Slot for the canceled appointment
   • If you had just set up Cancellation recovery, you won’t need to re-click Fill Slot
2. Review the location and service of the appointment, under the appointment’s date and time
   • If this needs to be updated, click the pencil icon and select the appropriate option

Important: Once you’ve sent your offers, the location and service can’t be changed while the offer is in progress. After a client accepts, you’ll be able to update the newly created appointment, if needed.

3. Click Search clients and choose a client

Note: If you have clients in your waitlist, one or more of these clients may be suggested based on their preferences. To add a waitlisted client, click the waitlist client(s) suggested field and select + next to the client’s name.

4. Repeat the steps above to add up to 3 clients
   • This will form a queue of eligible clients for the time slot
5. If needed, you can change the order in which clients will be offered the time slot:
   • Click the six dots next to a client’s name
   • Drag the client up or down

Once you’ve determined which clients should receive the offer, click Next. The Next button becomes available after you’ve added at least 1 client.

Reviewing and sending offer messages to clients

After choosing your clients, you can preview a prewritten message that clients will see when offered the time slot. This message contains the date and time of the appointment.

Note: At this time, the prewritten message can’t be edited. 

Above the prewritten message, the offer staggering duration will also be mentioned as the time each client has before the next client is notified.

Once you’ve previewed this: 

1. Enter text in the Additional Message field, if needed
   • This text will be added below the prewritten message
2. Click Next
3. Review the following:
   • The date and time, location, and service of the appointment
   • The order in which clients will receive their offer
   • The email address and/or phone number displayed under each client’s name
   • The full offer message
4. When you’re ready to send your offers, click Send message to [X] client(s)

Note: If needed, you can click Back to edit the location and service of the appointment, which clients will receive the offer, or the additional message.

How clients receive offers

After sending your message, the first client in the queue will immediately receive an offer based on their contact permissions. For example, if your practice only has permission to contact a client by email, that client will only receive their offer by email.

Note: If your practice has consent to send both emails and texts to a client, that client will receive the offer through both email and text. To review the contact permissions for a client, see the Contact details section of Client Info. 

If offered by email, the email will be sent from service@simplepractice.com. The email will include: 

• The date and time of the appointment
• An option to Accept Appointment
• An option to Decline Appointment

If offered by text, an SMS will be sent with the date and time of the appointment. A client can reply with 1 to accept the appointment, or 2 to decline.

Once the first offer is sent, the canceled appointment block will temporarily appear with the label OFFER PENDING.

Note: You can click on a pending block to track your offers. For more information, see Tracking and stopping offers.

After your offer staggering duration, the next client will receive the offer. Once a client has accepted the offer:

1. A new appointment for the client will be added to the time slot, and the original canceled appointment will remain on the calendar

2. Any other client that attempts to accept or decline the appointment will see a message indicating that the appointment is no longer available

Depending on your offer type, a client’s offer will expire in the following conditions: 

• Exclusive: The offer stagger duration elapses 
• Non-exclusive: 24 hours after the first client’s offer was sent, or 2 hours before the appointment start time (whichever comes first)

If all offers are declined or expire, the pending block will revert to the original canceled appointment block. If the canceled appointment is scheduled to start in more than 2 hours, you can click Fill Slot for the appointment to re-offer it to other clients.

Tracking and stopping offers

Clicking a pending block will open the Offer Tracker flyout, which will include the following information:

• Appointment details (e.g. location, service code)
• Which clients were selected for the time slot
• Whether an offer has been sent and/or declined
• A live countdown before offer(s) expire

If your practice uses the Exclusive offer type, a live countdown will be featured for the client that currently has an active offer.

If your practice uses the Non-exclusive offer type, a live countdown will indicate when all offers will expire for the time slot.

You can also stop offers from being sent for a time slot. To do this, click Stop Offer.

Note: You can click Stop Offer for a time slot as long as you have permissions to edit its initial appointment. This option is not exclusive to the initial appointment’s rendering clinician, or the team member who originally scheduled the appointment.

When you click Stop Offer: 

• Any client that attempts to accept or decline the appointment will see a message indicating that the appointment is no longer available
• No further offers will be sent to clients
• The pending block will revert to the original canceled appointment block

If the canceled appointment is scheduled to start in more than 2 hours, you can click Fill Slot for the appointment to re-offer it to other clients.

Updating your Cancellation recovery settings

The ability to fill a canceled appointment slot will automatically be enabled for your account. To disable this throughout your account, the Account Owner or practice manager can:

1. Navigate to Settings > Scheduling and inquiries > Cancellation recovery
2. Click the toggle next to Cancellation recovery

Important: Toggling off Cancellation recovery will stop all offers currently in progress.

In these settings, the Account Owner or practice manager also be able to select another offer type under Exclusive or non-exclusive offers, and select another offer staggeration duration in the dropdown menu.

Note: Updates to your settings won’t affect offers that were scheduled prior to making your changes.