Holiday (Alternate) Hours 🎄

The ability to set Holiday or Alternate Hours in Flow is here! 

Table of Contents:

• Step-by-Step Guide & How it Works
• How Holiday (Alternate) Hours work with Out-Of-Office Settings
• "You have an upcoming conflict in your Holiday Hours"
• FAQ

Step-by-Step Guide & How it Works

Step 1. Navigate into your Flow's Clinic Hours settings by going to Settings > Clinic Settings > Clinic Hours 

Under your existing clinic hours, there is now a Holiday (Alternate) Hours section. Here you have the ability to set alternate hours to communicate to your clients that you are closed. Holiday (Alternate) Hours can override your normal clinic hours, if set on a normally open clinic day. 

Holiday (Alternate) Hours will not override your automatic messages e.g. Appointment Scheduled, Appointment Reminders, Post-visit surveys, ect. Additionally, they will not override any Direct Booking settings, should you have this feature enabled through Otto. 

Holiday (Alternate) Hours will override your normal Clinic Hours, if the closure you set up overlaps. 

See below for an example!

Step 2: Select "+ Add New Date" 

Step 3: Selecting "+ Add New Date" will open this pop up to set up your closure. You have the ability to name it, set a starting date and options for repeat. Select "Done" when you're happy with the set up to create a new closure.

Repeating options:

Step 4: Be sure to hit "Save" at the bottom of the page when you're happy with your set up

This is an example of a new all day closure. In 2025, December 25th falls on a Thursday. If your practice is normally open on Thursdays, this setting will override that and prompt any Out of Office messages to your clients instead. 

Step 5: Once a closure is saved, you have the option to select the toggle icon to open this pop up. This will give you the ability to select a time window your practice may be open, rather than closed all day.

In this example, my clinic will be open Thursday, Christmas Day from 8:00am - 12:00pm, but will be closed the remainder of the day. See in the above Clinic Hours that we would normally be open from 8:00am - 5:00pm. 

All done!

When you're happy with your closure schedule, scroll down to the 'Out-of-Office Settings' section of the Clinic Hours page to review or edit what your clients will see when your practice is closed. 

How Holiday (Alternate) Hours work with Out-Of-Office Settings

At this time, we do not support custom out of office messages per Holiday (Alternate) Hours closure. The message set up here will show to your clients any time your office is closed, so it's important to keep it generic if you don't plan to return to the Clinic Hours Settings page to update it after the closure.

In this example, it is Tuesday 10/21/25 and while my test clinic is normally open on Tuesdays, I've created an all day closure:

Should I have my 'Include Clinic Hours in out of office message' toggled on:

Clients will see the following when they go to their Otto App or pet portal conversation:

Selecting 'View Hours' will open this pop up. Note that there is an asterisk (*) next to Tuesday, indicating this day of the week has Holiday (Alternate) Hours set up: 

Selecting 'View Normal Hours' will show this additional pop up:

This will help your clients understand that you're closed on a particular date that is normally open.

Example 1: In the above example, I have 2 closures set up - "Christmas Day Holiday" and "All Day Staff Training". Both are to begin on Monday 10/13/25 and both are set to repeat weekly on Monday. It will be necessary to edit either closure so that it's clear when you're closed and why. 

You'll see there is an alert icon beside "Christmas Day Holiday", hovering over this icon with your mouse shows this:

This means that without any changes made, "All Day Staff Training" will take priority and "Christmas Day Holiday" will be overwritten. 

Example 2: In the below example, I have two closures set up for the same day. While the specific times are different and don't overlap, you'll see that the conflict error appears:

This is because a conflict will occur if two closures are set to the same day. At this time, it is not possible to have more than one closure set per day. 

More in depth: We support various repeating schedules with this feature

Because of this, we needed to create a priority ranking between these, in the event you accidentally attempt to save a closure that conflicts with an existing one already created. 

If a closure is created and causes a conflict error to show, this is how our system considers which will take priority:

1. Specific date (non-repeating)
2. Repeat yearly on specific date
3. Repeats every nth Thursday of the month
4. Repeats every other Thursday
5. Repeats weekly
6. Repeats every Thursday
7. Regular office hour configuration
8. If two alternate hour settings have the same priority the last created one will win

FAQ

1. Do I need to change my clinic hours if I'm adding a holiday closure? 

   No need to change your clinic hours if you're just wanting to create a new closure under Holiday Hours. If the closure you create under Holiday Hours overlaps with a day you may be closed or open in Clinic Hours, Holiday Hours will take priority. 

2. What is affected by adding a holiday closure?

   The following is affected by adding a holiday closure: Clinic Hours, Out-Of-Office Settings & Text Message OOO Responses. 

3. What is not affected by adding a holiday closure?

   Automatic appointment messages around appointment scheduled confirmations, appointment reminders, appointment follow ups, surveys, Direct Booking, & Website Widget Display Time Settings.

4. Can I set a custom out of office message to inform my clients about the closure?

   At this time, it is not possible to set a custom out of office message per holiday closure. We only support one out of office message to be set up at a time. 

5. If I don't fix a conflicting closure, what will happen?

   If you see 'You have an upcoming conflict in your Holiday Hours' and nothing is changed, our system will pick the event that is priority and apply it. See 'You have an upcoming conflict in your Holiday Hours' section above for examples and a list of priority order events. 

    

6. Will my Direct Booking still show available appointments if I set a holiday closure?

   Yes, Direct Booking is not affected by holiday closures at this time. Should you be preparing for a holiday or alternate hours of operation, it is necessary to create block offs in your pims schedule so dates & times are shown unavailable as you'd expect. 

7. How will my website widget be affected if I add a closure?

   There will not be any affect to your website widget if a holiday closure is created. 

8. What's the benefit of using Holiday (Alternate) Hours rather than just changing clinic hours?

   Before we supported Holiday (Alternate) Hours, it was necessary for a clinic to change their Clinic Hours and remember to manually change them back after the closure is complete. With Holiday (Alternate) Hours, it's possible to set a closure and clearly communicate to your clients when you're open, when you're closed temporarily, and what your normal business hours are -- without having to remember to return to your settings and change things back.