Direct Booking Availability

Otto has multiple mechanisms to help ensure your clients can only see the right time slots for the right appointment types that work for your clinic.

Start Time Increments

Various start times are available depending on the Practice Management System. Note that the duration of a given Appointment Type needs to be compatible (e.g., 20 minute increments are not compatible with 45 minute appointments).

Advance Booking Limitations

Advance Booking Limitations allow clinics to restrict how far in the future clients can book appointments (e.g., no more than 30 days out).

Existing Clients or New Clients

A particular appointment type can be disabled for new clients or only available to new clients. Check with your Clinic Success Manager to see how your Practice Management System integration handles creating new clients. 

Booking Delay

Add a booking delay to ensure a new appointment doesn't surprise you by adding a minimum amount of time in the future a booking must be created. 

Exclusionary Time Slots

Exclusion rules can be based on:

• One or more appointment types
• One or more providers
• Recurring days and times throughout the week

Important caveats related to exclusions:

• Holiday Hours do not impact Direct Booking Availability. If you want Otto to restrict bookings during your clinic's off hours, then you must create exclusionary time slots that match. For more information, see Holiday (Alternate) Hours 🎄.
• Exclusionary Time Slots are not synced with Practice Management System calendar templates (e.g., Cornerstone Templates or ezyVet Planning Guides). These templates must be manually replicated as Exclusionary Time Slots in Otto.
• Exclusionary slots work best for regular, repeating patterns. Ad-hoc or irregular events may require  more frequent updates.
• For clinics with highly specific booking patterns (e.g., only allow :15 and :45 for a certain doctor), exclusionary slots can become complex and require more frequent updates.
• Exclusionary slots are stored and calculated in UTC, but displayed in the device’s local timezone in the UI. This can cause confusion if staff are in a different timezone than the clinic, etc.