To set up your Express system to enable online booking you will need to add Online Settings for your Practitioners, their Availability and your Appointment Types.
You will need to make at least one Practitioner, their Availability, and at least one Appointment Type available for Online Appointment Booking.
Please Note: You will need to be logged in to Express as the System Administrator to access and modify these settings.
This guide is for Express Only systems. If you use PPS Hosted or PPS Local then please refer to the Setting Up PPS for Online Appointment Booking guide.
Section 1 - User Settings
Navigate to the settings menu in the top right-hand corner and then select Users.
Select an existing user to modify or add a new user and enable the online booking settings by ticking the box labelled Display on Online Booking:
For more details on adding or modifying a user in Express please read this guide.
Section 2 - Diary Availability
In the System Settings menu again, select Diary Availability and here you will see all the practitioners that you have set up with their availability.
Find the practitioner's name and tick the boxes under the calendar icon to make all of the selected practitioner's availability visible for Online Booking or you can select to only make certain sessions available to book.
For example, if you have a practitioner that might work Tuesdays from 10am to 6pm but you only want to make certain times available for online bookings you could split that availability into 2 sessions as follows:
If you only tick one of those sessions for Online Booking availability then only that session will be available to book online.
The Online Booking Availability tick box will need to be ticked for any practitioners and any sessions that you want to make available to book online.
Section 3 - Appointment Types
In order for online booking to show appointment types available for online booking an appointment type profile needs to be set up. This can be done by going to the Appointment Types setting page.
From this page you can either create a new appointment type or manage the profile for an existing one that you want to be available for online booking. Appointment type profiles allow you to configure the practitioners that have access to them.
Appointment types that do not have a profile set up will show a red warning icon within the appointment type selection screen on the Online Booking settings page.
Section 4 - Configuring Online Booking
The Online Booking settings page can be used to configure the online booking form. From here you can customise which appointment types and practitioners you want to show within the online booking form along with other settings such as terms and conditions, privacy notice and colours.
Our Online Booking settings guide covers this page in more detail.
Section 5 - Integrating Online Booking into your Website
If you wish to integrate the online booking form into your website you can find the embedding code from the Online Booking settings page and then by clicking on the Embed Instructions button.
Please refer to our Integrating Online Booking into your website guide for more detailed instructions.
Section 6 - Viewing Appointments Booked Online Bookings in Express
When a client books an appointment through Online Booking, the appointment slot is reserved in your diary and any details the client entered during the booking process are recorded.
Depending on your auto match settings the appointment may already be matched to an existing client record. If an appointment has not been matched to a client record then it will need to be matched by a user in the system.
Appointments not matched to a client will appear as below in your diary.
When you click on the appointment you'll be shown the client matching screen. This will show you the details entered at the time of booking at the top and potential matches below. Any fields that match existing client records will be highlighted in green. From here you can match the appointment to an existing client or create a new client record.
To create a new client record you can click on the 'New Client' button in the top right. This will then carry over the already completed fields (firstname, surname, DOB, mobile, email) to the add new client screen. You can from here also edit any other fields if needed such as source of introduction, title etc.
Once the appointment has been matched to a client their name will then appear on the appointment.
Client notes
Clients booking an appointment have the option to leave additional notes using the 'Additional Notes' field at the bottom of the your details form within the online booking page.
These notes are then added to the appointment and can be viewed by either hovering the mouse over the appointment in the diary.
They will also appear within the appointment notes field when modifying the appointment.