The Calendar shows everything the AI books, everything your team books, and everything synced from your EHR. Open it from Schedule in the left navigation (clicking Schedule takes you straight to the Calendar).
Switch views
Use Day, Week and Month in the toolbar:
| View | Best for |
|---|---|
| Day | Working a single day, with every provider as a column |
| Week | Seeing the shape of the week and spotting open time |
| Month | An overview and jumping to a specific date |
Use the arrows to move and Today to jump back. The mini calendar lets you jump to any date.
Book a new appointment
- Click New appointment (or click an empty slot). The tabs across the top are Appointment, Group (a session with several clients, see Group sessions), Event, and Out of office.
- Pick the patient: search existing patients or enter a new one.
- Choose the service, provider, date and time. The Fee row shows the price that will be billed and where it comes from; type another amount to override it. The Video visit switch (when telehealth is on your plan) turns it into a video visit.
- Click Book appointment. It appears on the calendar immediately. Booking sends the patient nothing by itself; when reminders are turned on, they go out on the timing set on the Confirmations page and ask the patient to confirm.
Reschedule and edit
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Drag to reschedule: drop an appointment on a new time or provider column. FrontDesk asks you to confirm, and warns you when the new time conflicts. Moving a visit starts its reminders and confirmation over for the new time.
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Open to edit: click an appointment to change its service, provider, time, status or notes. If you change the status (the Attendance dropdown) and the visit's status changed after you opened it (the client replied NO, confirmed or asked for a new time, or a teammate changed it), nothing is saved: FrontDesk says what happened and the calendar reloads. A save that leaves the status alone goes through, and a NO the client sent meanwhile stays.
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Confirm: right-click an appointment and choose Confirm Appointment, or click Mark confirmed in the editor. If the client answered after the calendar loaded (they replied NO, confirmed, or asked for a new time), nothing changes: FrontDesk says what happened and the calendar reloads. The mobile app's Mark confirmed works the same way, on a visit, from a long press on the day's schedule, and on a client's next appointment. A group session is confirmed client by client, so the app offers no Mark confirmed on one.
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Cancel: open the appointment and click Cancel appt. Inside your cancellation window the Cancel dialog shows the late-cancellation fee, with an Apply fee switch to waive it.
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Let the client know: the Cancel dialog, the drag-and-drop Reschedule appointment dialog, and the editor (when you change the date or time) have this box, on by default. Ticked, FrontDesk tells the client about the cancellation, or the old and new time, one way only:
- By text when the client has a mobile number, allows texts and hasn't turned off their Cancellations (or Appointments) notices. Texts only go out between 8am and 9pm in the client's local time. A change made at night is texted the next morning, and that text is dropped if the visit changes again first (moved again, cancelled, or put back). Move a visit twice in one night and the client gets one text, from the time they knew to the newest one.
- By email when they can't be texted (no mobile number, or texts turned off) but have an email address and allow email. It comes from your practice email sender, which must be verified, and goes right away.
Nothing goes out for a visit whose time has passed. Untick the box to change the calendar without telling anyone. After the save FrontDesk says whether the client was texted or emailed, or that they will be texted at 8am their time. In the mobile app, Reschedule has the same Let the client know switch, and Cancel visit always tells the client this way (its confirmation says so); to cancel without telling them, use the web.
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The waitlist: cancelling or deleting a future appointment offers its time to your waitlist automatically, as a client's own cancellation does. Group sessions and blocked time aren't offered. To choose someone yourself, right-click the freed slot and choose Fill from waitlist.
athenahealth appointments reschedule and cancel in athenahealth, with a matching copy kept in FrontDesk. See Connect athenahealth.
Attendance, fees, and video
- Show / No-show on the hover card, or the Attendance dropdown in the editor, records what happened. Marking a visit completed captures its charge; see Charges and the Billing tab. When your cancellation policy would add a no-show fee, the hover card's No-show asks first, in a Mark no-show dialog with an Apply fee switch and a reason.
- Saving a no-show or a late cancellation shows the fee your cancellation policy will apply, with a switch to waive it. Putting a missed visit back on the calendar reverses its fee (a Reverse fee switch keeps it), and marking it completed always reverses it; a fee charged to the card needs Refund and waive.
- Rebooking a no-show (Reschedule on the Confirmations page or in the mobile app, for example with the reason No Show (rebook)) books the new visit and leaves the missed one a no-show, with its fee, so your reports still count it. In the mobile app the missed visit still reads No-show and has See the new visit.
- Right-click a video visit for Start video visit, Send video link, and Copy video link; right-click a group for Manage clients and Send video links.
- Right-click an empty slot and choose Fill from waitlist to find waiting clients who fit it.
Filter what you see
- All clinicians: narrow the calendar to one or more providers.
- More filters: filter by status and service.
- Location (the button showing your location name): on multi-location accounts, choose which location to show, or Show All Locations.
- Unconfirmed pill (for example "3 unconfirmed"): click it to dim confirmed appointments so the unconfirmed ones stand out. For full status tracking, see Confirm upcoming appointments.
The ⋯ menu
- Export CSV: download the appointments in the current view.
- Import calendar: upload an iCal (.ics) file from another calendar app or EHR.
- Print schedule: print the current view.
- Privacy: hide patient names on screen.
- Show availability: shade non-working hours.
- Block color: color appointments by Status, Service code or Clinician.
Good to know
- Everything lands here. AI-booked, online-booked, hand-booked and EHR-synced appointments all appear on the same calendar.
- More on the calendar. Weekly or monthly clients: Repeating visits. A provider away for a day or a week: Out of office. Preferences, keyboard shortcuts and column order: Customize your calendar. A table of visits with bulk assign and CSV: The Appointments list.
- Confirmations, reminders and the waitlist all work off what's on this calendar.
- A visit's provider works at its location. Booking, editing or moving a visit to a provider who isn't set to work at that location (Works at, under Settings → Providers) is refused, and so is an Event or Out of office block for them. A provider not set to work at any location yet can be booked and blocked out at any of yours. A visit keeps a provider who has since stopped working there until you change it.
- When a change is refused, by a drag, a resize or a save in the editor, FrontDesk says why.