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OutSmart Guide

Waitlist Settings

The Waitlist setting on your online booking page controls one specific thing: whether patients see a Join Waitlist link when they visit your online booking page. With the toggle off, patients can only book appointments at times you have available. With it on, they get a fallback when nothing matches their needs — they can join the waitlist instead of leaving without booking.

What This Setting Does

When the Waitlist setting is on:

  • A bell icon and “None of these work? Join waitlist” link appears at the bottom of the next-availability panel for every service.
  • After a patient completes a booking, they’re also offered the option to join the waitlist (for example, for sooner openings that may come up).
  • Patients see a Join Waitlist panel that walks them through choosing a practitioner, preferred days/times, date range, minimum notice, and notification preferences.
  • Entries created by patients land on your Waitlist Dashboard Card just like staff-added entries.

When the setting is off, the Join Waitlist link is hidden everywhere on the online booking page. Patients can still book any appointment that’s available, but they have no option to join a waitlist for one that isn’t.

Enabling the Waitlist

  1. Open your online booking page in edit mode (logged in with appropriate permissions).
  2. Click the Settings (gear) icon in the header to open the settings dropdown.
  3. Scroll to the Waitlist section.
  4. Toggle Enable Waitlist to on.

The setting saves automatically, and the Join Waitlist link becomes visible to patients immediately.

Subscription Requirements

The Waitlist setting depends on your subscription. If your office’s subscription doesn’t include the waitlist feature, the toggle appears but is disabled with a notice — you’ll need to upgrade your subscription to turn it on.

Contact us at contact.outsmartemr.com if you’d like to enable the waitlist on a plan that doesn’t currently include it.

Per-Office, Not Global

The Waitlist setting is per office. If you have multiple offices in OutSmart, each office’s online booking page has its own toggle and can be configured independently. An office is responsible for opting in for itself — there is no “platform-wide” enabling of the waitlist.

Who Can Change This Setting

You need edit access to the online booking page to change the Waitlist setting. That includes:

  • The office owner
  • Admin staff at the office
  • A practitioner on their own practitioner-priority booking page (their personal page only)

Everyone else viewing the booking page sees the public view, not the editor, so no toggle is visible to them.

You also need to have an online booking page set up in the first place. If you haven’t, see Online Booking Getting Started — it walks through setting up your booking handle, accessing your booking page, and getting into edit mode.

What Patients See When the Waitlist Is Enabled

For details on the patient-side experience — exactly what they see and the panel they walk through — see How Patients Join the Waitlist.

Where Patient-Added Entries Go

Any waitlist entry created by a patient through online booking lands on your Waitlist Dashboard Card under the appropriate practitioner. From there, your staff can search, sort, notify, and book just as they would with any staff-added entry.

Best Practices

  • Enable the waitlist if your calendar tends to fill up quickly — it captures patients who would otherwise leave your booking page empty-handed.
  • Make sure your Waitlist Dashboard Card is on at least one staff member’s dashboard before turning the setting on, so patient entries are seen and acted on.
  • Standardize who handles waitlist follow-up before going live — your front desk, your practitioners, or both — so entries don’t sit unattended.
  • The waitlist is a manual workflow — see the Waitlist Overview for how that works.

Troubleshooting

The Waitlist toggle is greyed out

Your subscription doesn’t include the waitlist feature. Contact us at contact.outsmartemr.com to discuss upgrade options.

  • Refresh the booking page — the patient view may be cached
  • Confirm you’re testing in a private/incognito browser window (so you see the public view, not edit mode)
  • Verify the toggle saved — re-open the settings dropdown to check

Patient entries aren’t showing on my dashboard card

  • Confirm the Waitlist Dashboard Card is added to your dashboard
  • If you’re logged in as a practitioner, you only see entries assigned to you — log in as admin to see every entry in the office
  • Check the Expired tab — if the patient’s preferences resolved to an appointment type that’s since been deleted, the entry will be there