Skip to content
OutSmart Guide

Find Availability Tool

The Find Availability tool lives in the calendar toolbar and lets you search up to 12 months ahead for available appointment slots that fit a patient’s preferences (specific days, periods of the day, practitioners, appointment type). When the search returns matches, you can click any slot to immediately draft an appointment with the patient pre-filled. If nothing fits, you can drop the patient on the waitlist in the same flow — no re-typing.

It uses the same matching engine as the Waitlist Dashboard Card, so it understands the same set of preferences.

Opening Find Availability

  1. Open the Calendar.
  2. Click the magnifying-glass icon in the calendar toolbar (top-right).
  3. A small dropdown appears with two options:
    • Search Calendar — the original calendar search (find existing events)
    • Find Availability — opens the panel described in this article
  4. Click Find Availability.

The Three-Stage Flow

The Find Availability panel walks through three stages, all within the same window:

StageWhat You SeePrimary Action
1. SearchThe full form (patient, practitioner, appointment type, preferences, date range)Find Availabilities
2. ResultsThe form + a list of matching slots belowNone of these work — Add to Waitlist (or click any slot)
3. WaitlistThe form + extra waitlist-only fieldsConfirm — Add to Waitlist

You can re-run the search at any time by clicking Find Availabilities again — that returns you to Stage 2.

Stage 1: The Search Form

Every field collects information about what the patient is looking for.

Patient

Pick the patient from the dropdown. Searches the full office patient roster.

Practitioner(s)

Multi-select. Pick one or more practitioners you want to search across.

  • If you’re logged in as a practitioner, this is pre-filled with you (and locked).
  • If you’re logged in as admin staff, you start with an empty picker.
  • Practitioners with private calendars or who have Authorize Changes to Calendar turned off are hidden from other practitioners’ pickers. Admin staff see everyone.

When you pick more than one practitioner, the search fans out — slots are returned from every selected practitioner, and each slot is tagged with the practitioner it belongs to so you know who is open.

Appointment Type

Pick the type of appointment. The dropdown is filtered to only show types the selected practitioner(s) offer.

Urgency

Choose Any available time for an ASAP-style search (matches any opening), or Specific days/times only to reveal the Days & Times grid.

Days & Times Grid

Visible when Specific days/times only is selected. Tick every day-of-week × period (AM / PM / Eve) cell where the patient is open.

From / Until Date Range

Two optional date pickers, always visible (regardless of urgency mode). Limits the search to slots starting inside the window. Leave both empty to search across the next 12 months.

Find Availabilities

Click Find Availabilities to run the search. OutSmart scans up to 12 months of availability for each selected practitioner, applies the day/period/date-range filters, and returns up to 15 matching slots.

Stage 2: The Slot List

When the search returns matches, a list of slot buttons appears below the form, grouped by date. OutSmart returns slots day-by-day in chronological order, and never cuts a day off mid-list — you’ll always see every available time for a given day before moving on.

Each slot button shows:

  • Time (e.g., 9:30 AM)
  • For multi-practitioner searches, the practitioner name on a second line

Clicking a Slot

Click any slot button to start a draft appointment:

  1. The panel closes
  2. The calendar navigates to the chosen day
  3. The event editor panel opens with the appointment pre-filled — patient, practitioner, appointment type, start time, end time (based on the type’s duration)

From there, the booking flow is identical to creating an event manually — review the details, optionally add notes, and click Save or Save and Send. See Booking Events for the rest of the flow.

When No Slots Are Found

If the search returns nothing, you’ll see a message saying no matches were found. The None of these work — Add to Waitlist button is still available so you can queue the patient for future openings.

Stage 3: The Add to Waitlist Branch

Click None of these work — Add to Waitlist (visible in Stage 2 regardless of whether matches were found) to reveal the waitlist-only fields. The slot list hides — slots and waitlist fields are mutually exclusive within the panel.

You’ll see two extra fields on top of the search form:

Minimum Notice

How much advance warning the patient needs before an appointment. Choose from the dropdown.

Notify By

Tick the channels the patient is open to being contacted on (Email / SMS / Phone Call).

Notes (optional)

Internal staff notes.

Confirm — Add to Waitlist

Click to save the waitlist entry. The entry uses every field from the search form (patient, practitioner(s), appointment type, days/times, date range) plus the waitlist-only fields you just filled in. After saving, the panel closes and the entry is immediately visible on the Waitlist Dashboard Card.

When to Use Find Availability vs. the Add to Waitlist Panel

Both tools share most of the same form. The right choice depends on what you’re trying to do:

GoalUse This
Find an opening that fits a patient’s preferencesFind Availability
Drop a patient on the waitlist with no search neededAdd to Waitlist panel (dashboard card +)
Search, and if nothing fits, queue them anywayFind Availability
Already know the patient wants a specific timeCalendar — book directly

The Find Availability tool is essentially the calendar-side companion to the Add to Waitlist panel — built for the workflow where staff want to check first, queue second.

Both Outcomes in One Visit

The panel doesn’t let you book a slot AND queue the patient at the same time — those are mutually exclusive within a single pass. If you want both (book a slot for now, hedge with a waitlist entry in case something better opens up), do it in two passes:

  1. Open Find Availability, run the search, click the slot you want, complete the calendar booking
  2. Re-open Find Availability for the same patient, click None of these work — Add to Waitlist, and confirm the waitlist entry

Limitations

  • Search looks 12 months ahead. Anything beyond a year out won’t show up.
  • OutSmart returns up to 15 slots, never cutting a day in half. If a day’s openings push the count past 15, that day’s slots all appear and the next day is dropped.
  • Slots can be taken between display and click. The booking flow re-checks at save time, so you won’t accidentally double-book — but you may occasionally see a “slot no longer available” message after clicking.
  • No “any practitioner” auto-expand from the staff side. You always pick the specific practitioners to search across. (Patients self-adding through online booking can use the “any available practitioner” option from their side.)

Troubleshooting

Find Availability isn’t in the magnifying-glass dropdown

Find Availability is part of the standard OutSmart calendar (Calendar 2.0). If your clinic is still using the older Calendar 1.0, this tool isn’t available — switching to Calendar 2.0 makes it appear in the toolbar dropdown.

A practitioner I expect to see isn’t in the dropdown

  • Their calendar may be set to Private (Calendar Visibility = Private) — they’re hidden from other practitioners’ pickers
  • They may have Authorize Changes to Calendar turned off — also hidden
  • Admin staff see everyone regardless; if you don’t see someone as an admin, double-check their account is active and linked to this office

Find Availability returns nothing for what looks like a wide-open calendar

  • Check your selected days and periods — narrow preferences combined with a small practitioner pool can produce no matches even when slots exist
  • Check the Hours of Operation for the selected practitioners — slots only appear inside Hours of Operation
  • Check the From / Until date range — slots outside the range won’t show
  • Try switching to Any available time to see if there’s any opening at all

Slot click opens the wrong panel or shows an empty area

This is rare and indicates the drafted-event hand-off failed. Close the calendar, click the slot again, and the booking should draft correctly. If it persistently fails, refresh the page.