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OutSmart Guide

Adding a Patient to the Waitlist

When a patient calls or visits the clinic and wants an appointment that you can’t immediately schedule, you can add them to the waitlist. The system will then watch the calendar for matching openings and show them on the Waitlist Dashboard Card so your team can act on them.

Where to Add a Patient

There are two places staff can add a patient to the waitlist:

Entry PointBest For
+ button on the Waitlist Dashboard CardMost common — you’re already viewing the waitlist or just need to queue someone
Find Availability in the calendarWhen you’ve just tried to find a slot and nothing fits — add them in the same flow

Both paths open the same Add to Waitlist panel and create the same kind of entry. See Find Availability Tool for the calendar-side flow.

Opening the Add Panel

  1. Open the Dashboard and locate the Waitlist Dashboard Card.
  2. Click the + (Add) button in the card header.
  3. The Add to Waitlist panel opens.

Walking Through the Form

Patient

Click the Patient dropdown and start typing the patient’s name. The list searches the entire office patient roster.

Practitioner(s)

  • If you’re logged in as a practitioner, this field is automatically set to you and locked. You can only add patients to your own waitlist.
  • If you’re logged in as admin staff, you can pick one or more practitioners from the multi-select dropdown.

When you select more than one practitioner, the entry is treated as a multi-practitioner entry — any matching slot on any of the selected practitioners’ calendars will appear on the dashboard, labelled with the relevant practitioner.

Appointment Type

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

Availability

Choose one of two modes:

ModeBehavior
Any available time (ASAP)Matches any opening regardless of day or period
Specific days/times onlyReveals the Days & Times grid below for the patient to specify preferences

Days & Times Grid

If you chose Specific days/times only, fill in the grid. Each cell represents one day-of-week (Mon–Sun) crossed with one period (AM / PM / Eve).

PeriodTime Range
AM6 am – 12 pm
PM12 pm – 5 pm
Eve5 pm – 9 pm

Tick every cell where the patient is available. OutSmart will only show slots that fall inside a ticked cell.

From / Until

Optional date pickers that limit the search window. Leave both empty to keep the entry open-ended.

  • From — earliest date the patient is available
  • Until — latest date the patient wants to be considered

OutSmart only shows slots whose start time falls inside this range. If you set Until and the date passes without a booking, the entry will eventually be flagged as expired.

Minimum Notice

How much advance warning the patient needs before an appointment. Choose from the dropdown (e.g., 24 hours, 48 hours, 1 week). Slots opening up sooner than this won’t be shown for this entry.

Notify By

Tick the channels the patient is open to being contacted on:

  • Email — auto-filled with the patient’s email on file
  • SMS — auto-filled with the patient’s mobile number
  • Phone Call — for staff to call out manually

The phone and email fields are editable. Any changes you make here are saved to the patient’s contact record for future use.

Notes (optional)

Internal staff notes. These are visible to anyone with access to the entry but are not visible to the patient.

Saving the Entry

Click Add to Waitlist to save. The panel closes, the entry is created, and the dashboard card refreshes to show it.

If the system detects that the patient already has an active entry for the same appointment type, you’ll see a warning before saving — you can either replace the existing entry or cancel.

What Happens After You Save

  • The entry appears immediately on the Waitlist Dashboard Card under the Available tab if matching slots exist, or No Availability if not.
  • The system runs a background check against the next 6 months of the practitioner’s calendar to find matches.
  • The entry colour reflects its bookability (green / orange / red) based on what was found.
  • No automatic email or text is sent to the patient — staff manually decides when to notify. See Notifying a Waitlist Patient.

Editing an Existing Entry

To change the practitioner, appointment type, or preferences on an existing entry, click the actions menu (the three-dot button) on the entry card and choose Edit. The same form opens with the existing values pre-filled. See Managing Waitlist Entries.

Troubleshooting

”This practitioner does not offer X” error on save

The practitioner you selected doesn’t offer the chosen appointment type. Pick a different practitioner, or pick a different appointment type. Practitioner-specific event types only belong to their owner — admins cannot assign them to anyone else.

Patient is already on the waitlist for this appointment type

A patient can have at most one active entry per appointment type. The duplicate warning gives you the option to replace the existing entry with the new one, which discards the old preferences and saves the new ones.

The patient isn’t in the dropdown

  • Check spelling, try searching by last name only
  • Confirm the patient is linked to this office — they may exist in your system but be associated with a different office
  • If they’re a new patient, create them in OutSmart first, then come back to the waitlist