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OutSmart Guide

Booking a Patient From the Waitlist

Once a waitlisted patient has confirmed they want a particular opening, you can book the appointment directly from the Waitlist Dashboard Card — no need to switch to the calendar. The card creates the appointment, marks the waitlist entry as fulfilled, and (optionally) sends the patient the same confirmation email they’d receive from online booking.

Finding the Slot

On the Waitlist Dashboard Card, expand the entry by clicking its slot summary tag. A list of matching slot times appears, grouped by date.

For multi-practitioner entries, each slot button is labelled with the practitioner that slot belongs to (e.g., “9:30 AM with Dr. Smith”). The slot you pick determines which practitioner the appointment is booked with.

Booking the Slot

Click any slot button. A confirmation panel opens with three choices:

ButtonWhat It Does
BookCreates the appointment. No email or text is sent. Use when you’ve already confirmed with the patient over the phone.
Book and Send ConfirmationCreates the appointment and sends the patient the standard online-booking confirmation email (intake forms, attachments, custom message — whatever is configured for that event type).
CancelCloses the panel without booking.

What “Book and Send Confirmation” Includes

If you’ve configured the event type with a confirmation package (intake forms, document attachments, custom message), the patient will receive everything as part of the confirmation email. This is identical to the Save and Send flow when booking from the calendar.

See Appointment Confirmations for what goes into the confirmation package.

After Booking

Once the booking succeeds:

  • The appointment appears in the calendar at the chosen time
  • The waitlist entry’s status is set to booked and it disappears from the active list
  • The booked slot is removed from any other waitlist entries that were showing it (so two patients can’t both be offered the same slot)
  • If you chose Book and Send Confirmation, the email is sent

When the Slot Has Already Been Taken

The card refreshes availability as you load it, but slots can be booked by other channels (the calendar, online booking, another staff member) in the seconds between when you opened the card and when you clicked the slot. The system re-checks before actually booking.

If the slot has been taken by then, you’ll see a “Slot No Longer Available” error. The slot disappears from the entry, the card refreshes its availability, and you can pick a different slot.

Failed Bookings

If the booking fails for any other reason (calendar conflict, room not available, system error), an error message explains why. The waitlist entry stays unchanged so you can try again.

If the Send Confirmation part fails after the booking already succeeded, you’ll see a warning toast — the appointment is still booked, but no email was sent. You can manually send the confirmation later from the calendar by clicking the event and selecting Send Confirmation.

Marking an Entry as Booked Without Creating an Appointment

If the patient was booked through some other channel (e.g., directly in the calendar by another staff member, or you’ve already manually created the appointment), you can mark the waitlist entry as fulfilled without creating a new appointment.

Use the Mark as Booked action from the entry’s three-dot menu. See Managing Waitlist Entries.

Best Practices

  • Always confirm with the patient first before clicking a slot — the booking is immediate and there is no undo button (you’d have to cancel the appointment in the calendar).
  • Use Book and Send Confirmation for new patients or any appointment with intake forms — the patient gets the same package they would have through online booking.
  • Use Book (without confirmation) when you’ve just had the patient on the phone and they don’t need a follow-up email.
  • If you have multi-practitioner entries, check the practitioner label on each slot before clicking — you’re committing the patient to whichever practitioner the slot belongs to.

Troubleshooting

The patient confirmed by email but I clicked the wrong slot

The booking is now a regular calendar appointment. Open it in the calendar and either reschedule or cancel it. See Editing Events and Deleting & Recovering Events.

I clicked Book but nothing happened

Check the entry card after a couple of seconds — if the entry has been removed, the booking succeeded silently. If an error message appeared, it will name the issue. If neither happened, refresh the dashboard.

The confirmation didn’t go out

Check whether the event type has a custom confirmation message configured. With no message, the confirmation package (intake forms, attachments) is not sent. See Appointment Confirmations.