The Waitlist Dashboard Card
The Waitlist Dashboard Card is where you and your staff work the waitlist day-to-day. It lists every active entry, tags each one based on whether matching openings exist in your calendar, and gives you one-click access to contact the patient, book them in, or remove the entry.
Adding the Card to Your Dashboard
Any practitioner or admin can add the Waitlist card to their dashboard. There’s no feature toggle to flip first, no special permission to request, and no admin involvement needed — adding the card is all you need to do to start managing waitlist entries.
The card is added the same way as any other dashboard card:
- From the Dashboard, click the Dashboard Cards Menu at the top.
- Select Waitlist from the list of available cards.
- The card is added to your dashboard. You can drag it by the handle in the top-left to reposition it, and use the more options button to resize it.
Card Header
The header at the top of the card holds all the controls for finding and organizing entries.
| Control | Purpose |
|---|---|
| + (Add button) | Opens the Add to Waitlist panel for creating a new entry |
| Search patient… | Filter the visible entries by patient name |
| Sort by | Re-order the visible entries (default: Bookable First) |
| Funnel (filter) icon | Opens the filter panel for narrowing by practitioner and appointment type |
| Refresh icon | Re-runs the availability check against the live calendar |
| More options icon | Card-level options (resize, remove) |
Sorting
Click the Sort by dropdown to change how entries are ordered:
- Bookable First (default) — entries with matching openings rise to the top, followed by entries with no matches; within a group, higher priority first
- Date Added — newest entries at the top
- Patient Name — alphabetical by patient last name
Filtering
Click the funnel icon to open the filter panel. Available filters depend on your role:
| Role | Filters Available |
|---|---|
| Admin staff | Practitioner (multi-select) + Appointment Type |
| Practitioner | Appointment Type only (always limited to their own entries) |
Selecting one or more practitioners narrows the appointment-type dropdown to only show types those practitioners offer.
Searching
The Search patient… field filters the visible entries by patient name as you type. It searches across first and last names and works alongside the active tab and filter selections.
The Four Tabs
Just below the header, four tabs let you switch between views of the waitlist. Each tab has a count badge showing how many entries match that view across the whole list (not just the current page).
| Tab | What It Shows | When to Use It |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Entries with matching slots in the next 6 months | Daily action list — these patients can be booked now |
| No Availability | Entries with no matching slots in the next 6 months | Revisit when your schedule changes, or contact to adjust preferences |
| Aging | Entries added more than 90 days ago | Periodic clean-up — confirm patients still want to wait |
| Expired | Entries that can no longer be booked (e.g., the appointment type was deleted, or the date range has passed) | Remove or re-create with a current type |
Patient Rows
Each row groups all of a patient’s waitlist entries together, with the patient’s contact info on the left and one or more entry cards on the right.
The patient block on the left includes:
- Patient Name — click to open the Patient Workspace
- Phone and Email
- Last Visit — the most recent attended appointment (date, type, practitioner)
- Appointment History button — opens a panel listing every past and upcoming appointment for this patient (see Managing Waitlist Entries)
Entry Cards
Each entry on the right of a patient row is a single waitlist entry — one appointment type, one (or more) practitioners, one set of preferences.
The entry card displays:
- Appointment Type and Practitioner(s)
- Contact Preference — the blue Email and SMS buttons (plus a Phone Call icon if chosen) show how the patient wants to be reached. Click the blue Email or SMS button to send the patient a notification. See Notifying a Waitlist Patient.
- Slots summary — a coloured tag showing how many matching openings exist (click to expand the list of matching slot times)
- Urgency — “Any available time” or a summary of selected days and periods (e.g., “Tue AM, Wed PM”)
- Minimum notice — how much advance warning the patient needs (e.g., “24 hr notice”, “1 week notice”)
- Added pill — when the entry was created, colour-coded by age:
- Green — added within the last 90 days
- Orange — added 90 to 180 days ago
- Red — added more than 180 days ago
Entry Color Key
The coloured left border on each entry card tells you the bookability at a glance:
| Border Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | Matching slots found within the next 90 days |
| Orange | Matching slots found 90–180 days out |
| Red | No matching slots found in the next 6 months |
| Grey | The appointment type is deleted — slots can’t be checked |
Entry Actions
Each entry card gives you a few ways to act: the blue Email / SMS buttons under Contact Preference, the expandable list of matching slots, and the three-dot actions menu at the top right.
- Notify Patient — click the blue Email or SMS button under Contact Preference to send a customized email or SMS about a potential opening. See Notifying a Waitlist Patient.
- Click a matching slot time — opens the booking confirmation panel. See Booking a Patient From the Waitlist.
From the three-dot actions menu you can:
- Mark as Booked — manually mark the entry as fulfilled (use when the patient was booked through some other channel). See Managing Waitlist Entries.
- Edit — change the entry’s practitioner(s), appointment type, preferences, notice, or notes. See Managing Waitlist Entries.
- Cancel Entry — remove the entry. See Managing Waitlist Entries.
- View Log — opens the audit trail for this entry: every edit, status change, and notification sent. See Managing Waitlist Entries.
Refreshing the Card
The card refreshes its availability check automatically when you load the dashboard. To force a fresh check (for example, after you’ve just cancelled an appointment and want the freed slot to appear), click the refresh icon at the top-right of the card header.
Mobile Layout
On smaller screens (or when the card is in a narrow GridStack column), the layout adapts:
- The header search and sort drop to a second row
- The Aging tab is hidden — only Available, No Availability, and Expired show
- The patient block stacks above the entry cards instead of sitting to the left
- Entry cards collapse to a single column
Troubleshooting
My patient added themselves through online booking but I don’t see them on the card
- Make sure the patient-side Join Waitlist link is turned on for your online booking page. If that setting is off, patients can’t add themselves through online booking — though your staff can still add entries from the dashboard card.
- Check the Expired tab — if the patient picked an appointment type that’s since been deleted, their entry will be there.
- If you’re logged in as a practitioner, you only see entries assigned to you. Log in as an admin to see every entry in the office.
An entry shows red even though I know I have openings
- Red means no matching slots within the patient’s preferred days/periods over the next 6 months. Their preferences may be too narrow.
- Click Edit on the entry to widen the days and periods, or switch to “Any available time”.
- Anything beyond 6 months won’t show up — OutSmart only scans 6 months ahead.
The card shows “all slots taken” when I expand the slots
This means the availability check found openings, but they’ve been booked by someone else between page loads. Click the refresh icon to re-check, or check directly in the calendar.
Related Pages
- Adding a Patient to the Waitlist
- Notifying a Waitlist Patient
- Booking a Patient From the Waitlist
- Managing Waitlist Entries
- Find Availability Tool — search the calendar for slots matching a patient’s preferences
- Waitlist Overview