Overview

The clinic website does two jobs. On the public website, patients see your services and clinicians, book a visit online in four steps and change or cancel it with their booking code. In the clinic admin, the front desk runs the day from one schedule: check patients in, start and complete visits, move or cancel appointments and book phone calls and walk-ins.

The site fits any practice: family doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, therapists or vets. You choose the words it uses (Clinician, Dentist or Vet; Room, Chair or Studio; Patient or Client), and every page follows. This manual uses the words Clinician, Room and Patient.

How the pieces fit together

Set the clinic up once; patients book on the website; the front desk runs the day on the schedule.

Who does what

Each person gets their own sign-in and only the areas they need. A typical clinic uses these roles:

You set this up person by person in Users.

A day at the clinic

1. Patients book on the website at any hour. Each booking appears on the day schedule straight away, with a booking code such as WC-7G3VCG.
2. The front desk opens the Dashboard: today's numbers, who is next and the messages from the website.
3. When a patient arrives, the front desk clicks the appointment and presses Check in. The patient shows in the waiting room.
4. The clinician presses Start visit and then Complete.
5. Phone calls and walk-ins are booked by clicking an empty time on the schedule.

1. Getting Started

1.1 Signing in

Click Staff sign in at the bottom of any page of the website, or go straight to /AdminLogin. Enter your user name and password and press Sign in.

The staff sign-in page.

• A wrong user name or password shows a message. After six wrong tries for the same user in five minutes, sign-in pauses for a few minutes.
• Your session lasts 8 hours and renews while you work. Press Sign out on a shared computer.
• If the clinic manager changes your password or switches your account off, you are signed out everywhere.
• The very first sign-in uses the clinic manager account set in the configuration file (14.1).

1.2 The layout

Every admin page has the same frame.

1.3 Appointments ask first

Every button that changes an appointment asks you to confirm before it happens: confirm, check in, start, complete, no-show, move, book, cancel and saving the front-desk note. Read the question, then press the right-hand button to go ahead or the left-hand one to step back.

Check in asks first. Enter confirms, Esc steps back.

After a change, a short message at the bottom of the screen confirms it, for example Checked in or Saved. Everywhere else, changes are kept when you press Save. If you close a window or leave a page with unsaved changes, you are asked Leave without saving? first.

1.4 What you see depends on your rights

• Areas you can't see are not in your menu.
• With View rights you can open everything in an area but the change buttons are missing.
• A clinician set to Only sees their own appointments gets My day instead of the whole schedule (10.4).
• Every right is checked on the server. A refused request is written to the activity log.

1.5 On a phone or tablet

The admin works on any screen. On a phone, the menu folds behind the ☰ button at the top left, and the day schedule scrolls sideways when there are more clinicians than fit.

Dashboard, menu and day schedule on a phone.

2. Dashboard

The Dashboard opens after you sign in. It shows today in the clinic's own time zone.

2.1 Today at a glance

Day schedule and Booking page at the top right open the schedule and the public booking page.

2.2 Next up and the waiting room

• Next up lists the next visits with their status. Click one to open it on the day schedule.
• Waiting room lists checked-in patients with how many minutes they have waited. The minutes turn red after 15 minutes.
• Clinicians today shows each clinician's hours today, how many visits they have and how full their day is. Not in today means it isn't one of their working days; Away today means time off.

2.3 Messages from the website

Messages sent with the form on the Contact page arrive here. The six newest are listed, unread first. Unread messages have a dot and count on the Dashboard badge in the menu. Click a message to read it in full; if you can edit appointments, it is then marked as read. Reply by phone or email with the details in the message.

2.4 Recent activity and quick links

Recent activity shows the latest changes by everyone; All opens the activity log. Quick links jump to the other areas.

3. Day Schedule

The day schedule is where the front desk works. It shows one day, one column per clinician, in 15-minute rows.

3.1 Reading the schedule

• Each block is an appointment: start time, patient and service. Its height is the visit's length; the coloured edge is the clinician's colour.
• The block's background shows its status: Booked Confirmed Checked in In room Completed No-show.
• NEW after a name marks a patient's first visit.
• Shaded stripes are times the clinician isn't working: before and after their hours, their break, time off and closed days.
• The red now line shows the current time in the clinic's time zone.
• The coloured counts above the grid add up the day by status. Not in names the clinicians who don't work that day.
• Under each clinician's name: how many visits they have and how much of their day is booked.

Moving around

Show → By room: one column per room.

3.2 Opening an appointment

Click a block. The appointment opens in a window:

• Top: patient, service, length, clinician, room and status; the day and time; the booking code.
• Buttons: the next step for this visit (see 3.3), Change time and Cancel.
• Patient: phone, email, how they like to be contacted and insurance. Open patient record opens their record in Patients.
• Booking: how and when it was booked, by whom, the patient's own note and their answers to the team's booking questions.
• Front-desk note and the full History (3.8).

3.3 Check in, start, complete

A visit moves through these steps. The window always shows the button for the next one.

Appointment statuses and the buttons that move them.

Once the start time has passed, a Booked or Confirmed visit also gets No-show.

After Check in the next button is Start visit; after Start visit it is Complete. Each step is stamped in the history.

3.4 Changing the time or clinician

1. Open the appointment and press Change time.
2. Pick the Date and the Clinician. The free times for that day appear as buttons.
3. Click a time and confirm Move to …?.

Free times are worked out with the same rules as online booking.

Another time lets you type any time. If it overlaps another visit or falls outside working hours, the move is refused unless you tick Allow overlap. Use it on purpose, for example to squeeze in an urgent five-minute check.

3.5 Cancelling and no-shows

Press Cancel, add a short reason if you like (it is kept in the history) and press Cancel appointment. Keep it steps back.

• The time becomes free on the website straight away.
• Cancelling needs the extra Cancel right on Appointments (10.3). Without it, the button is not shown.
• A patient who doesn't come: after the start time, open the visit and press No-show. No-shows count on the Dashboard and in the patient's record.
• Made a mistake? Tick Show cancelled, open the visit and press Reopen.

3.6 Booking a phone call or walk-in

Click an empty time in a clinician's column. The New appointment window opens with that clinician, day and time filled in. You can also press New appointment at the top and fill in everything yourself.

1. Existing patient: type part of a name, phone or email and pick the patient from the list. New patient: enter first name, last name, phone and email.
2. Choose the Clinician and the Service; the service sets the visit's length.
3. Check the Date and Time.
4. Booked by: Phone, At the desk, or Walk-in. A walk-in starting within half an hour is checked in straight away.
5. Add a front-desk note if useful and press Book appointment, then confirm.

The new visit appears on the schedule with its own booking code. Give the code to the patient so they can manage it online.

3.7 Room view, teams and printing

• By room shows where each visit takes place. Every visit uses the clinician's usual room, and two visits never share a room at the same time.
• Team narrows the columns to one team, handy on a busy day with many clinicians.
• Print prints the day with the menu and buttons hidden.

3.8 Front-desk note and history

The Front-desk note is for admin details only, for example parking pass given or paid at desk. Type it and press Save note, then confirm. Notes about the person rather than one visit belong on the patient's record (6.2).

The History lists every change: booked, confirmed, checked in, moved, cancelled with its reason, with the time and who did it.

4. Week View

4.1 The whole team

Week view shows Monday to Sunday for every clinician: the number of visits each day and how full the day is. Striped cells are days the clinician doesn't work. The All row adds up each day.

• ‹ This week › move a week at a time; the date box jumps to any week.
• Click a day to open that day's schedule.
• Use it to spot full days early and offer patients a quieter one.

4.2 One clinician's week

Pick a name under Clinician. The week turns into a timeline of that person's visits, one column per day, so you see their whole week at once.

Print gives a paper copy, for example a clinician's week to hand out on Monday.

5. Appointments

Appointments is the list of every booking, past and future. Use it to find a booking quickly.

5.1 Finding a booking

Search “Whitlock” with All: every visit for that family name.

5.2 Acting on a booking

Press Open. The same appointment window as on the day schedule opens, with the same buttons: check in, change time, cancel, reopen and the front-desk note (3.2).

New appointment at the top books a visit for any day (3.6).

6. Patients

A patient record holds contact details and visit history. A record is made automatically the first time someone books; a returning patient with the same last name and the same email or phone is matched to their existing record.

6.1 Finding patients

• Search by name, phone or email.
• Show: Everyone, With an upcoming visit, Seen in the last 90 days, Added in the last 30 days, or Not seen for a year (handy for recall calls).
• Insurance: patients with one plan.
• The list shows the number of completed visits, the last visit and the next one.

6.2 A patient's record

Press Open.

• The tags count completed visits, upcoming visits, no-shows and cancellations, and show when the patient was added.
• Correct the name, phone, email, how they prefer to be contacted (text message, phone call or email) and their insurance, then press Save.
• The Front-desk note is for practical things, for example prefers mornings or needs step-free access.
• Visits lists every appointment with its status.
• Book an appointment opens Appointments with a new booking for this patient.

6.3 Adding a patient

Press Add patient, fill in the details and save. You can also add a new patient while booking (3.6).

7. Clinicians

Each clinician has a profile, weekly hours, the services they offer and time off. Online booking uses all four to offer free times.

Each card shows whether the clinician is active and takes online bookings, their hours today, bookings in the next 7 days, how many services they offer, their usual room and any coming time off. Week opens their week; Profile page opens their page on the website.

7.1 Profile

Press Edit. The window has four tabs; Save saves all of them at once.

7.2 Working hours

• Tick Works for each working day and set From and To. The clinic's opening hours are shown under each day as a guide.
• Break from / Break to blocks lunch or admin time. Leave both empty for no break.
• Bookable times are these hours inside the clinic's opening hours, minus the break, time off and closed days.

7.3 Services

Tick the services this person offers, grouped by team with their length. Online booking only offers a clinician for the services ticked here. You can set the same thing from the service's side (8.2).

7.4 Time off

1. Under Add time off, set From and To (one day: leave To empty) and a note such as Annual leave.
2. Press Save.

• Online booking stops offering these days. Appointments already booked stay; the schedule shows them inside the striped time so you can move them.
• Remove deletes a period of time off.
• Adding or removing time off needs the extra Time off right (10.3).

7.5 Adding a clinician

Press Add clinician, fill in the profile, hours and services, and save. To let them sign in, add a user for them and link it to this profile (10.4).

8. Services & Teams

A service is what a patient books: its length, price and who offers it. Services are grouped in teams, such as Family Medicine or Dental Care.

8.1 Finding services

• The Services tab lists every service with its team, length, price, online booking and the number of clinicians. Teams lists the teams.
• Type in Search to find a service by name or short line, or pick a Team.
• Ten rows show at a time; use Previous / Next for more.

Team → Dental Care.

8.2 Editing a service

Press Edit on a row, or Add service for a new one.

8.3 Teams and booking questions

Open the Teams tab and press Edit on a team, or Add team.

• Name, Colour, Order, a One-line description and a Picture for the website.
• Booking questions (up to six) are asked when someone books online with this team. Each is Yes or no or a Short answer, and can be Required. The answers show on the appointment (3.2).

9. Rooms

Rooms are where visits happen: exam rooms, dental chairs, a therapy studio. Each clinician has a usual room, and booking makes sure two visits never share a room at the same time.

• Each card shows today's bookings on a bar from opening to closing, with the red line at the current time, and how full the room is today.
• Now shows who is using the room and until when, or when it is next used.
• Usual clinicians lists who works there.
• Today by room opens the day schedule with one column per room.

9.1 Adding or editing a room

Give it a Name, a Kind (for example Dental suite), a Note (for example ground floor, has a hoist) and an Order. Untick In use while a room is closed for works. Then set it as the usual room on the clinicians who use it (7.1).

10. Users & Rights

Only clinic managers see Users. Here you give each person a sign-in and decide what they can see and change.

Search by name, login or job title, or pick an Area to see who can reach it. The Access column sums up each person's rights.

10.1 Adding a user

Press Add a user.

1. Enter the Full name, a User name (3 characters or more, used to sign in) and a Job title.
2. Give a Password of 8 characters or more. Tell the person and ask them to change it in My account.
3. Tick Clinic manager (every right) for another manager, or set the rights below (10.3).
4. Keep Can sign in ticked and press Save.

10.2 Changing or switching off a user

• Press Edit. Leave New password empty to keep the current one.
• New rights apply on the person's next click. Changing someone's password, or switching them off, signs them out everywhere.
• When someone leaves, untick Can sign in. Their name stays on the history of everything they did.
• You can't remove your own clinic manager rights or switch yourself off. Ask another manager.

10.3 Rights by area

A front-desk user: edits the schedule, appointments (with Cancel) and patients; looks at clinicians, services and rooms.

Extra rights need Edit. Everyone can see their own activity under My activity.

10.4 Clinicians and “own appointments only”

• Is this person a clinician? links the user to their clinician profile.
• Tick Only sees their own appointments and the person sees only their own column, week and appointments. Their Day schedule becomes My day, and their Dashboard counts only their visits.

Dr. Hart signed in: her own day only.

11. Activity Log & My Account

11.1 Activity log

Everything staff and the website do is written here: sign-ins, bookings, check-ins, moves, cancellations, changes to settings and users, and requests the server refused.

• Person: one member of staff. Search: an action or item, for example a booking code. Outcome: Done or Refused.
• Today / 7 days / 30 days / All, or your own From and To dates.
• A Refused row means someone tried something their rights don't allow.
• The log keeps the latest 5,000 entries.

Without the Activity log right, the menu shows My activity: your own entries only.

11.2 My account

• Change your Name and press Save.
• To change your password, enter your Current password and a New password (8 characters or more). Your other sessions (on other computers or phones) are signed out; this one stays signed in.
• What you can do lists your rights.

12. Settings

Only clinic managers see Settings. The buttons at the top jump to each part. Change what you need and press Save settings (it stays at the bottom of the screen). The website follows straight away.

12.1 Clinic details and look

• Name, Town or area and Tagline appear in the header, footer and page titles.
• Address, Phone and Email appear on Home, Contact, the footer and each booking confirmation.
• Urgent care notice is shown in the footer and on Patient info, for example In an emergency, call your local emergency number.
• Accent colour colours buttons and links on the website and in the admin. Website theme sets Light or Dark as the starting theme; visitors can switch with the moon button.

12.2 Words

Make the site speak your practice's language. Set the singular and plural for provider (Clinician, Doctor, Dentist, Therapist, Vet), patient (Patient, Client) and room (Room, Chair, Studio). Menus, headings, filters, the rights grid and the website all use them.

12.3 Opening hours

Tick each day the clinic opens and set the opening and closing time. Clinicians' own hours sit inside these. The website shows the week with today highlighted and an Open now / Closed now bar at the top of every page.

12.4 Booking rules and time zone

How free times are worked out

One clinician's day: each row takes time away; what is left, in whole visits, is offered.

A time is offered when it is inside the clinic's hours (and not a closed day), inside the clinician's hours, outside their break and time off, free for the clinician and their room, far enough ahead and not too far ahead, and the whole visit fits before the break or the end of the day. When a patient confirms, the server checks again, so two people can never take the same time.

12.5 Closed days

Add public holidays and training days with Add a closed day: a date and a label. Online booking skips these days and the website shows the next one under Opening hours. Appointments already booked that day stay on the schedule; move them yourself. × removes a day.

12.6 Insurance plans

One plan per line. They appear on Home and Patient info and in the Insurance list when patients book.

12.7 Website text

The Home headline and intro, the About headline and text, and the Cancellation policy shown on Patient info and when booking. Keep the policy in line with Online changes close (12.4).

12.8 Questions and answers

The questions list on Patient info. Edit a question or answer in place, add one with Add a question, remove one with ×. Order them by how often you are asked.

13. The Public Website

What patients see. Every page has the clinic's phone and an Open now / Closed now bar at the top, the menu (Services, Clinicians, Patient info, Contact, My appointment), a moon button for the dark theme and Book now.

13.1 Home

• The headline and intro from Settings, Book an appointment and Call.
• Find a time: pick a service and see its free times. Below it, the next available time for each team.

Further down: the teams, the About block, the clinicians, your first visit, opening hours, where to find you and the insurance plans.

Today is in bold; the next closed day is shown under the hours. Staff sign in is in the footer.

13.2 Services

Every service shown on the website, grouped by team, with its length, price and next online time. Each service has its own page with what to expect, who offers it and the next free times as one-click buttons.

13.3 Clinicians

Filter by team. Each profile page shows the photo, about text, training, languages, room, weekly hours, coming time off and every service with its next free time.

13.4 Booking online

Patients book in four steps on one page. No account is needed.

Online booking in four steps.

Service, clinician, time, details. The summary on the right fills in as they go.

• First available picks, for each time, the least busy clinician who offers the service and is free.
• The day strip shows how many free times each day has. If a week is full, a button jumps to the next free day.
• In step 4 the patient chooses I have been here before or I am a new patient, how to be reached, their insurance and the team's questions, then ticks that they can come and will cancel in time.

After Confirm booking the patient gets a booking code, the visit details, what happens next, and buttons to Add to calendar, Manage booking or Book another.

13.5 My appointment

Patients manage a booking with the booking code and the email or phone they booked with.

• Change time shows the same day strip and free times; the patient picks one and confirms.
• Cancel appointment frees the time.
• Both work until the Online changes close limit (12.4). After that the page asks the patient to call.
• Too many wrong codes are slowed down to stop guessing.

Every change by the patient shows in the appointment's history and the activity log.

13.6 Patient info and Contact

Patient info covers the first visit, what to bring, insurance, cancellations, the languages your clinicians speak and the questions list (12.8).

Contact has the phone, email, hours, how to get there and a message form. Messages arrive on the Dashboard.

13.7 On a phone

Home, menu and booking on a phone.

14. Installation & Setup

For the person who installs and looks after the site.

14.1 The first clinic manager

From installation to a working clinic.

1. Make a password hash. In PowerShell:

   $p = Read-Host "Password"; [BitConverter]::ToString([Security.Cryptography.SHA256]::Create().ComputeHash([Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($p))).Replace("-","").ToLower()

2. Edit appConfig/application.cfg:

   app.app.runmode | 1
   app.admin.user | admin
   app.admin.passhash | <the 64-character hash>

3. Open /AdminLogin and sign in with that user name and password. The account becomes a clinic manager.
4. Open Users and add a personal clinic manager account for yourself, then one for each person who needs access. The sample staff accounts can't sign in until you give them a new password; switch off or rename the ones you don't need.
5. Sign out and sign in with your own account from now on.

14.2 Your own clinic data

• Set up the clinic in this order: Settings (name, time zone, hours, words, booking rules), Services & teams, Clinicians (hours and services), Rooms.
• To start with no sample patients or appointments, use a data/site.json with your own settings, teams, services, clinicians and rooms, and empty patients and appointments.
• The texts of Your first visit, What to bring and Getting here are in data/site.json under content.
• Your own photos: put them in images/clinic/full (1600 px wide) and images/clinic/thumbs (640 px) with the same file name, and portraits (480 × 600) in images/clinic/people. They appear in the picture pickers.

14.3 Folder permissions

Give the site write access to two folders. On IIS, give the application pool identity Modify permission.

14.4 HTTPS, backups and privacy

• Serve the site over HTTPS. The session token travels in a cookie and with each admin request.
• Back up the data/ folder every day. It holds all patients and appointments.
• Check your local rules for storing patient contact details and for online booking. The site keeps contact details and visit history only; keep clinical notes in your clinical record system.

14.5 Redeploying

15. Reference

15.1 Appointment statuses

15.2 How a visit was booked

15.3 Rights at a glance

15.4 Good to know

16. Quick Answers