Updated for the new Rehab Guru design. Portal Settings is now a tab of the Appointments page, opened from Appointments in the Account menu, and the save buttons are now Update general settings and Update URL settings. See What's new: the Rehab Guru redesign.
Set up your Appointment Types, Appointment Rules (Hours) and Exceptions first. Portal Settings controls how your online booking portal behaves once those are in place.
Your booking portal is the online page your clients use to book with you. Portal Settings is where you decide how it works: how often start times are offered, the web addresses of your policies, what a client is refunded if they cancel, how close to an appointment they can still cancel or reschedule, and where to copy your booking link. This guide goes through each section in the order it appears on the page.
Step 1: Opening Portal Settings
Go to Account.
Click Portal Settings, either under Appointments in the Account menu or on the Portal Settings card on the Account Home page.
The Appointments page opens on the Portal settings tab, next to the Appointment types, Appointment rules, Exceptions and Resources tabs. It has three sections: General Settings, URLs and Embedded Settings and Pre-filled Booking Links.
Opening Portal Settings from the Account menu
Step 2: Choosing how the portal shows appointment types and names
These switches are at the top of General Settings, under Booking portal.
Switch on Show appointment types first in booking portal to let clients choose their appointment type before they select their practitioner. This needs global appointment types to be set up by the team administrator. See Setting Up and Using Global Appointment Types.
Switch on Display business name instead of therapist name in booking portal to show your business name rather than the therapist's name.
Switch on Ask new clients how they heard about you to show new clients an optional "How did you hear about us" question when they book. Their answer is saved as the client's referral source.
Choosing how the booking portal shows your services
Step 3: Setting how often start times are offered
Under Booking slot intervals, open the drop-down and choose Default (appointment length), Every 15 minutes, Every 30 minutes or Every hour.
Default (appointment length) offers back-to-back slots based on the length of the appointment type. Every 15 minutes, for example, suggests 9:00, 9:15, 9:30 and so on, whatever the appointment length.
The setting applies to the booking portal and to the suggested times in the app. Buffer and minimum notice times are always respected.
Step 4: Updating past appointment statuses automatically
Under Past appointments, open Automatically update past appointments statuses and choose Do nothing, Mark as Completed or Mark as No-show.
At midnight, any past appointment that is still marked as Scheduled is updated in the way you chose. See Managing Appointment Arrival Status and Past Appointment Handling.
Choosing how past appointments are updated
Step 5: Adding links to your policies
Under Policy links, in Terms and Conditions URL, Privacy Policy URL and Cancellation Policy URL, enter the full web address of each page, for example https://example.com/terms-and-conditions, https://example.com/privacy-policy and https://example.com/cancellation-policy.
Leave a box empty if you do not have that page.
Step 6: Setting your cancellation refund policy
Cancellation refund policy, under Cancellations and changes, sets how much of a paid booking is refunded automatically when a client cancels, based on how far ahead they cancel.
Click Add tier to add a row. Each row has two boxes: the number of hours before the appointment, and the percentage to refund.
The tier with the most notice that the client still meets applies. For example, with "at least 24 hours, 100%" and "at least 2 hours, 50%", a client who cancels 10 hours ahead is refunded 50%.
Click Remove on a row to delete that tier.
Adding refund tiers for cancellations
With no tiers, cancellations are fully refunded.
Step 7: Limiting late cancellations and reschedules
Under Late change restrictions, set No cancellation within and No rescheduling within. Each one is independent: leave it on No restriction, or choose how many hours (or days) before the appointment start the restriction begins.
Inside the window you set, the cancellation and reschedule pages show the client a notice asking them to contact you instead.
Setting a cancellation notice period
These restrictions apply to the booking portal only. You can still cancel or reschedule from the diary or the client's page at any time. Refund tiers with less notice than the cancellation restriction never apply to portal cancellations, because the cancellation itself is blocked first. See Restricting late cancellations and reschedules.
Step 8: Adding confirmation items
Under Booking form, click in the Confirmation Items box ("Enter confirmation items") and type a sentence, such as "I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions".
Select Add item to add it. Repeat for any other items you need.
Each item becomes a mandatory tick box on your booking forms, which the client must check before submitting a booking.
Adding confirmation items in Portal Settings
Step 9: Saving General Settings
Click Update general settings at the foot of the General Settings section to save your changes to Steps 2 to 8.
Step 10: Copying your booking link and embed code
Scroll down to URLs and Embedded Settings. A short checklist reminds you to upload your photo, write a descriptive bio (at least 128 characters) and give your appointment types meaningful descriptions (at least 40 characters).
Under Appointments URL, click Copy link to copy your booking link, then paste it into emails, social media or messages to clients.
To embed the booking form on your website, enter your website domain in Allowed domain to embed an Appointment form, add your Google Tag Manager code in Track analytics using GTM Code if you use one, and click Update URL settings. The embed code then appears under Embed Appointment Form code.
For the full steps, see Accessing and using Online Booking Links.
Copying your Appointments URL
Step 11: Building a pre-filled booking link
Scroll down to Pre-filled Booking Links.
Choose a Practitioner, a Location and an Appointment type. Leave any of them on Any practitioner, Any location or Any appointment type if you want the client to choose that themselves.
If you like, add a Link tag (optional), such as the name of a leaflet or partner site, so bookings made through the link are tagged.
Click Copy link next to Copy your pre-filled booking link. Links are not saved, so build a new one whenever you need a different combination.
Building and copying a pre-filled booking link
Settings that sit on each appointment type
Two more settings that affect your booking portal are set on each appointment type, not on this page. Go to Account and, under Appointments in the left-hand menu, click Appointment Types. Open the ... menu on the appointment type and choose Edit.
Display in Booking Portal? (on the Portal tab) makes the appointment type available for booking through your booking portal. Switch it off if you do not want clients to book that type themselves.
Lead time (on the Basic details tab) is the buffer period between a client booking and the first available slot. Choose from None, 15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour and longer, up to 10 days.
Controlling whether clients can book online
See Setting up Appointment Types for the full steps.
By following these steps, you can control how your booking portal works and share your booking link with clients.
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