Appointment Types (Settings)

Getting the defaults right here pays off everywhere else

Appointment types define the kinds of visits your clinic offers — a New Patient Consult, a Follow-up, a Telehealth Check-in. They look like a small settings list, but they're one of the highest-leverage configuration screens in ClinyPal, because nearly everything downstream reads from what's configured here: the color you see on every scheduler block, the duration a new booking defaults to, which forms automatically attach to a visit, and which types show up at all when a patient books online.

Getting this list right during setup — rather than treating it as an afterthought — saves a lot of correcting-after-the-fact later. A duration that's set too short means practitioners are constantly running over into the next booking; a mode set wrong means a patient books an in-person slot expecting a video call, or vice versa.

What you'll learn

Where to manage appointment types and what the settings grid shows
Every field on an appointment type, and why it matters
Why mode is single-select, and what to do if you offer a visit both in-person and via telehealth
What the read-only snapshot view shows before you commit to editing
How appointment type design affects the scheduler and online booking

The appointment types list

Go to Settings > Appointment Types. You'll see a grid of every appointment type your clinic has configured, each row showing its name, mode, duration, and color swatch at a glance, with an Add button in the header to create a new one.

The Appointment Types settings grid, listing each type with its name, mode, duration, and color swatch, with an Add button in the header.

Every field, and what it actually controls

Adding or editing a type is a straightforward sequential form, but each field has consequences beyond the settings page itself, laid out here before the steps.

Field	What it's for	Where else it shows up
Name	A clear, patient-friendly label for the visit type.	Scheduler blocks, the appointment drawer's type dropdown, and online booking's type picker.
Mode	Whether the visit happens in-person, via telehealth, or as a home visit. Single-select — one mode per type.	Drives the read-only Mode field shown in the appointment drawer, and which status controls appear (e.g. Join call for telehealth).
Duration	How long a visit of this type takes by default.	The default length of a new booking on the scheduler, and the slot length offered during online booking.
Color	The color used for this type's blocks on the scheduler.	Every appointment block of this type, clinic-wide, on every view (Week, Day, Now).
Default forms	Forms that automatically attach to appointments of this type.	The patient's Forms tab on their record, pre-populated the moment a matching appointment is booked.

Click Add (or select an existing type to edit)

Opens the appointment type drawer.

Enter a name

Give the type a clear, patient-friendly name.

Choose a mode

Select one mode for the type — in-person, telehealth, or home-visit — using the mode field.

Set the duration

Enter how long a visit of this type takes by default.

Pick a color

Choose the color used for this type's appointment blocks on the scheduler.

Attach default forms, if any

Select any forms that should automatically attach to appointments of this type.

Save

Save the appointment type.

Mode is single-select The mode field is a single-select radio choice, not a multi-select. An appointment type has exactly one mode — if you need the same visit offered both in-person and via telehealth, set up separate appointment types for each, for example "Follow-up (In Person)" and "Follow-up (Telehealth)."

The Appointment Type Add/Edit drawer, showing the name field, the single-select mode radio group, duration, color picker, and default forms selector.

How this ripples into the scheduler and online booking

Two consequences are worth understanding before you build out your type list, because they're easy to overlook until they cause confusion later. First, the Appointment Type dropdown in the booking drawer is filtered by practitioner — see Using the Appointment Scheduler — so a type only shows up as bookable for a practitioner if that practitioner is actually assigned to offer it. Adding a type here doesn't automatically make it available with every practitioner.

Second, if your clinic uses online booking, the same type list (and the same mode, duration, and name) is what patients see when choosing what to book. A type named clearly for internal shorthand — "F/U 15" instead of "15-Minute Follow-up" — will confuse a patient booking online just as much as it would confuse a new receptionist. Treat the Name field as patient-facing copy, not an internal code. See Configure Online Booking for how the patient-facing booking flow uses this list.

Changing duration doesn't retroactively resize existing bookings Editing a type's duration changes the default for new bookings going forward. Appointments already booked at the old duration keep their original length until manually resized or edited.

The snapshot view

Selecting an existing type shows a read-only snapshot before you commit to editing it — a quick way to confirm you've picked the right one, especially in a clinic with a long list of similarly-named types.

Some sections only show when relevant The snapshot only shows a "Default forms" section if forms are actually assigned to the type, and only shows a Description block if a description was entered. If neither applies, those sections are left out rather than shown empty.