A gap in the day is lost money unless someone is waiting for it. The waitlist turns a cancellation into an offer that goes out to everyone who could take the slot.

Add a patient to the waitlist

The waitlist is for patients who'd take something sooner or at a different time than you could offer. It lives on the calendar; the button at the top shows how many are waiting.

Offer a gap to the whole list, not one patient. A waitlist offer goes to everyone matching and the first to accept gets the slot, which fills gaps faster than calling down the list.

To add someone, start a New Appointment as if booking them: choose the patient, the practitioner they'd like (or any), the appointment type, and a date and time range that would suit, then select Waitlist instead of saving. You'll see Added to the waitlist. The notes you type travel with the entry, so write what they told you: any weekday morning, can come at short notice.

The waitlist panel listing four patients, each with days waiting, preferred appointment type and practitioner, time window, date added and a note, and Book and Remove buttons.
The waitlist with four patients, longest waiting first, each with a Book and a Remove button.

Book someone from the list

Each entry shows the patient, their preferred practitioner and appointment type, their time window and notes. When a suitable slot appears, select Book. The booking form opens with the patient, practitioner and type already set; choose the date and time, save, and the entry becomes a normal appointment and leaves the list. Back returns to the list without booking. Remove takes off an entry you no longer need, after you confirm.

A practitioner whose Patient record access is their own patients only sees entries that ask for them or belong to their patients. Everyone else sees the whole list for their location.

Automatic offers when a slot frees up

When a time becomes free, because an appointment was canceled, moved away from it, or deleted, ClinyPal tells waiting patients whose preferences match. Up to five are messaged at once, by email or SMS according to each patient's automatic messages, and their entries show Notified with the note that the first to book gets it. Patients who can't be reached, for example an SMS-only patient when the clinic has no SMS credit, are left waiting rather than marked. Nothing is sent for a slot that has already passed or has been booked again in the meantime, and freeing many slots at once, such as removing a practitioner's whole calendar, sends no offers.

The offer tells the patient to contact the clinic; it doesn't book them. When one of them calls, use Book on their entry so it's recorded against the waitlist, and Remove or leave the others for the next opening.