Using the Waiting List

Using the Waiting List#

When a client wants to come in sooner than your next free time, put them on the waiting list with what they're waiting for. When someone cancels, the cancelled appointment on your calendar shows who on the list fits, and you can text them a booking link in one click — the first to book gets it.

Step 1: Open the waiting list#

On the Calendar, click Waiting List at the top right, beside the date. On a smaller screen the button shows only its clock icon. The number on it is how many people are on the list. The panel that opens says how many are waiting, contacted and urgent, and lists everyone: urgent first, then whoever has waited longest. Under each name is what they're waiting for, their phone number and how long they've waited.

You can work the list from here without leaving the calendar. Each row has a Book button (see Step 3), and its ⋮ button holds Mark as contacted (or Mark as booked), Edit and Remove. Marking and removing happen in the panel, which stays open.

Step 2: Add a client#

Click "Add to Waiting List" at the bottom of the panel.

• Under Client Information, search for the client by name or email and pick them from the results. For someone who isn't in Daobook yet, click "+ New Client", enter their name, email and mobile number, and click "Create Client".
• Under Preferences, say what they're waiting for. Anything you leave blank means any:
  • Preferred Practitioner — or leave it on Any practitioner.
  • Appointment Type — the appointment they want. A freed time suits them when it's long enough for it, whatever was booked there before.
  • Preferred Days and Preferred Times — tick the days and the times of day (Morning is before 12pm, Afternoon 12–5pm, Evening after 5pm) that work for them.
  • Remove on — optional: a date they come off the list. Leave it blank to keep them until you remove them.
• Tick "Mark as urgent" to put them at the top of the list.
• Use Notes for anything else that helps you match them to a time.

Click "Add to Waiting List" to save.

Step 3: Work through the list#

Click "View All" in the panel to open the full list. Urgent entries come first, marked Urgent beside the name, then everyone else in the order they joined. Each row shows how many days they've been waiting, their phone number, who and what they're waiting for, your notes, and the date they come off.

Narrow the list with the All / Waiting / Contacted / Expired pills, and the Any practitioner and Any appointment type selects beside them (both keep clients who are happy with anyone). Entries past their remove-on date sit under Expired, with an Extend button if they still want a time. A line under the filters says how long new entries stay — until you remove them, unless your clinic sets a number of days. An owner or admin can click Change to set it, and new entries then have their Remove on date filled in.

• Book: books them on the calendar (from the panel, it starts on the calendar you're looking at). A band marked Booking runs across the top, naming them and what they asked for, with their Next openings under it: the first free time on each of the next three days that suit them. The calendar moves to the first one. On the calendar, each opening is a pale green card, and a thin green line runs down the edge of the days and times they asked for. Click an opening (on the band or the card) and the booking form opens on that time, with the client and their appointment type already filled in. You can also click any other time; nothing is closed off. Save it, and they come off the waiting list automatically. Click Stop booking on the band (or press Esc) to leave without booking.
• The ⋮ button at the end of the row holds the rest:
  • Mark as contacted: once you've rung or messaged them with a time, choose this and their status changes to Contacted. It doesn't send them anything.
  • Mark as booked: for a contacted client you booked some other way. It takes them off the list.
  • Edit changes the entry, and Remove deletes it.

Step 4: See who fits as you book#

Whenever you click a time on the calendar to make a booking, the form checks the waiting list for you. Under Appointment Type it says who on the list that practitioner, day, time and type suit — "2 waiting clients fit this time: …" — with a View link to the list. Change the type or time and it updates.

If the client you're booking is on the waiting list themselves, a line says so with a Take them off the list tick box. It's ticked for you when the time is one they asked for. Leave it ticked and saving the booking takes them off the list; untick it if they still want an earlier time.

Step 5: Offer a freed time#

When a client cancels ahead of time — by replying to their SMS reminder, from the link in their reminder, or when you cancel them on the calendar — their appointment stays on the calendar as a faded, crossed-out block. If anyone on the waiting list fits that time, the block gets an amber pill with a people icon and how many fit. Hover over it to see who.

Click the pill. The Freed time window opens, showing the time and who on the list fits it — with a tick box for each when there's more than one, and anyone who can't be texted greyed out. Click "Text them a booking link" and it's sent to everyone ticked ("Preview the text" shows exactly what they'll get). Each of them is marked Contacted, the window folds to "Offered to … at …" with an Offer again link, and the pill on the block turns blue so nobody texts them twice. Clicking the rest of the block still opens the cancelled appointment's own details, as before.

The link opens your online booking page at that day and time, on the appointment type they're waiting for (or the cancelled booking's type, if they didn't choose one). Whoever books first gets it; anyone after sees it's gone. When one of them books the time from that link, they come off the waiting list automatically.

To change the wording or send by email as well, click "Edit the message or send by email" instead. The Offer a Freed Time page lets you untick anyone, choose SMS, Email or both, and edit the message before clicking "Send the Offer". The green First name and Booking link pills in the message are filled in for each client when it's sent; if you delete one, put it back with the + First name or + Booking link button under the message.

Freed times in other weeks show on the Waiting List button too: a small amber dot on its corner, and a Freed times list at the top of its panel. Click one to open the same Freed time window.

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Tips:

• Nothing is sent to a client until you click "Send the Offer". Contacting the list is always your call.
• A late cancellation isn't offered: the time stays reserved on your calendar, as your cancellation policy says.
• If online booking is off for the location, the message asks them to get in touch instead of carrying a link.