Through the online scheduling interface on the patient portal, you can allow patients to reserve appointment spots on your calendar. However, you also have the ability to allow patients to book group appointments or classes.
The set up is exactly the same as for non-class appointments, but when defining the appointment type you just need to designate the type as being a group appointment (under Admin > Manage > Schedule Types):
This will allow you to set a maximum number of attendees (there is not a hard limit, but anything more than ~10 will be difficult to view on the calendar). When this setting is in place, the system will consider any work-schedules you've set for that appointment type as "available" until the Max-attendees value is met, so the slot will show as available to patients even if other patients have requested/been scheduled for that appointment type in the same slot.
Each confirmed appointment will show up as side-by-side appointments in your calendar view.
Please note that the slot is only considered open for additional booking if:
- The "maximum number of simultaneous attendees" value has not been met; and
- There is no other "type" of appointment booked in that slot (if the system sees another type of appointment booked in the same spot, the spot will be considered "taken")