Working Hours & Holidays

Centre working hours define when your hospital is open. These hours affect all scheduling — doctors cannot have appointment slots outside centre hours.

Prerequisites

You need at least one centre created. See: Setting Up Centres.

Setting Weekly Working Hours

Your centre's working hours define when the hospital is open for appointments. These hours set the outer boundary for all scheduling — no doctor can have appointment slots outside these hours, even if their personal schedule is wider.

For each day of the week (Monday through Sunday), you mark it as open or closed. For open days, you set one or more time windows. Enter times in hours and minutes (for example, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM). The system handles the rest.

Imagine your centre is open Monday through Saturday, with a lunch break. The schedule would look like this: Monday through Saturday, two time windows each — 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Sunday is marked as closed. That lunch break between 1 PM and 2 PM is simply a gap between the two windows. No slots will be generated during that hour.

You can have as many time windows per day as you need. A centre that runs a morning clinic (8 AM to 12 PM), closes for two hours, then runs an evening clinic (2 PM to 8 PM) would have two windows. A 24-hour emergency department would have a single window from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM.

Adding and Removing Holidays

Holidays block your centre from accepting new bookings on specific dates. You can create full-day holidays (the centre is closed all day) or partial-day holidays (the centre closes early or opens late).

For each holiday, you provide a date, a name ("Diwali", "Christmas Day", "Independence Day"), and whether it is a full day or partial. For full-day holidays, no appointments can be booked for that date. For partial-day holidays, you specify which hours are closed.

Here is a practical example: your centre normally closes at 6 PM, but on Diwali eve you want to close at 2 PM so staff can celebrate. Create a partial-day holiday for that date with closed hours from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM. The centre remains open from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM as usual, and the 2 PM to 6 PM block prevents any appointments from being booked in that window.

If you added a holiday by mistake or plans changed, you can remove the holiday. Removing a holiday restores normal working hours for that date and makes it available for new bookings. Existing appointments that were already cancelled because of the holiday are not automatically restored — you would need to rebook those separately.

Existing appointments are not auto-cancelled

Adding a holiday does not automatically cancel existing appointments on that date. You will need to cancel or reschedule affected appointments manually. Similarly, removing a holiday does not restore previously cancelled appointments.

Multiple time windows for flexibility

You can set as many time windows per day as you need. A centre with a lunch break uses two windows. A centre that runs morning and evening clinics uses two windows with a longer gap in between.

How Working Hours Affect Scheduling

Doctor appointment slots are always bounded by centre hours. A doctor scheduled 8am-6pm at a centre that opens 9am-5pm will only have slots from 9am-5pm. The system automatically intersects doctor availability with centre hours.

If you add a holiday after appointments are booked, existing appointments remain but no new ones can be created for that date.

Existing Appointments

Adding a holiday does not automatically cancel existing appointments for that date. You will need to cancel or reschedule affected appointments manually.

Split Hours

You can have multiple time windows per day. For example, if your centre closes for lunch: set two windows (9:00-13:00 and 14:00-18:00).

Centre Hours Limit

A doctor can never have slots outside centre working hours, even if their personal schedule is wider.

How Centre Hours and Doctor Hours Combine — the overlap creates available appointment slots — How centre hours and doctor hours combine to create available slots

What Happens Next?

Your centre is fully configured. Now add your hospital staff. See: Managing Staff Profiles.

Working Hours & Holidays