Appointment node

The Appointment node books a consultation or service for the patient, choosing the slot by policy or exact times, with optional booking profiles and sets.

The Appointment node books an appointment for the patient without anyone at the front desk. It picks the centre, doctor, service and slot, makes the booking, and lets later steps use it (for example a Pause that waits until two days before it).

How slots are found is explained in How slot search works. Holds and payment at booking are covered in Holds, payment at booking and approvals.

When to use it

Book the follow-up visit a fixed number of days after the procedure.
Book a recurring review at the same weekday and time as the patient's last visit.
Book a service such as a scan with no doctor attached.

Configuration

Field	What it does	Options and default
Label, Notes	See Label and Notes.	—
Action	What to do.	Book (default). Cancel and Reschedule are listed as Coming soon and cannot be selected.
Appointment type	The kind of booking.	Consultation (default) or Service.
Booking profile	Shown only when the journey has booking profiles (set up in Journey settings). Inherit booking defaults from a journey-level profile. Inherited fields stay read-only here and merge at run time.	No profile — configure inline (default) or one of the journey's profiles. Each field the profile sets then gets a Use profile default switch.
Centre	Where to book. See Field sources.	Default the patient’s usual centre (most visits).
Book without a doctor	Service type only. The service is booked on its own; a provider can be attached later.	On for a new Service step. Turn it off to show Provider.
Provider	The doctor. Required for a consultation.	Default the patient’s assigned doctor (care plan).
Service	The service to book. Required.	Your services.
When	How the time is chosen.	Slot policy (default) or Exact times.
Slot strategy	Slot policy only. See the table below.	Next available opening (default).
Starts at, Ends at	Exact times only.	Date and time.

Slot strategies

Strategy	Fields	Defaults
Next available opening	Search window (days), Preferred time of day (Any time, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Specific time)	7 days, any time
Same weekday & time as a prior visit	Weekday from (The prior visit, A fixed weekday, A resolved visit), Time of day from (The prior visit, A fixed time), Look-ahead horizon (days)	The prior visit, 14 days
Fixed offset from another appointment	Anchor entity (Appointment or Visit), the anchor, Offset (days, + after / − before), Search window (days)	7 days after, 7-day window
Specific date / time (explicit)	Start, End, Service (SKU) as values or expressions	—

Advanced

Field	What it does	Options and default
Follow-up of	Links the new booking to an earlier appointment as its follow-up.	Default: the patient's most recent completed appointment. If there is none, the booking is made without a follow-up link.
Payment collection	How payment is taken.	Not set — a priced service will not book (default) or At the hospital.
Book a set	Several bookings made together: Service, Starts at and Ends at for each. Add one with Add booking. Books every member together; a partial failure is compensated.	Optional.
Skip this step when…, If this step is already in the past	See the overview.	—

Outcomes and branches

The connection editor offers no Outcome list for Appointment. Plain connections fire when the booking is made. If the booking cannot be made, the step fails and staff can see the failure on the patient's run.

Later steps can use the booking. In their resolver fields, pick the appointment booked in an upstream Appointment node, the provider booked in an upstream Appointment node or the centre of an upstream node. A Pause can wait on An appointment's time.

What happens when it runs

If a booking profile is used, its values fill the fields that use the profile default.
The centre, doctor, service and slot are worked out for the patient. The slot strategy looks for a free slot in its window.
The booking is made for the patient and linked to their journey.
With At the hospital, the booking is confirmed straight away. Its centre and doctor can then be used by later steps of this run as the patient’s sticky centre (booked earlier in this journey) and the patient’s sticky doctor (booked earlier in this journey).
With Book a set, every member is booked in turn. If one of them cannot be booked, the ones already booked are cancelled and the step fails.

Staff see the booking in All Appointments like any other appointment. See All Appointments and appointment statuses.

Example

Follow-up review 14 days after the procedure.

Action Book, Appointment type Consultation, Service Follow-up consultation.
Provider: the provider booked in an upstream Appointment node (the procedure step).
When Slot policy, Slot strategy Fixed offset from another appointment, anchor the appointment booked in an upstream Appointment node, Offset 14, Search window 3 days.
Advanced ▸ Payment collection At the hospital.
Connect onward to a Pause that waits until 1 day before this appointment's time, then a Reach reminder.

Tips and limitations

For a priced service, choose At the hospital. As the option Not set — a priced service will not book says, a priced service does not book without it.
Book without a doctor is offered only for the Service type.

Fields inherited from a booking profile

While any field uses Use profile default, the review panel lists the step under To fix before publishing and the journey cannot be published. To publish, turn Use profile default off and set those fields on the step itself.

journeysnodesappointmentbookingslotsfollow-up