You can create Availability schedules in Upheal, assign them to your services, and control exactly which times clients can self-book. This article is for practice admins and for providers managing their own schedules. The Availability feature is available on EHR plans: EHR (pay as you go), EHR Pro, and our former Premium plan.

What is Availability in Upheal?

Availability is a named, reusable weekly schedule that decides when clients can self-book a service in Upheal. You manage Availability schedules in Settings > Availability. Each Availability schedule includes the following:

Hours for each day of the week. A day can have several time windows, for example 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:00p.m.–5:00 p.m.
A time zone.
One or more locations (an office, video, or an address), with one location set as the default.

Availability works in two layers: an Availability schedule says when clients can book, and each service says which schedule to use, for which providers. In other words, this feature works in conjunction with services; see Services and client self-scheduling for more information.

Types of Availability schedules

Upheal has three types of Availability schedules:

Practice hours: the default schedule every practice has. Any service that doesn't name a schedule uses Practice hours.
Practice schedules: extra schedules an admin creates for the whole practice, for example "Weekend clinic".
Provider schedules: a schedule that belongs to one provider, for example "Lee evenings".

Who can manage Availability schedules

Access to Availability schedules depends on your role in the Upheal practice:

Admins can create and edit practice schedules and provider schedules, and assign schedules to services.
Providers can create and edit only their own provider schedules, and set their own session limits.

How do I set the same availability hours for all my services?

If you want to use the same hours for all services, use your Practice hours, and do not add any further availability schedules. Practice hours are the default schedule for services.

To set your Practice hours:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Availability.
Click Practice hours.
Edit your Practice hours and set the time zone.
If you want to add a location besides the default (Upheal telehealth), click Add a location. You can add up to 10 locations.
Select Virtual session, In-person, or Phone call.
Use the dropdown menu to choose the Only for this availability option. This step will look a little different depending on what you selected in step 6; see screenshots below.

Virtual session:

In-person:

Phone call:
Fill in the information for the new location (the link, physical address, or phone number), and click Add.
You can make a location the default for an availability schedule by clicking the three-dot menu on the location and selecting Make default.
Click Save.

Can clients choose telehealth or in-person when they book?

If you have more than one location listed on your availability (for example, telehealth or in-person), clients will be able to choose between those two locations when self-scheduling, regardless of the default location. To allow clients to choose between telehealth or in-person sessions when self-scheduling, set a location for each on the availability.

If you only want clients to be able to schedule for one location, make sure there is only one location on that availability. See Removing a location from an availability.

Creating Availability schedules

To create an Availability schedule, go to Settings > Availability. Admins can create practice schedules and provider schedules. Providers can create schedules for themselves only.

Create a new practice schedule

Practice schedules are extra schedules an admin creates for the whole practice, for example "Weekend clinic".

To create a new practice schedule:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Availability.
Click the plus sign just above Practice hours.
Enter a name for the schedule, for example "Weekend clinic".
Set the hours for each day.
Use the toggles to the left of the day to remove the day from or add the day to the schedule.
To add a second time window on the same day, click the plus sign icon to the right of that day's hours.
Choose the time zone.
If you want to add a location besides the default (Upheal telehealth), click Add a location. You can add up to 10 locations.
Select Virtual session, In-person, or Phone call.
Use the dropdown menu to choose if the new location is only for the availability you are creating, or if will be reusable across the entire practice. This step will look a little different depending on what you selected in step 8; see screenshots below.

Virtual session:

In-person:

Phone call:
Fill in the information for the new location (the link, physical address, or phone number), and click Add.
You can make a location the default for an availability schedule by clicking the three-dot menu on the location and selecting Make default.
Click Save, and the new availability schedule appears in your list in Settings > Availability.

A new Availability schedule isn't used by any service yet. To make it bookable, assign it to a service (see "Assigning an Availability schedule to a service").

Create a new provider schedule

A provider schedule is a schedule that belongs to one provider. For example, Dr. Smith works only Tuesday and Thursday evenings by video. The admin creates "Smith evenings" with Tuesday and Thursday 5:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m., Eastern time, and a video location.

To create a new provider schedule:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Availability.
Click the plus sign to the right of Providers.
Select the provider who will use this availability.
Name the availability (for example, "Smith evenings").
Set the hours for the availability.
Select the time zone.
Set the location, or leave Upheal telehealth as the default location.
Click Save.

Removing a location from an availability

If you have more than one location listed on an availability (for example, you added an in-person location, but Upheal telehealth is still listed as an option), your client will be able to choose between locations when self-scheduling.

If you only want clients to schedule for appointments in one location, remove other locations from the availability.

To remove a location from an availability:

Click the three-dot icon on the location you want to remove from the availability.
Select Remove.
To confirm, click Remove.

If you remove a location from an availability, sessions booked for that location before you removed it remain as they are; this won't change the location for sessions booked before you removed the location.

Editing an Availability schedule

Editing an Availability schedule updates every service that uses it. Each schedule in Practice settings > Availability shows which services use it, so check that list before you make changes.

Go to Practice settings > Availability and open the schedule.
Change the hours, time zone, or locations.
Click Save.

The new hours apply right away to every service using that Availability schedule. For example, if an Availability schedule named "Kim: Mondays" is used by two services, Intake and Follow-up, editing the availability schedule changes the availability for both Intake and Follow-up.

Assigning an Availability schedule to a service

Each service (appointment type) in Upheal names the Availability schedule clients can book from. If a service has no schedule, it uses Practice hours. You can give a service one schedule for every provider, or give specific providers their own schedule. Only admins can assign schedules to services.

To assign an Availability schedule to a service:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Services.
On the line with the service you want to assign the schedule to, click the three-dot icon on the right.
Click Edit.
Select Client self-scheduling on the left.
Use the dropdown menu under Default schedule to select the availability you want to assign to the service.

Giving a provider their own Availability schedule on a service

You can give specific providers their own Availability schedule on the same service. For example, on the Intake service, Dr. Kim gets an Availability schedule named "Kim: Mondays" (Monday 9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.) and Dr. Rao stays on Practice hours. Clients booking Intake with Dr. Kim see Monday mornings only. With Dr. Rao, they see Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

To give specific providers their own Availability schedule on a service:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Services.
Click the three-dot icon on the line with the service you want to edit.
Click Edit.
Select Client self-scheduling on the left.
Switch off Use a default schedule.
Click Add provider, and select the provider.
You can use the dropdown menu to select which of the provider's availability schedules to use.
Repeat steps 7 and 8 for each provider.
Once all changes are made, make sure Clients can self-schedule is switched on at the top.

Setting booking rules for a service

Booking rules control slot length, buffers, and how far ahead clients can self-book a service. The table below lists the booking rules you set on each service, with their limits and defaults:

Setting	What it controls	Default
Duration	Length of the session	50 minutes
Buffer	Gap kept free after each session	10 minutes
Minimum notice	How soon a client can book	1 day
Maximum notice	How far ahead a client can book	30 days
Scheduling window	The date range in which the service can be booked	Until canceled
Price	Price shown to the client, set on the Pricing tab	No default

Example: Intake is 60 minutes with a 10-minute buffer, so slots start every 70 minutes. With 24 hours' minimum notice and 60 days' maximum notice, a client on Monday at 10:00 a.m. can book from Tuesday at 10:00 a.m., up to 60 days ahead.

Setting provider session limits

Provider session limits cap how many sessions clients can self-book with a provider per day and per week.

To set a session limit:

Go to Practice settings in the left menu.
Select Availability.
Click the provider you want to set a session limit for.
Click Add a session limit.
Set the limit and click Save.

Note: Session limits count sessions you add to your calendar yourself, but never stop you from adding them. For example, if Dr. Lee caps self-booking at 3 sessions a day and adds 2 sessions herself on Tuesday, clients can self-book only 1 more that Tuesday.

Archiving and restoring an Availability schedule

Archiving an Availability schedule stops clients from booking from it. To archive an Availability schedule, click the three-dot icon in the top right of that schedule, and select Archive.

You can restore an archived schedule at any time by going to Practice settings > Availability > Archived, and clicking Restore on the Availability you want to restore.

⚠️ If archiving an Availability schedule leaves a service with nothing bookable, Upheal switches off client self-scheduling for that service. Restoring the schedule doesn't switch self-scheduling back on. To take bookings again, switch self-scheduling back on for the service.

What the client sees