How availability rules work
Where availability is set for your practice, locations, rooms, clinicians and services, how those levels combine, and what each rule does to the times patients can book.
A visit is booked with one clinician, for one service, at one location or room. Online booking offers a time only when every one of those levels allows it. Each level can only make booking stricter than the levels above it, so your practice sets the outer limits and everything below narrows them.
The booking page, the booking widget and the AI receptionist all offer the same times.
Where is availability set?
Each level has its own hours and its own Availability rules:
| Level | Where | Hours | Extra limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your practice | Settings → Availability (under Scheduling) | Opening hours, one window a day | — |
| Location | Settings → Locations (under Practice), then Edit on the location | Organization hours or Custom hours | — |
| Room | Settings → Locations, then Edit room from the room's menu | Same as its location, or Custom hours | Visits per day, Max visits per block |
| Clinician | Calendar or Calendars, then Edit Availability | Weekly hours and Date overrides | Visits per day, Max visits per block |
| Service | Services, then the service, then Availability | Clinician's hours or Custom hours | Visits per day, Max visits per block |
The foot of each level's rules card shows where that level sits: Your practice › Locations › Rooms › Clinicians › Services, with the one you are editing highlighted.
Your practice's Availability rules are the defaults every other level starts from. Here the practice lets visits overlap, staggered every 15 minutes.
A location keeps its hours and its own rules in its sheet. Main Clinic adds a 10-minute buffer and starts visits every 15 minutes, and follows the practice for the rest.
A room follows its location unless it sets its own. Consult Room 1 holds one visit at a time and takes up to 8 visits a day.
A clinician's rules are under Availability rules in Edit Availability. Arnold Bays asks for 2 days' notice, starts visits every 30 minutes and takes up to 10 visits a day.
A service's rules are in its Availability section, under the choice of Clinician's hours or Custom hours. Nutrition Counselling starts every 15 minutes and takes up to 6 visits a day across all clinicians.
How do the levels combine?
Rules narrow from the top down: practice, location, room, clinician, service. A level that sets nothing follows the levels above it. That is what Default (…) and Same as … (…) mean in a rule's menu, and the value in brackets is what applies. Each menu only offers values stricter than that.
| Rule | How the levels combine |
|---|---|
| Hours | The whole visit has to fit inside the hours of every level that sets any. |
| Buffer | The longest buffer wins. |
| Minimum notice | The longest notice wins. |
| Booking window | The shortest window wins. |
| Start times | A visit can start only at a time every level allows. Two intervals keep only the starts they share: every 15 and every 20 minutes gives every 60. |
| Overlapping visits | Visits overlap only when your practice allows it and no location, clinician or service turns it off. When several levels stagger visits, the longest gap wins. A room's setting works differently, see rooms. |
| Visits per day | Each limit counts on its own: a room's counts every visit in the room, a clinician's counts their visits, and a service's counts every visit for the service, whoever the clinician. |
| Max visits | Counts the visits that start in that block of hours. |
For example, if your practice asks for 24 hours' notice and a service asks for 48, that service needs 48 hours. A clinician can't lower the practice's 24.
How do hours and blocks work?
Your practice's Opening hours are the widest hours anyone can be booked. A location with Organization hours follows them, or Custom hours gives it its own week inside them. A room follows its location, or sets its own week inside the location's hours. A clinician who has never set hours can be booked during the opening hours. A service with Clinician's hours can be booked whenever the clinician is available, and Custom hours gives it its own week inside your opening hours.
A day can have several blocks, such as 9:00–12:00 and 1:00–5:00. Each block starts its own visits, and start times are counted from the start of each block.
When two blocks touch, a visit can start in one and run on into the next. With blocks of 1:00–2:30, 2:30–4:00 and 4:00–6:00, a 120-minute visit can start at 1:00, 2:30 or 4:00.
What does each rule do?
Buffer
Time kept free before and after each visit, from 5 minutes to 1 hour. A buffer keeps visits apart. It isn't added around blocked time or Google Calendar busy time.
Minimum notice
How soon before a visit it can be booked, from 1 hour to 2 weeks. With nothing set, a time can be booked right up until it starts.
Booking window
How far ahead a visit can be booked, from 7 days to 1 year. With nothing set, it's 1 year.
Start times
When a visit can begin:
- Back to back (nothing set): visits follow one another from the start of each block. 30-minute visits start at 9:00, 9:30, 10:00 and so on.
- On the hour, Every 30 minutes, Every 15 minutes, Every 10 minutes or Every 5 minutes: visits start at those minutes past the hour. Choose Custom to pick the minutes yourself.
- At an interval: a visit every so many minutes, from 5 to 240, counted from the start of each block. With 25, visits start at 9:00, 9:25, 9:50. An interval can be shorter than the visit, or longer than it.
A level uses one kind of start rule at a time. There's no list of specific clock times. When the times you need are evenly spaced, an interval gives exactly those.
Overlapping visits
Whether a clinician can have more than one visit at the same time. It's off unless your practice turns it on. When it's on, choose an Overlap type:
- Any time: visits can overlap freely, and a time stays bookable online after it's taken.
- Staggered every 5 min to Staggered every 1 h: visits can overlap, but each starts at least that long after another. This suits a practice that starts a new patient every 15 minutes while earlier visits are still running. Without a start-time rule, staggered visits are offered every that many minutes.
Locations, clinicians and services choose Default (…), a longer Staggered every … gap, or Not allowed. Your practice can allow overlap while one service staggers its visits every 15 minutes. Every clinician or service that should never overlap then needs Not allowed.
A buffer doesn't apply between a clinician's visits when they're allowed to overlap.
Visits per day
On rooms, clinicians and services: the most visits a day online, from 1 to 200. Once a room, clinician or service reaches its limit, online booking offers nothing more from it that day.
Max visits in a block
On a room's, clinician's or service's hours, select No limit beside a block to set Max visits in this block, from 1 to 100. Online booking closes once that many visits start in the block. Touching blocks with a limit on each let you cap every start time, such as three places in a group session that starts every 25 minutes.
How do rooms hold one visit at a time?
A room's Overlapping visits setting is about the room, not the clinician:
- Allowed (the default): visits can share the room.
- Not allowed: the room holds one visit at a time, whoever the clinician. A visit in the room takes that time away from every clinician and service booked there, buffer included.
This works whatever your practice's overlap setting is. It's useful when two services share a consult room, or when a room's booking should also keep another service from booking the same time there.
What happens when staff book a visit?
Online booking always follows every rule. When staff book or move a visit at a time that breaks a rule or clashes with another visit, Ona lists why and they can select Book anyway or Save anyway. Staff can always book past Visits per day and Max visits this way.
How do I check the result?
In the left sidebar, click Settings (at the bottom). In the settings menu, under Scheduling, click Availability. In Bookable times, choose a Location, Clinician and Service to see the hours when all of them are available, how many hours that is a week, and the rules that apply, such as 30 min visits, Start every 25 min, Staggered every 15 min or Room takes one at a time.
Bookable times shows hours and rules, not visits that are already booked.
What can't I do here?
Availability rules have these limits:
- A level can't loosen a rule set above it. A service can't shorten the practice's notice, and a clinician can't allow overlap when the practice doesn't.
- You can't list specific clock times as start times. Use minutes past the hour or an interval.
- A visit has one clinician, so one booking can't hold two clinicians' time.
- Blocks on the same day can't overlap.
- A room can't stagger visits. Its overlap setting only decides one visit at a time or shared.
Common questions
How do I offer exact start times, like 1:00, 2:30 and 4:00?
Open the service, go to Availability and choose Custom hours with one block, 1:00–6:00. Set Start times to At an interval, 90 minutes. That offers 1:00, 2:30 and 4:00 for 60-, 90- and 120-minute visits alike, as long as the clinician and room are available until 6:00.
How do I start a new visit every 15 minutes?
Turn on Overlapping visits for your practice and set Overlap type to Staggered every 15 min. To stagger only one service, turn on Overlapping visits for your practice with Any time, set that service's Overlapping visits to Staggered every 15 min, and set every other service or clinician that shouldn't overlap to Not allowed.
Why is a time missing from online booking?
Check, in order: the hours at every level for that day, an existing visit or blocked time, Google Calendar busy time, a room set to one visit at a time, Minimum notice and Booking window, Start times at every level, and whether Visits per day or Max visits has been reached. Bookable times shows the hours and rules for one location, clinician and service.
What's the difference between Visits per day and Max visits?
Visits per day limits a whole day. Max visits limits one block of hours, and counts only the visits that start in it.
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