Release 7.4.709

Restrictions on Waiting Room Capacity
We’ve added another new feature in response to the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19. You can now put restrictions on the number of appointments that can be made for a given waiting room. This is to help in social distancing by preventing too many appointments being made for a given location.

In the screen DiaryBook Settings / Rooms And Equipment one or more waiting rooms can be added to your account. A waiting room has 2 extra values over other resources. These are:

Capacity
This is the number of clients that can safely occupy the waiting room, car park or building at any given time.

Wait Time
This is the average number of minutes a patient waits and represents the minimum gap between appointments you would like clients turning up for.

If these values are set DiaryBook will check waiting room capacity every time an appointent is made and if the waiting room capacity is exceeded will prevent that appointment from being made.

For example If a waiting room has a safe capacity of 2 people and a wait time of 5 minutes then only 2 appointments can be made for any given time of the day. A third appointment is blocked and would have to advance the appointment time by 5 minutes.

Making an appointment
If your account has one or more waiting rooms a user will see the option of choosing a waiting room when making an appointment.

Enforcement
Your account can be set to enforce the selection of a waiting room when making an appointment.