Scheduler Settings controls when appointments can be offered, who or what must be available, and whether clients can book online. Use this guide when setting up Scheduler for the first time or troubleshooting missing appointment times.
Not sure which capacity model fits your center? Start with Scheduler Setup Patterns: Match How Your Center Works. Need to find a specific page? See Where Scheduler Settings Live.
The key idea: a time is bookable only when every required layer is available. Location hours, appointment-type availability, staffing, resources, booking rules, and closures all work together. The narrowest rule wins.
• Confirm that you have permission to manage Scheduler settings.
• List each location, its time zone, and its normal operating hours.
• List the appointment types you offer, their duration, and whether they require staff, rooms, or equipment.
• Decide which appointment types should be available for public online booking.
1. From the CoolFocus home screen, select the Settings gear, then choose Scheduler Settings.
2. You can also open Scheduler and select its settings gear.
Tip: Visit Board stages live under Settings → Scheduler Settings → Visit Board, not under Care Settings. See Where Scheduler Settings Live.
1. Open Locations and create or select a location.
2. On the Schedule tab, choose the schedule that defines when the location is open. Create a custom schedule when the location does not use an existing schedule.
3. For split-day hours, add another time period. Disable a day when the location is closed.
4. Select the location's correct time zone. This affects displayed appointment times, reminders, calendar feeds, and online booking.
5. On Appointment Types, add the services offered at this location, remove services no longer offered, and save.
After your locations exist, open Settings → Scheduler Settings → Location Display Order. Drag active locations into the order you want them to appear. The list saves as you drop each location.
This order affects the Group by Center view on the Scheduler. When staff use the Scheduler’s Group by Center view (the split-screen day view with one column per location), the columns will follow this display order from left to right. The first location in the list is the leftmost column.
• This order is organization-wide. It is not a personal preference on one staff computer.
• Online booking: This same order is used when clients pick a location on the booking widget, so the public list matches how your team sees centers on the calendar.
• Only active locations appear here. Inactive locations stay out of the list and out of normal scheduling.
• Reordering locations does not change hours, appointment types, or who can book. It only changes the order locations appear.
If you add a new location later, return to Location Display Order and place it where it belongs in the list.
Create or select an appointment type, then review each tab. A service can only be booked at locations that are assigned to it.
• Add every location where the appointment type is offered.
• Choose Location Hours when the service follows the site's normal hours.
• Choose or create a custom schedule only when the service is offered during a smaller window of time.
• No Staff: Staff availability does not limit booking. The appointment can occur regardless of staff schedules.
• Position Pool: at least one qualified person in a required position must be working and available for that appointment.
• Create positions in the Serve module
• Give staff work schedules
• Add the required position to the appointment type.
• Specific Staff: one named person must be available. Search for and assign that person.
Open the Rules tab to define how appointment times are generated.
• Duration: How long the appointment lasts.
• Start Time Increment: How frequently start times appear. For example, a 45-minute appointment can still start every hour.
• Lead Time: The minimum notice required before a client can book.
• Booking Window: How far in advance clients can book.
• Advanced Scheduling: Optional buffers and limits. Leave these blank unless your workflow needs them.
The Booking tab is where you control what clients see online, what questions they answer when they book, which consent documents go with the appointment type, and the confirmation message after they reply to a reminder.
• Enable Online Booking only for appointment types that clients should see publicly.
• Use a Private Booking Link when an appointment type should be available to a third-party partner or scheduler but not the public.
• Add short Booking Questions for a couple of brief facts needed at booking time. Do not use booking questions as a replacement for a full intake form.
• Under Consent Documents, link the client consent forms that should be sent automatically for appointments of this type. Clients complete them during intake or in the portal.
• Create or edit consent templates first under Settings → Scheduler Settings → Intake & documents → Consent Documents.
• Only active, client consent documents appear in the picker.
• Mark each linked document as Required if the client must complete it, and choose a renewal rule: Once, Each visit, Yearly, or Every __ days.
• Under Confirmation Auto-Reply, set the text that clients receive after they reply YES to an appointment reminder for this appointment type. Only use this feature if you intend to override the general default confirmation reply from the Scheduler reminder settings.
• By default, the appointment type inherits the center-wide confirmation reply from Scheduler reminder settings.
• Saving a different text confirmation here will override the default setting for this appointment type only. Use Save Confirmation Reply when you finish editing.
Open the Charts tab to select the standard charts that should appear in the visit workspace for this appointment type (for example client advocacy, pregnancy test, ultrasound, or STI test charts that your center uses).
Only link the charts staff will need for visits of this appointment type. You can change the list later without changing online booking settings.
Resources represent limited rooms, equipment, or shared capacity. Skip resource requirements when they do not affect whether an appointment can occur.
1. Create the resource.
2. On Location & Capacity, choose where it is used and how many simultaneous appointments it supports.
3. Connect the resource to the appointment types that consume that capacity.
• Availability shows the schedules used by locations, appointment types, and positions.
• Availability Blocks close otherwise available time for holidays, weather closures, meetings, or other exceptions.
• Use a block for a one-time closure. Change the normal schedule only when operating hours have permanently changed.
1. Confirm every location has the correct hours and time zone.
2. Confirm Location Display Order matches how you want centers lined up for Group by Center and online booking.
3. Confirm each appointment type is assigned to the correct locations.
4. Confirm duration, start increment, lead time, and booking window.
5. Confirm the required staff have the correct positions and work schedules.
6. Confirm resources have the correct location and capacity.
7. Confirm online-booking visibility, booking questions, consent documents, confirmation auto-reply (if needed), charts, and intake settings.
8. Add known closures and preview availability before launch.
9. Save changes on every settings page.
Check each layer in order: location hours, the appointment type's schedule, staffing, resources, booking rules, and availability blocks. One unavailable required layer is enough to remove a time from being available for scheduling.
Use location hours when the service is offered whenever the site is open. Use a custom appointment-type schedule when the service is offered only during part of those hours or only certain days.
Use Position Pool when any qualified person can cover the appointment. Use Specific Staff only when the booking must depend on one named person.
Duration is the time the appointment occupies. Start Time Increment controls how often clients see a possible start time.
Create an Availability Block. Do not rewrite the regular weekly schedule for a one-time closure.
Open Settings → Scheduler Settings → Location Display Order and drag the locations into the order you want. That list controls left-to-right columns when the Scheduler is set to Group by Center, and it also orders locations on the online booking widget.
• Where Scheduler Settings Live
• Scheduler Setup Patterns: Match How Your Center Works
• Locations and Location Hours
• Appointment Types and Booking Rules
• Staff Positions and Work Schedules
• Resources and Shared Capacity
• Availability, Closures, and Scheduler Blocks
• Online Booking Configuration
• Troubleshooting Scheduler Availability
For a click-by-click visual reference, open the Scheduler Settings Arcade guide.
Find Scheduler Settings, the quick panel vs full sidebar, Visit Board (not Care Settings), time zones, and topic guides.
Choose the right setup based on what limits bookings: rooms, staff pools, qualified staff, named staff, or shared capacity.
