The calendar is the working screen for reception, clinical teams and managers. It shows appointments, calendar blocks, rota availability, rooms and cross-location commitments in one place, so the team can see what is booked and where capacity still exists.

💡 In short: Open Calendar to manage the day, switch between Calendar, Flow Chart, Hospitalisation and Map Diary where enabled, and use the toolbar to choose dates, people, rooms and display settings.

What You Will See

The calendar opens from Calendar in the main navigation. The available tabs depend on the features enabled for your practice.

Tab	What it is for	Typical users
Calendar	The main time-grid for appointments, rota overlays, rooms and calendar blocks.	Reception, vets, nurses, managers
Flow Chart	A status board for moving appointments through the clinic journey.	Reception and clinical teams
Hospitalisation	A hospital view for admitted patients. This only appears when hospitalisation is enabled.	Hospital and nursing teams
Map Diary	A map-based diary for location-based visits. This only appears when Map Diary is enabled.	House-call and mobile teams

📍 Access note: Team members can view the calendar. Some actions, such as changing appointment duration, depend on role permissions.

How to Navigate the Calendar

Choose the Date

Use the date controls in the toolbar to move through the diary.

Use the left and right arrows to move backwards or forwards.
Click the date to choose a specific day.
Click Today to return to the current date. The diary also scrolls so the current time sits near the top of the visible area, making it easy to see what is happening right now.

When you page between days using the arrows or the date picker, the diary keeps your vertical position — the same time of day stays in view as you move from one day to the next. This position resets if you reload the page.

As you move your cursor over the time grid, a thin line follows the row your cursor is on and a small time label appears on the left edge of the grid. This shows you the exact time you are pointing at before you click — useful when you are placing a new appointment in a busy column.

Choose Calendars to Show

Use the people and rooms picker to choose which resources appear. In Individual mode, each selected employee or room appears as its own column. The picker can show all resources, or a focused set for the team you are scheduling.

Change the View

Open the settings button in the toolbar to change the display.

Setting	Options	Use it when
Time Range	Day, Week, Continuous	You need detail for one day, a weekly overview, or a continuous timeline.
Calendar Mode	Merged, Individual	You want one combined diary or separate columns for each employee or room.
Filter	All, Employees, Rooms	You want to hide rooms or hide employee calendars temporarily.
Colour By	Employee, Category, Status	You want colours to highlight ownership, appointment type or patient flow.
Hide unavailable columns	On, Off	You want to hide staff or room columns that have no availability on the days you are viewing — useful when your rota is sparse and empty columns push the useful ones off-screen.
View Company Shifts	Each clinic within your company	You want to show or hide rota overlays for employees that work at multiple clinics within your company

💡 Continuous view uses an Individual-style timeline so each selected resource stays separate.

Save Your Preferred View

Click Save to My View in the calendar settings panel to save your preferred combination of resources, view, filters, colours and Flow Chart statuses. Click Load My View to restore it later. An orange dot on the settings button means your current view differs from the saved view.

Reading the Calendar

Item	How it appears	What to do with it
Appointment	A coloured block with the appointment title, time, and key details. Hover over a block to see a summary card showing the animal (including age and weight where recorded), client (including phone number where recorded), vet, appointment status and time range without opening the full record. If the appointment has Booking Notes, they appear in the summary card below the practitioner row — long notes are collapsed to a few lines and you can expand them with Show more or collapse them again with Show less. Completed appointments that still have an outstanding balance show an orange dashed outline — solid orange if nothing has been paid, dashed if the invoice is partially paid. The hover card also highlights the payment status in orange for these appointments.	Hover to check details at a glance. Click to open the appointment summary, edit details, update status or handle billing.
Recurring appointment	An appointment card that is part of a series shows a small badge with its position in the series — for example, 2/5 means this is the second of five appointments.	Use the badge to see at a glance where the appointment sits in the series. Click the card to open the appointment summary as normal.
Requested appointment	A slate grey appointment block with a diagonal hatch pattern, indicating the appointment has not yet been confirmed. In Colour By: Status mode this treatment makes requested appointments easy to distinguish from confirmed or in-progress ones.	Review and confirm or manage it from the appointment summary.
Calendar block	A solid block for meetings, lunch, admin time or other unavailable periods.	Use it to protect diary capacity for employees or rooms.
Rota overlay	A translucent background availability overlay that sits behind appointments or calendar blocks. All-day shifts appear in a separate all-day strip at the top of the time grid — this strip is hidden automatically on days when no all-day shifts are present.	Use it to see when people or rooms are scheduled to be available.
Cross-location booking	A black busy block with the other store shown.	Treat it as read-only context before booking shared staff.

The left border of an appointment reflects its status, even when the main colour is set to Employee or Category.

Common Calendar Actions

Create an Appointment

Click an empty time slot, or click Create. If you click inside an employee or room column, Lupa pre-fills that resource and time. See for the full workflow.

Open an Appointment

Click an appointment block to open the appointment summary. From there you can view the patient and client, update status, edit appointment details, add invoice items, take payment or open the full appointment page.

Move or Resize an Appointment

Drag an appointment to another time or resource to reschedule it. Drag the bottom edge to change the duration if your role has the Change Appointment Duration permission. While you drag the edge, a small tooltip appears next to the block showing the new length and the updated start and end times, so you can see exactly what the appointment will become before you let go. Lupa asks you to confirm changes before saving.

Create a Calendar Block

Use Create and choose Calendar Block to reserve employee or room time. See for capacity guidance.

Create Other Items

The Create menu can also offer Create Estimate/Invoice and, when enabled, Admission.

Flow Chart View

Flow Chart shows appointments grouped by status. Drag appointments between columns to update their status, or click a card to open the appointment summary. Completed appointments with an outstanding balance show an orange dashed outline on their card, matching the indicator on the main calendar grid.

Use the Flow Chart settings button to choose which statuses appear, and save the setup with Save to My View.

Viewing Other Locations

If your organisation has multiple locations, the calendar settings may include View Company Shifts. Select other stores to overlay shared staff commitments. These events are read-only from your current location, so switch store if you need to edit the original booking.

Tips

✅

Use Individual mode for busy reception shifts so every selected resource has its own column.
Use Colour By: Status when managing arrivals and checkout.
Save a preferred view for each workstation or role.
Check rota overlays before offering a time to a client.
Use calendar blocks for protected time rather than creating dummy appointments.
Turn on Hide unavailable columns before morning consults to keep the view focused on staff and rooms that are actually working that day.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
No appointments are visible	Check the date, selected calendars and Filter setting. Use Today to reset the date quickly.
A team member or room is missing	Check that the resource is selected and that the Employees or Rooms filter is not hiding it. If Hide unavailable columns is on, columns with no rota availability on the visible days are also hidden — turn the toggle off to show all selected resources.
Colours are not what you expected	Open the settings panel and check Colour By.
You cannot resize an appointment, or no tooltip appears while resizing	Your role needs the Change Appointment Duration permission. The resize handle and the duration tooltip only appear when this permission is granted.
Hospitalisation or Map Diary is missing	Those tabs only appear when the feature is enabled for the practice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Lupa show employees and rooms at the same time?

Yes. Use the resource picker and set Filter to All.

Does the calendar refresh automatically?

Yes. The main calendar query refreshes regularly, so updates from other team members appear without a manual reload.

Can I double-book?

Lupa warns about conflicts in the booking flow, but it does not silently replace existing appointments. Some practices intentionally overlap work, so review warnings before proceeding.

Why is another store shown in black?

Black blocks show cross-location commitments for shared staff. They are there to help you avoid booking someone who is already committed elsewhere.

Calendar overview