Use appointments to schedule clinical work, reserve the right team member or room, and create the linked invoice the team will use during checkout. This article covers staff-created appointments in the work app, including editing, warnings and what happens after you save.

💡 In short: From Calendar, click an empty time slot or Create, choose the pet, appointment type, employee, room if needed and time, then save.

📍 Permissions: Most team members can create appointments. Changing the end time or resizing an appointment needs the Change Appointment Duration permission. Mandatory room booking depends on your practice settings.

You need:

When you start from the calendar grid, Lupa pre-fills the selected time. In Individual mode, it also pre-fills the employee or room column you clicked.

On the calendar, each appointment block shows the pet and client name in bold on the first line, with the appointment title on the line below. When you hover over an appointment, Lupa shows a card with the pet's name, species, age and weight, the client's name and phone number, the assigned clinician, and the appointment status. If the appointment has Booking Notes, they appear in the card too — collapsed to a few lines by default, with a Show more link if there is more to read.

Open Calendar, choose the right date, then click the time slot you want or click Create. The form opens full screen. The left side contains the appointment fields. The right side shows a compact calendar while you are entering details.

Use Pet or Client to search existing records. Select the right pet result and Lupa fills the linked client. For a walk-in or new client, click Create Pet and enter the pet and client details without leaving the appointment form. If the selected pet has useful previous booking history, click the Auto Fill icon. Lupa copies the most recent appointment type, title, employee, duration and invoice discount details where available.

Select Appointment Type. The appointment type sets the default title, category, duration, notes template and reminder behaviour. If the title field is still empty or still shows the previous appointment type's name, Lupa updates it automatically when you pick a new type. If you have already typed a custom title, Lupa leaves it as you wrote it. Picking an appointment type also populates the estimate straight away — you can see the running total in the summary strip at the bottom of the form without opening the Billing Items tab. If the list looks shorter than expected, it may be filtered by the selected employee, room, pet species or rota availability.

Choose the Employee responsible for the appointment. If your practice has rooms set up, a Room field appears — choose a room before continuing if your practice requires it. If no rooms are configured, the Room field is not shown. Lupa checks rota availability, employee qualifications, room availability and store hours. If it finds a conflict, it shows a warning and asks you to confirm before moving on.

Review Title, Start Time and End Time. The end time is usually calculated from the appointment type duration.

🔒 If End Time is disabled, your role does not have permission to change appointment duration. Ask an administrator to update your role if this is part of your job.

The right side of the form has a Calendar / Billing Items toggle. Switch to Billing Items at any point to review or adjust the items and discounts that will appear on the linked invoice. You can also set the Appointment Status and choose whether to send the client an email or mobile notification using the controls at the bottom of the form.

Click Create Appointment. Lupa creates the appointment, adds it to the calendar, and creates the linked invoice. If notifications are enabled and the selected appointment type sends reminders, the client can receive the relevant booking communication.

⚠️ Do not create a separate invoice for the same visit. Staff-created appointments already have a linked invoice. Add appointment items to that invoice instead of creating a duplicate standalone invoice.

In the notifications sidebar, each appointment notification shows a View Appointment arrow on the right. When you hover over a card (or tab into it), a pencil icon also appears — click it to go straight to the Edit Appointment page for that appointment. On touch screens the pencil is always visible. Both the pencil and the arrow are real links, so you can middle-click or right-click to open them in a new tab.

Click an appointment block on the calendar. The summary shows the client, pet, any active health-plan or insurance badges, appointment context, linked invoice, booking notes, client notes, questionnaire responses and quick actions. The header also shows the Supervisor (the main clinician assigned to the appointment) and any Responsible clinicians derived from the linked invoice's line items.

The Internal Booking Notes section on the appointment details screen can be edited directly — click the pencil icon next to the section to enter edit mode, make your changes, then click Save. You do not need to open the full edit form just to update booking notes. A "Booking notes updated" confirmation appears when the save completes.

If the appointment belongs to a recurring series, its calendar card shows a small badge — for example 3/12 — indicating its position in the series.

Use the edit action from the appointment summary to reopen the appointment form. You can update appointment type, employee, room, time, title, location where enabled and notification settings.

If the appointment is part of a recurring series, Lupa asks Apply changes to before saving. Choose This appointment only to update just that date, or This and all future appointments to apply the change to every upcoming appointment in the series from that point forward. Completed appointments in the series are always skipped.

Drag the appointment to a new time or resource. Lupa opens a confirmation dialog before saving the move. If you cancel, the appointment returns to its original position.

If the appointment is part of a recurring series and you drag it to a different employee or room, Lupa also asks Apply changes to after you confirm. Choose This appointment only to reassign just that occurrence, or This and all future appointments to reassign every upcoming appointment in the series from that point forward. Completed appointments are always skipped. Dragging a recurring appointment to a different time or day does not trigger this extra step — the time change applies to that occurrence only.

Drag the bottom edge of an appointment block to change its end time, or drag the top edge to change its start time. Both are only available to roles with the Change Appointment Duration permission.

While you drag, a small tooltip appears next to the appointment block showing the new duration (for example 1h 30m) and the updated start and end times. The tooltip disappears as soon as you release the edge.

Use the status controls in the appointment summary or move the card in Flow Chart. Some status changes may ask for extra confirmation or notification details. When you click Start on a checked-in appointment from the summary pop-up, Lupa updates the status and opens the appointment page straight away.

If you cancel an appointment that is part of a recurring series, Lupa asks which appointments to cancel — This appointment only or This and all future appointments. Completed appointments in the series are skipped automatically.

If your practice uses hospitalisation, team members with the right permissions can admit a patient directly from the calendar in two ways:

From the appointment summary — click the More actions button (⋯) in the appointment header. It offers:

From the calendar right-click menu — right-click an appointment block on the calendar. The menu shows the same admission options:

Appointment blocks that are linked to an admission show a small hospital icon so you can spot admitted patients at a glance without opening the appointment.

Lupa warns before you continue when the appointment may not fit the diary.

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