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This is the lab’s diary: sample-collection slots, draw times and imaging appointments, all on one grid. It is where the front desk answers “when can you fit me in” without walking to the bench to ask.

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What you’re looking at

The page is only a calendar, edge to edge. There is no page heading, no subtitle and no stat cards above it — the grid fills the screen and the two toolbar rows are the whole of the interface. The top row carries Today, a back and forward chevron pair, and the month you are viewing. To the right sit two small pills: a blue Syncing pill that appears while the calendar is refreshing, and a Live pill that means the calendar is updating itself as colleagues book. If it reads Connect instead, live updates are not running and you are looking at a snapshot. Next to those is the view control — Day, Week, Month, plus two swimlane views: Providers (who is free, in session or off) and Resources (which rooms, chairs and machines are free). There is no list view. A By Status / By Service picker decides what the colours mean — the options read Color by Status and Color by Service — and a gear button opens a three-item menu.
All three gear items — Services, Booking Page and Availability — leave the calendar and open a settings tab. A diagnostic centre gets the appointment book but not the public booking-page designer; that surface is clinical-edition only, so Booking Page is of limited use to a lab.
The second row is the working row: Search patients, services…, More filters (with a badge counting how many are active), Refresh, Current Schedule (Schedule on a phone) and Create. Statuses. Every appointment carries one, set from the appointment’s own dropdown. The empty state. A new lab sees an empty grid with today outlined, and nothing else. There is nothing to switch on here — the calendar is live from the first day. What you may not have yet is anything to book into, which is what Services and Availability on the gear menu are for.

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Book a slot

1

Open the booking sheet

Select Create, or select the empty slot you want on the grid — starting from the grid pre-fills the date and time you selected. The sheet is titled Initial Entry.
2

Stay on the Appointment tab

The sheet has three tabs: Appointment · Event · Task. Event is for anything that occupies the diary without a patient — a maintenance visit, a training block. Task is a to-do with a due date, not a slot.
3

Choose the patient and the service

Pick the patient the sample will belong to, and the service they are booked for — the venepuncture, the swab collection, the scan. If the patient has no record, register them first; see Patients.
4

Set where it happens

Location is Video Office or Physical Office. Collection and imaging are always Physical Office; Video Office suits a pre-test consultation or a results discussion.
5

Book it

Select Book appointment. On the other two tabs the same button reads Create event or Create task. The booking appears on the grid immediately, and on colleagues’ screens too while the pill reads Live.

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Find the booking you need

1

Search by name or service

Enter a name or a service into Search patients, services…. This narrows the calendar itself rather than opening a separate result list.
2

Filter

Select More filters to open Calendar Filters — “Refine your view by status, service, or staff.” The sections are Appointment Status, Urgency Level, Event Types, Task Status, Task Priority, Venue Type, Services and Staff Members. Reset all filters at the foot clears everything at once.
3

Switch the view to the question you are asking

Day for the desk, Week for planning, Month for capacity. Use Providers when you need to know which phlebotomist is free, and Resources when the constraint is the room, the chair or the scanner rather than the person.
4

Recolour by what matters today

Choose Color by Service to see the shape of the day’s workload, Color by Status when you are chasing unconfirmed slots.

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Move an appointment through the day

1

Open it

Select the appointment on the grid. Its detail sheet opens with everything recorded about the booking.
2

Set the status

Use the status dropdown: Confirmed when the patient confirms, In Progress when they arrive and collection starts, Completed when the specimen or study exists. Mark No Show rather than deleting the slot — a deleted booking takes its history with it, and no-show rates are worth knowing.
3

Hand the list to the bench

Current Schedule gives the day’s bookings as a list you can work down or print for the collection room.

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Who can do this

Role is the lever on this screen. The grantable lab permissions cover specimens (Accession an incoming specimen), results (Verify and authorise results), quality (Configure analysers and interfaces) and referrers (Release a report to a referrer) — and none of them governs the appointment book. Whoever can open the screen can use it. That last-but-one row is the answer to “why can’t I see this”. The bench and imaging roles are pointed at their stations, not the diary, and no permission grant opens it for them — the fix is the person’s role. Two behaviours surprise people:
  • Enforcement is opt-in, per person. Somebody never saved in the permissions sheet is unrestricted, and the sheet warns “Saving starts enforcing”.
  • A denied action is recorded; an allowed one is not. Hiding a module from a sidebar is a convenience, not a security boundary.
See Permissions.

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Check it worked

  • The booking sits on the grid at the right time, in the right colour for its status.
  • The pill reads Live, and a colleague on another machine sees the same booking without refreshing.
  • Current Schedule lists it among the day’s slots.
  • Once the patient arrives and you set In Progress, the block changes colour under By Status.

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Common issues

Your role does not reach it. Lab scientists, radiologists, radiology technicians and phlebotomists are routed to their stations instead. Ask an owner or manager — this is a role change, not a permission you can be granted.
The calendar has lost its live connection, so bookings made elsewhere will not appear on their own. Select Refresh to pull the current picture, and reload the page if it stays on Connect.
A filter is still on. More filters shows a count badge when any are active — open it and select Reset all filters.
It is not in your catalogue yet, or it is not offered at the time you selected. Add it under Services on the gear menu, and check the hours under Availability.
The gear menu is shared across editions. A diagnostic centre has the appointment book but not the public booking-page designer, so ignore that item and use Services and Availability.

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FAQ

No. The diary and the order are separate — book the slot here, then raise the order on Raise a test request. This is deliberate: patients rebook, and the order should not move with them.
An Event occupies time on the calendar but has no patient — analyser servicing, a delivery window, a training block. A Task is a piece of work with a due date and a priority; it does not hold a slot.
Yes. The calendar is not a gate — a specimen can be accessioned without any appointment behind it. Book walk-ins retrospectively only if you want them in your capacity figures.
The views are Day, Week, Month, Providers and Resources. When you want a list, use Current Schedule, which is the day’s bookings in order.
Set it to No Show instead. Deleting removes the evidence that the slot was ever held, and no-show rates are one of the few numbers that tell you whether your reminder settings are working.