Who gets offered a freed slot

Waitlist auto-fill does not blast every waiting patient with every gap. Offers go only to the entries that genuinely fit the slot, with at most ten matching entries offered a slot at once.

The matching rules

Auto-fill and its waitlist-offer automation must be enabled. The freed time must have a treatment and practitioner, and must not still be occupied by another confirmed or pending booking. An entry is then offered it only if all of these hold:

• Status is Open. Entries already marked Booked or Removed are never contacted.
• The treatment fits. The entry either asked for the same treatment as the freed slot, or recorded no treatment preference.
• The date fits. If the entry has a preferred window (a preferred from and preferred to date), the slot's date must fall inside it. Entries with no window match any date.
• There is enough notice. Slots starting within your Don't offer within (hours) setting are not offered at all.
• The location offers it. Where your clinic has more than one active location, the slot's location must offer the treatment, and the entry must request that location or have no location preference.
• The patient can have it. If your clinic has enabled prerequisite enforcement and the treatment needs something first, such as a consultation, the slot only goes to entries linked to a patient record that meets that requirement.

Who goes first

One freed slot is offered to at most ten matching entries at once. Patients who have never had an offer, or whose last offer was longest ago, go first; after that it is the order they joined the list. So a long waitlist takes turns, rather than the same ten people being offered every gap.

If the same phone number is on more than one entry, that number gets one offer for the slot, not several.

Text limits per number

To protect your SMS credit, one phone number receives at most three waitlist offer texts an hour and six a day across the platform. If a number has reached that, an entry with an email address is still offered the slot by email; an entry with no email is passed over and the slot goes to the next person. The Messages log shows the text as not sent, with the reason.

Getting more offers to the right people

The more accurately you fill in a waitlist entry, the better it works. Offers use the enabled channels and are subject to patient messaging preferences and SMS credit.

• Record a reachable phone number or link the patient record with their contact details. A manually added unlinked entry has no email address.
• Record the treatment where the patient has a specific one in mind; leave it as no preference for flexible patients so they match everything.
• Set the preferred window honestly. A window of next week only means slots this week pass them by, which is exactly what the patient asked for.
• Link the entry to the patient's record where you can, so treatments that need a consultation first can still be offered to them.
• Keep the list tidy: mark entries Booked or Removed promptly so offers only chase people still waiting.

First to claim wins

Everyone offered a slot gets their own claim link, and the first to claim it books it. A patient who misses an offer stays open on the list and remains eligible for future matching gaps, with never-offered and less recently offered entries taking priority.