Booking Limits - feature overview, logic and examples of use

What is the context?

A Site Session must exist for an appointment to be booked. Site Sessions can be configured in 2 ways:

1. Start Page > Clinician Details > Site scheduler
2. Start Page > Room > select location at respective site > Book appointment > Search and select clinician

Once a Site Session exists Appointment Types can be booked into it. By default there is no limit to the number of times a given Appointment Type can be booked into a session. 

What is the purpose of the article?

This article:

• Provides an overview and describes enabling the Booking Limits feature 
• Describes the feature concepts and logic  
• Describes using Booking Limits
• Provides additional information
• Details reporting on Booking Limits

Clicking on either of the above links will take you to the corresponding section of the article.

Overview and enabling the feature

The Booking Limits feature allows configuring limits for the number of times different appointment types can be booked into a Site Session. This means that once a given Appointment Type had been booked the allowed number of times into a session, according to the configured limits, appointment slots in this session will to longer be shown as available for this Appointment Type*

*As described later in this article, there are various ways an appointment can be booked. Once booking limits are reached for an Appointment Type in a Site Session, slot availability searches utilising the Slot Finder will not return any more results for that session. 

To enable the feature:-

1. From the Start Page click the Admin tile.
2. Click the Configuration tile.
3. In the left-hand side menu, click Booking.
4. Tick the Enable booking limits checkbox.
5. Click Save to apply your settings.
6. Click Ok.

Booking Limits - concepts and logic

Now that the feature is enabled, let's create a Site Session for a clinician and consider the logic of configuring Booking Limits:

1. From the Start Page click Find clinician 
2. Search for a clinician and click on the search result
3. On the Clinician Details page click Site scheduler:

• • • Click on a given day's timeline to open the Session configuration dialog window

or

• • • Click on an existing Session to open its configuration dialog window

By default no booking limit groups will be configured. A new limit group can be configured by clicking on the Add button, which will open the new Booking limit editing dialog:

This dialog window is where booking limits are configured. There are 2 main concepts to understand when configuring these limits:

1. Rows - A row is a single count of a set of appointment types. This is represented in the image above as a single row in the page.

• • • Within a row you configure the count value on the left, and the appointment types using the dropdown menu on the right. Click Save to create the row.

Please note that the count must be a valid non-negative integer (0 or above) and you must select at least one appointment type for a row to be valid. Saving with any invalid configuration will cause a validation warning to be shown to the user explaining what validations failed on which rows

• • • The idea of a row is configuring a single limit on a set of appointment types grouped together, 

e.g. if you configured a count of 2 and selected the Medical Screen and Medication Review appointment types in the row then this corresponds to limiting the site session to having at most 2 appointments of those 2 types combined, not individually.

This allows for 3 maximum booking combinations in the session:

A. One of each appointment type.

B. 2 Medical Screens.

C. 2 Medication Reviews.

• • • Within the page you can create multiple rows by pressing the Add button as many times as required, each row is configured individually, and when you have more than one row you may press the delete button on the right hand side to delete a row

2. Groups - A group is a set of rows together, and is represented by the whole dialog window that appears as shown above. Every row in this window is part of the group. Rows in a group can be connected with 'And' to create complex booking limits, meaning that configuration in rows applies simultaneously, 

i.e. configuration in the 1st row applies And configuration in the 2nd row applies And so on...

Using the appointments types from the previous example, let's add a Booking Limit group containing 2 rows, as shown below:

• • • • Row 1 - count of 4 with Medical Screen and Medication Review appointment types selected
      • Row 2 - count of 1 with Medical Screen appointment type selected

The above group allows for 2 maximum booking combinations in the session:

A. 4 Medication Reviews

or

B. 1 Medical Screen* and 3 Medication Reviews.

*The 2nd row in the group prevents the Medical Screen appointment type to be booked more than once in this session.

Groups can work together to create more complicated logic. Whilst Rows in a Group are connected with 'AND', i.e. 1st row configuration applies AND 2nd row configuration applies AND 3rd row etc., Groups can be connected with 'OR', i.e. 1st Group configuration applies OR 2nd Group configuration applies etc.

Using Booking Limits

Once configured for the required site sessions the booking limits will come into play during bookings via the Slot Finder as well as bookings via Schedule. There are three workflows to book an appointment:

1. A patient can book an appointment via the Patient Portal, which utilises the Slot Finder.
2. A Meddbase user can use the Slot Finder to find an available appointment slot to book a patient into
3. A Meddbase user can use the Clinician Schedules feature, where they can select a slot on a visual representation of the clinic's workload

Furthermore:

4. It is possible to book an appointment with multiple clinician attendees, each with their own session and their own booking limits.

Booking limits come into effect for all these workflows, but they work differently depending on the workflow used to book the appointment and at what point in the booking process the booking limit is broken.

Booking via the Patient Portal

The patient portal allows the patient to self-book appointments. The patient selects which appointment they wish to book and will then be able to search for slots available for them to book into.

Booking limits will come into effect at the point the slot is being searched for. If a particular session has a booking limit configured and the appointment type being searched for has already reached it's booking limit then slots on this session will not be available for booking this appointment type.

This can only happen if the limit is broken before the slots are searched for, because between the point the slot is searched for and an appointment being booked into the slot the following can happen:

• New booking limits can be configured/existing limits can be modified
• Other patients or Meddbase users could book appointments into the respective session, thus potentially reaching booking limits for appointment types. 

If the booking limit is broken at the point the appointment is being booked into the slot, an error will be returned to the patient informing them that the appointment is no longer available. The patient will be able to return to the slot finder, at which point the now unavailable slots will not be shown to the patient searching for availability again.

Booking via Meddbase Slot Finder

Meddbase Slot Finder feature allows users to search for available slots in the application to book appointments into.

Booking limits work here the same way as they do for the Patient Portal.

If a slot is no longer available due to a booking limit being reached, the slots will simply not appear in the slot availability search.

There is a possibility here also, that a booking limit is reached for an appointment type between searching for a slot and booking the appointment into that slot.

In this case the Meddbase user will receive a warning informing them that a booking limit has been reached, and they will be asked to confirm if they wish to continue with the booking.

The user can decide to continue with the booking and the appointment will be booked, ignoring the limit.

Booking via Meddbase Clinician Schedules

Meddbase Clinician Schedules feature shows multiple clinician's schedules in a side-by-side view allowing a time slot to directly be selected and then a patient and appointment type can be selected to book directly into that time slot.

There is no "slot finding" as such done here, there is no point at which a slot would be "hidden" if it were to break a booking limit.

When a booking limit is broken during the process of booking an appointment via Clinician Schedules, the Meddbase user will be alerted at the point of confirming the booking .

If at this point this appointment booking would break a booking limit within any of the selected clinician's sessions, then the user will receive a warning informing them that a booking limit has been reached, and they will be asked to confirm if they wish to continue with the booking.

The user can decide to continue with the booking and the appointment will be booked, ignoring the limit.

Multiple Clinician Attendees in Appointments

In Meddbase it is possible to book an appointment containing multiple clinicians. Booking limits works with this in mind and will always check ALL of the clinician's sessions that are attending the appointment.

If any of the clinicians' sessions have reached their respective booking limits for the appointment type being booked, the system will either:

• Not show slots for the duration of the blocked session, e.g. 08:00 - 14:00 when using the slot Finder

Or

• Return a warning to the user stating the booking limit has been reached*

*In the event of multiple clinicians triggering the booking limit at the same time, the warning provided to the user will list all clinicians who's sessions broke a booking limit. This means that different booking limit configurations across different sessions can come into play within a single appointment booking.

Multiple Clinician Attendees in Modules

Meddbase allows creating Modules where multiple attendees are required to attend, based on Role or Specialism. Each of the clinicians attending the module could therefore have their own session with its separate Booking Limits.

To understand how these limits would interact consider the following configuration:

1. 3 sessions configured (1 per clinician) for:

• • • Clinician A
    • Clinician B 
    • Clinician C

2. An appointment type called X exists

3. A module called M, where:

• • • 2 clinicians are required to attend
    • Clinician A is the primary attendee
    • Either Clinician B or Clinician C are available as the second attendee (based on their Role or Specialism)

Using the Slot Finder, let's book appointment type X and add module M. The Slot Finder will only show slots for the primary attendee but only those where the other conditions of module M have been met, i.e. either Clinician B or C is also available

If either clinician B or C had already reached their Booking Limit on their respective session for appointment X, the Slot Finder would automatically consider the other clinician as available to attend module M, whilst still only displaying slots for the primary attendee - clinician A.

Additional information

There are other characteristics and behaviours of the Booking Limits feature in Meddbase that are important for users to be aware of.

Disabling Booking Limits

If the Booking Limits feature gets disabled, by unticking the Booking limits checkbox under Admin > Configuration > Chargeable feature > Booking limits, the ability to create new limits is removed, however on sessions where limits still exist, they will continue to apply regardless of the feature being switched off.

When a user attempts to disable the feature they are presented with a pop-up notification explaining that existing limits will still apply, and also that they can still be viewed and removed, as shown below:

The sessions themselves now have an interesting property of showing and allowing removal of booking limits, but no other changes.

When the feature is disabled and you navigate to a session that has no booking limits, the entire Booking limits section will not be visible.

However if the feature is disabled but the session does have booking limits, the limits will be visible with some notable changes:

• There is no Add button for adding new groups
• Groups can no longer be clicked in order to modify them
• The Delete button is still available next to each group. This still functions and allows the Meddbase user to delete any remaining groups on the respective sessions. If the user deletes all groups and saves the session, then re-opening it will no longer display the Booking limits section as the feature is disabled and the session no longer has any limits, and new limits can not be added.

You can see an example of this here where a group exists with a delete button, but there is no Add as the section is essentially view / remove only:

Parallel sessions with booking limits

Meddbase allows multiple sessions to be created in parallel to each other for the same user, site or location. 

When Booking Limits are in use and a session reaches its booking limit for an appointment type, that session, for its entire duration,  becomes a blocker for that appointment type, regardless of any other, parallel sessions and their limits.

This means that if 2 sessions overlap and one session reached its booking limit for a given appointment type, it will also stop slots from appearing for that appointment type on the other session for the time where both sessions overlap.

Consider the below example of 2 sessions configured for the same user at the same site and location, as follows:

• Session 1 (morning):   08:00 - 14:00
  • Booking Limit: 1 GP Consultation allowed 
• Session 2 (afternoon):  13:00 - 17:00
  • Booking Limit: 1 GP Consultation allowed 
• Sessions overlap:           13:00 - 14:00

Given the above session configuration, consider the below scenarios and outcomes:

• Scenario 1: 

• Scenario 2: 

It is also possible to have blocks within "larger" sessions blocked by limits reached in "smaller" sessions where both overlap. If one "larger" session was configured from 08:00 - 17:00 and another "smaller" session from 11:00 - 13:00 for the same user, site and location, and the "smaller" session reached its booking limit, then the available slots would fall around this blocked session, meaning the respective appointment type appointment could be booked between 08:00 - 11:00 and between 13:00 - 17:00 but not between 11:00 - 13:00.

Reporting on Booking Limits

Meddbase Report Query Builder feature allows querying data on Booking Limits.

You can find a Root Table called Site Session Booking Limits that can be used to build a query, were:

• Each row in a report based on the above root table is a single Appointment Type within a Booking Limit row, within a Booking Limit group.
• Site Session table can be linked* to the root table in the report, to query information about the session a given Booking Limit relates to.
• Appointment Type table can be linked* to the root table in the report, to query information about the appointment type a given Booking Limit relates to.

*When building a report based on the Site Session root table, the Site Session Booking Limits and the Appointment Type tables can also be linked to aggregate information on booking limits on sessions

To start building a report on Site Session Booking Limits:

1. From the Start Page navigate to Admin > Report Management
2. Click New report query
3. Select the table Site Session Booking Limits and hit Next
4. In the Column Builder, select relevant columns, add filters and use aggregates accordingly and click Proceed to run your query*

*The table below describes each column in the Site Session Booking Limits table and the data it returns:

Review date

This article was last updated on 24th of Oct 2022 in the context of Meddbase version 1..255.1.13597