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Allow Clients to Reschedule Appointments via the Client Portal

The New Client Portal allows your clients to reschedule their individual appointments online without needing to contact your practice. When enabled, clients can log in to the portal, view their upcoming individual appointments, and choose a new available time for an appointment with the same original practitioner, service, and location. This feature helps reduce administrative workload while giving clients more flexibility to manage their bookings. Whether a client can reschedule depends on your portal settings, the appointment status, and the rescheduling policy configured for your practice.

In this article:

Enabling Appointment Rescheduling in the Client Portal

To allow clients to reschedule their individual appointments online, you first need to enable the Reschedule option in your Client Portal settings. Once enabled, eligible appointments will display a Reschedule button on the My Appointments page in the Client Portal, allowing clients to select a new available time for their eligible individual future-dated appointments without contacting your practice.

To enable this feature:

  1. Go to User Menu > Account Settings > Schedule > Client Portal > Access and Settings in your Zanda account. 

  2. Scroll to the Online Bookings settings section and locate the Reschedule Policy setting.

  3. Select one of the available option in the Reschedule Policy dropdown field. The Reschedule Policy sets the cut-off time before an appointment when clients can still reschedule online. For example, selecting “6 hours before appointment” means clients can reschedule up to 6 hours before the appointment start time, but not after that. The available options are: 

    1. No rescheduling via portal
    2. Anytime
    3. 3 hours before appointment
    4. 6 hours before appointment
    5. 8 hours before appointment
    6. 12 hours before appointment
    7. One day before appointment
    8. Two days before appointment
    9. Three days before appointment
    10. Four days before appointment
    11. One week before appointment

After this option is enabled, clients will be able to reschedule appointments from the portal when the appointment meets your practice’s rescheduling policy and eligibility requirements.

Save the changes made on the Access and Setting page. Your clients will now be able to reschedule their eligible appointments.

Setting Up Client Portal Notifications for Rescheduled Appointments

  • The settings for these notifications are located via the User Menu > Account Settings > Schedule > Client Portal > Notifications. 

  1. Scroll to the Rescheduled Appointment section. 
  2. You can enable notifications for 
    1. Client's Primary Practitioner
    2. The Client
    3. These Email Addresses (comma separated list of email addresses)
  3. To enable each notification type, select a communication template template which will be sent for each type of recipient. You can create these templates in Tools > Communication > Templates. 

Pro Tip: default communication templates are provided in new trial accounts. If you do not see these templates available in your Zanda account, you can copy them here and use to create your own copy of templates. 

💡Switch the Content field to Code View to paste the provided HTML text code, as shown on the screenshot:

'Reschedule Appointments' Notifications Templates on Client Portal

Template 1

Name Client Portal - Appt Rescheduled Notification to User

Description Email to notify a calendar user that an appointment was cancelled via the Client Portal.

Email Subject Appointment Rescheduled via the Client Portal

<p>Hi {AppointmentPractitionerShortName}</p><p>{ClientFullName} ({ClientMobilePhone}) has just Rescheduled their appointment via the Client Portal. The new appointment is scheduled for {AppointmentStartTime} on {AppointmentDate:ddd d MMM}.</p><p>Kind Regards,</p><p><strong>Your Zanda Client Portal</strong></p>

Template 2

Name Client Portal - Appt Rescheduled Notification to Client

Description Email to notify a client when they've rescheduled an appointment via the Client Portal.

Email Subject Appointment Rescheduled via the Client Portal

<p>Hi {ClientFirstName}</p><p>This email is to confirm that you have <strong>rescheduled&nbsp;</strong>the appointment via our Client Portal. The new appointment details are:</p><p><strong>Date:</strong> {AppointmentDate:ddd d MMM}</p><p><strong>Time:</strong> {AppointmentStartTime}</p><p><strong>With:</strong> {AppointmentPractitionerFullName}</p><p>If you <strong>rescheduled&nbsp;</strong>this by mistake you can rebook it again via our Client Portal {ClientPortal} or contact us directly.</p><p>Kind Regards,</p><p><strong>{BusinessName}</strong></p>

  • If you enabled Client Portal Notifications in your Zanda Practice Hive, you will receive rescheduled appointments notifications there too for the clients you are allowed to access. 

How Clients Can Reschedule an Appointment in the Client Portal

If rescheduling is enabled for your Client Portal, clients can change the date and time of their upcoming appointments directly from the portal.

To reschedule an appointment, clients will:

  1. Log in to the Client Portal.

  2. Go to the My Appointments page.

  3. Find the appointment they want to change.

  4. Click Reschedule next to the appointment.

A scheduling window will open where the client can view available dates and times for the same practitioner, location, and service as the original booking.

  1. The client selects a new available time from the calendar.

  2. A confirmation screen appears showing the updated appointment details.

  3. The client clicks Reschedule to confirm the change.

Once confirmed, the appointment will be updated to the new date and time in both the Client Portal and your Zanda calendar. The client will see a confirmation message, and the updated appointment will appear in their appointments list.

If a Reschedule Attempt Fails

If an error occurs while the client is attempting to reschedule:

  • An error message will be displayed in the Client Portal.

  • The rescheduling window will remain open so the client can try again or cancel the request.

Please note that at this time, clients can only reschedule their own appointments. We are working on adding support for contacts to reschedule appointments on behalf of their connected clients, as well as enabling members of shared profiles to reschedule appointments for those shared profiles.

Note: If a payment has already been made for the appointment, it will automatically remain linked to the appointment after it is rescheduled.

What Happens After a Client Reschedules an Appointment

When a client successfully reschedules an appointment through the Client Portal, the change is automatically applied in your Zanda calendar.

Here’s what your practice will see:

  • The appointment is updated in the calendar

    The original appointment is moved to the newly selected date and time. The practitioner, service, and location remain the same as the original booking.

  • Any existing payments remain attached

    If the client has already paid for the appointment, the payment will automatically remain linked to the appointment after it is rescheduled.

  • Client Portal Notifications are sent
  • A Practice Hive Notification is created to notify the appointment practitioner

  • Activity is recorded in the appointment log

    An entry is added to the Appointment Activity Log showing that the client rescheduled the appointment through the Client Portal. The log includes the original appointment time and the new appointment time.

  • A user activity log entry is created

    A corresponding entry is also recorded in the user activity log you can see in Tools > Log File noting that the appointment was rescheduled by the client via the portal.

Pro Tip: These logs allow your practice to track when appointment changes occur and confirm that the update was made by the client through the Client Portal.

 

When Clients Can Reschedule Appointments

Clients can reschedule their appointments from the Client Portal when the following conditions are met:

  • The Reschedule Policy setting is enabled in your Client Portal settings

  • The appointment is still upcoming and active

  • The appointment is within your reschedule policy time window

  • The appointment has a valid service, practitioner, and location configured

  • The service is available on the Client Portal

  • The appointment is NOT a group appointment

If any of these conditions are not met, the reschedule option will be unavailable in the Client Portal.

When Clients Cannot Reschedule Appointments

There are several situations where the Reschedule option will not be available to clients in the Client Portal.

Clients will not be able to reschedule when:

  • The appointment has already been cancelled, rescheduled, or marked as a no-show

  • The appointment is a group appointment

  • The appointment does not have a service assigned

  • The service is not available for booking on the Client Portal

  • The appointment is past the rescheduling cut-off time defined in your Reschedule Policy

In some cases, the Reschedule button may appear but be disabled, with a hover message asking the client to contact the practice directly.

What Clients See If They Cannot Reschedule

If an appointment cannot be rescheduled online, the Client Portal may show a disabled Reschedule button.

When this happens, clients will see a message such as:

  • “This appointment cannot be rescheduled online. Please contact your service provider to reschedule this appointment.” - This means a service linked to this appointment is not available for online bookings.

  • “This appointment can’t be rescheduled online due to the rescheduling policy. Please contact your service provider for assistance.” - This means the start time of this appointment is outside of your Reschedule Policy setting.

This helps guide clients to contact your practice if the change cannot be made through the portal.