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The custom sessions feature allows you to restrict HotDoc appointment types to be booked only at a specific time or date. This feature can solve for cases such as:

• When a Practitioner only performs a specific appointment type on a given time or date (e.g. only Telehealth appointments in the mornings)
  
  
• When a practitioner wants to limit the types of appointment types that are available for booking (e.g. only Immunisations, Cervical Screening Test and New Patients in the afternoons)

Please see the video below, or follow the steps in this article to learn how to customise a practitioner's sessions to better reflect how and when they want to see their patients.

Quick start training video 

This video will take you through the basics of setting up custom appointment type sessions. It covers how to customise a practitioner's sessions to better reflect how and when they want to see their patients.

How to create a new custom session

1. Login to your HotDoc Dashboard and select Bookings > Practitioner Setup and Edit next to the practitioner you would like to add a custom session for:
   
   
   
   
2. Scroll down to the Appointment Types section and select Edit next to the appointment type you would like to customise:
   
   
   
   
3. Within the Appointment Type Sessions, select limit availability with a custom session.
   
   
   
   
4. Enter the details for your custom session then select Confirm. Here you can set the:
   
   - Day of the week
   - Hours it will start and finish
   - First date that you want these sessions to show online.  
   - How frequently this will repeat (never, daily, weekly, fortnightly). Note, if you select daily this will change the day to everyday. 
   - End date (optional)
   
   
   
   
5. If you would like to add another session for this appointment type that occurs on a different date or time click add session and repeat the steps, or click Save & Close.
   
   
   
   
6. The next section allows you to copy your custom session to other appointment types that this practitioner has available online for bookings. Select the checkboxes next to all those applicable and click Save. 
   
   
   
   
7. On your Bookings page, you will then see the custom session is active and that appointment type will be restricted to the set times and days. 
   
   

Some important things to note:

• By adding this custom session for a specific appointment type, you are restricting that appointment type to appear only on that day/time. If you want this appointment type to appear on another time or date, you must create another custom session.
  
  
• Patients can still book in for other appointment types at the same time as this custom session. If you want patients to only book in for one specific appointment type at a given time, see How to make only one appointment type bookable online.
  
  

How to make only one appointment type bookable online

1. Firstly, follow the steps in the section above to add a custom session for the appointment type you only want available online for a specific time. 
   
   
2. Once you have done this, within the practitioner setup, click Edit on any other appointment type that is available for online bookings. 
   
   
   
   
3. Within the Appointment Type Sessions, select Limit availability with a custom session.
   
   
   
   
4. Select Create a new session: 
   
   
   
   
5. When entering the details, ensure the start and end time exclude the times of the custom session set earlier and select Confirm:
   
   
   
   
6. If you would like to add another custom session time, select Add Session and repeat the steps above, or select Save & Close:
   
   
   
   
7. The next section allows you to copy your custom sessions to other appointment types that this practitioner has available online for bookings. Select the checkboxes next to all those applicable and click Save.