How to configure the booking system after installation. This guide covers the practice admin dashboard, appointment type configuration, and all available settings.
This guide applies to practices on either Optomate Touch or Sunix Vision. Where behaviour differs between the two, look for the Optomate / Sunix callout boxes.
Open your practice's admin page in a browser:
https://yourpractice.yourbooking.au/adminLog in with the admin username and password provided during onboarding.
Before patients can book online, your appointment types need to be pulled in from your practice management system and set up — which ones to offer online, which patients each one suits, and a short description for each.
The first time you open the Appointment Types tab, before anything is synced, you'll see a Set up your appointment types panel that can do most of this for you.
Optomate: open your Appointment Types screen and tick Available for Online Appointments on every type that relates to an eye examination — you can leave non-examination types (e.g. spectacle collections or repairs) switched off. You don't need to decide which exams to expose: Your Booking only ever shows patients the types you switch on at its end, so it's safest to make them all visible and choose inside Your Booking. Anything you don't want patients to book simply stays switched off there.
Sunix: there's no "online" flag — every type comes through automatically, so there's nothing to do here. Non-examination types (e.g. spectacle collections) will appear too; you can leave those switched off when you review in the next step.
Your Booking pulls in your types and suggests a starting point for each one: whether to offer it online, which patient groups it suits, and a friendly description. Nothing is final — every type is listed so you can adjust or switch any of them in the next step. The suggestions are a time-saver, not a decision you're locked into.
Prefer to set everything up by hand? Click Sync from Optomate (or Sync from Sunix) instead. Your types come in switched off, ready for you to configure from scratch in Step 1.3.
For each synced type, you can configure:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Active/Inactive | Toggle to show or hide this type from the booking flow. Inactive types cannot be booked. |
| New patients | Allow new patients (never visited before) to book this type |
| Recent patients | Allow recent patients (visited within the inactive threshold) to book this type |
| Inactive patients | Allow inactive patients (not visited recently) to book this type |
| Public description | Short description shown to patients when choosing an appointment type |
| Public details | Longer details shown to patients when choosing an appointment type |
| Display order | Controls the order types appear in the booking flow (lower numbers appear first) |
| Age limits | Optional minimum and/or maximum patient age for this type |
| Booking limits | Optional: a maximum number of this type per day, and/or restricting which days and times it can be booked |
| Pre-visit email | Optional: send an automated email with additional information after a patient books this type (intake form, prep instructions, etc.) — see Pre-visit Emails setup |
After the initial setup, the Appointment Types tab has three AI actions:
To write the patient-facing title and description for a single type, click the details icon on its row and use Write with AI. The draft matches the style of your other types and is saved like any other edit.
Each appointment type's standard length comes from your practice management system and is shown next to the type (e.g. 30 min) on the Appointment Types tab. It isn't edited in Your Booking.
A type with no length set shows an amber No length badge and offers no times on your booking page. Enter a length against the type in your practice software, then sync.
Per-optometrist overrides (Optomate). If an optometrist has a different length for a particular type set in Optomate, it appears as a small badge next to the standard length — for example RM: 45m (the optometrist's initials and their length). These are read live from Optomate, so:
Sunix uses one length per appointment type (no per-optometrist overrides), so no badges appear.
When a patient identifies themselves, the system classifies them based on their record in your PMS:
The inactive threshold can vary by patient age if the optional age-based cutover is configured (see Patient Registration settings below). For example, children might be classified as inactive after 12 months while adults use the standard 36-month threshold.
Each appointment type can be enabled for any combination of these patient types. For example:
An appointment type that is active but has no patient type flags set (N/R/I all off) doesn’t appear in the standard booking flow. It can still be booked when you invite a particular patient to it: from a recall link, from a collection link, or from a booking link your staff send to a named patient.
Use it for appointments patients shouldn’t pick for themselves — a frame selection, a collection, or anything you’d rather arrange first.
Use the age icon on each appointment type to set optional age restrictions. For example:
Use the clock icon on each appointment type to set optional booking limits:
Both limits only ever hide slots, never add them, and are re-checked at booking confirmation as a safety net. After changing them, click Save changes on the Appointment Types tab to apply.
Use the people icon on each appointment type to restrict it to selected practitioners — for work only some of your team does, such as ortho-K reviews, a scleral fit or a frame selection. Turn on Restrict to selected practitioners and choose who offers it. Patients then see only those practitioners’ times for that type, wherever they book from. Leave it off and every optometrist available for online bookings offers the type.
The list is split into Optometrists and Dispensers. Dispensers are only ever offered for the types you select them on, never for a type left unrestricted, so an eye exam can’t be booked with a dispenser by accident. Select all ticks every dispenser at once; you can then untick anyone who doesn’t do that type.
Offering someone who is hidden from online booking. A practitioner with Available for online bookings turned off on the Practitioners tab doesn’t appear to patients. Selecting them on an appointment type overrides that for that type only. They still need to be set up to take appointments in your practice system. The Practitioners tab shows which types override the setting.
To offer appointments with your dispensers, such as frame selections, collections or adjustments:
If a dispenser is missing, check they’re set up as above and click Sync on the Practitioners tab.
Reminders and emails for dispenser appointments. Appointments with a dispenser are reminded like any other, including ones your staff book by phone. If a type shouldn’t be messaged — a collection, or a repair drop-off — list it under Excluded Appointment Types on each reminder rule (see the Reminders Setup Guide) and in the type filter on any scheduled appointment email.
Appointment lengths for dispensers. For appointments with your dispensers, Your Booking uses the appointment type’s default length from your practice software. Lengths you set for an individual dispenser in Optomate aren’t available to Your Booking, so if a dispenser needs a different length, set it as the type’s default.
After changing either, click Save changes on the Appointment Types tab to apply.
You can configure an automated pre-visit email per appointment type. It sends after a patient books (or from the staff dashboard manually for walk-in / phone bookings) and can contain anything useful for that type: a link to an online intake form, "what to bring", pre-visit prep instructions, etc. Full walk-through: Pre-visit Emails setup.
Optomate only — note on per-type configuration. Per-appointment-type rules in YourBooking — pre-visit emails, reminder template overrides, feedback filters, the manage-link ineligible list — can only target types marked Available Online in Optomate. The Optomate API doesn't expose staff-only types. If you have a staff-only type you want to include (e.g. a distinct walk-in type), mark it Available Online in Optomate and disable all New/Recent/Inactive flags here — it stays invisible to patient booking but gains access to all per-type features.
Sunix doesn't have this limitation: every appointment type is synced, so per-type rules can target any type even if you've left it Inactive for patient booking.
These photos are shown to patients when choosing an available time slot, helping them recognise their optometrist.
If appointment types share physical equipment (e.g. a visual field machine that can only be used by one patient at a time), configure shared resources to prevent double-bookings.
Resources are shared across all appointment types — once created, they appear in every appointment type's dialog. The link icon shows a count badge when resources are assigned.
Shared resources can also be used to reserve a room — for example, if a contact lens fitting requires a specific consultation room, create a resource for that room with max_concurrent: 1 and assign it to the relevant appointment type.
The booking system will then check resource availability when offering time slots, ensuring conflicts are prevented.
Go to the Setup tab to configure booking behaviour.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Online booking enabled | Master switch — when off, the booking page shows as unavailable to patients. Turn this on when you're ready to go live. | Off |
| Minimum advance hours | How far in advance patients must book. Prevents last-minute bookings. | 24 hours |
| Maximum days ahead | How far in the future patients can book. | 90 days |
| Allow patient rescheduling | Whether patients can reschedule their own appointments via the manage link. | Yes |
| Block reschedule/cancel within (hours) | How close to the appointment patients can no longer reschedule or cancel online. Applies to both SMS and email links. | 24 hours |
| Show their usual optometrist first | Returning patients see the optometrist they saw last at the top of the times list, then everyone else by soonest available. Turn off to list every optometrist soonest-first. Applies when booking and when rescheduling. | Yes |
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Default patient source (Optomate only) | Optomate source applied to newly registered patients (e.g. "Online Booking"). Select from your Optomate sources list. Sunix doesn't have a Sources concept — this setting is hidden on Sunix tenants. | None |
| Default inactive months threshold | Months since last visit before a patient is classified as inactive. | 36 |
If your practice uses different inactive thresholds for younger and older patients, you can configure an age-based cutover:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Age cutoff (years) | The age that separates "young" and "old" thresholds |
| Young threshold (months) | Inactive threshold for patients under the cutoff age |
| Old threshold (months) | Inactive threshold for patients at or above the cutoff age |
When all three fields are set, the system uses the age-appropriate threshold instead of the default. For example, with an age cutoff of 18, a young threshold of 12 months, and an old threshold of 36 months: a 10-year-old would be classified as inactive after 12 months, while a 40-year-old would need 36 months.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Policy acknowledgement | Text that patients must explicitly tick a checkbox to accept before the Finalise Appointment button becomes active — e.g. "I acknowledge that a cancellation fee may apply for missed appointments." Leave blank to disable the checkbox entirely. |
| Confirmation notice | Text shown to patients on the booking confirmation screen and included in the confirmation email as an "Important notice". Use this for billing information, what to bring, parking instructions, etc. |
The booking system doesn't just show every possible time slot. It intelligently places appointments to keep each optometrist's day compact and avoid fragmented schedules.
When a patient looks for available times, the system:
Patients are shown the preferred times first, grouped by day. If none suit, they can tap "Other times" under a day to reveal that day's remaining available times — shown alongside the preferred ones in a lighter style and in time order, so it's easy to see which times sit next to each other (helpful when booking two appointments together).
The "Restrict presented slots" setting controls how much "Other times" reveals: off (default) shows every available time on your slot grid; on shows only times that sit directly against your preferred times, keeping your day gap-free.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Slot interval (min) | Minutes between available slot start times | 15 |
| Minimum gap (min) | Minimum usable time that must remain between appointments. Slots that would create a gap smaller than this are hidden. | 30 |
| ASAP search days | How many days ahead to search when showing "next available" slots | 30 |
| Max ASAP slots | Maximum number of slots returned per search | 500 |
| Date picker max days | Maximum days ahead when using the date picker | 90 |
| Cache TTL (sec) | How long availability results are cached (0 = always live). Cache is automatically cleared when a booking is made. | 0 |
| Restrict presented slots | When on, "Other times" shows only slots adjacent to preferred times; when off, the full slot-grid schedule | No |
An optometrist's day with two existing appointments:
9:00 AM +--------------+
| Patient A |
9:30 AM +--------------+
(empty)
12:00 PM +--------------+
| Patient B |
12:30 PM +--------------+
(empty)
5:00 PMFor a 30-minute appointment, the system would offer:
A slot at 10:00 AM would leave a 1.5-hour gap after Patient A and a 2-hour gap before Patient B — both usable. But a slot at 11:15 AM would leave only a 15-minute gap before Patient B — too small to be useful — so it's excluded.
Add the booking system to your website using a two-line embed. The hosted script handles the iframe, auto-resizing, and routing of email/SMS link tokens to the right view inside the iframe.
<div id="yourbooking-embed"></div>
<script src="https://yourbooking.au/embed.js" data-tenant="yourpractice"></script>Replace yourpractice with your practice's subdomain slug.
If you use this option, set the Website Booking URL in admin Domain Settings to the full URL of the page hosting the iframe (e.g. https://www.yourpractice.com.au/book-online). Email appointment links go directly there. See the Website Integration Guide for full setup including the optional SMS short domain.
Simply link to https://yourpractice.yourbooking.au/ from your website. The booking system runs as a standalone page with the practice header and footer visible.
This is simpler but the patient leaves your website to book.
If your practice changes its name, address, phone number, email, or default optometrist in your PMS, update the booking system:
The branch name on the Branch Information card is a copy of the record in your PMS, and every sync re-stamps it. If that isn't how you want patients to see your practice, click Overwrite next to the name and type the version you want. The row is then tagged Overwritten, and syncs leave your version alone.
This changes the patient-facing name only — your booking page, the branch picker, confirmation emails, the appointment patients add to their calendar, and the manage-appointment pages. Admin and staff screens keep showing the name from your PMS, so it's always clear which branch a row really is.
Leave the box blank and save to clear the overwrite; patients see the PMS name again.
Sunix: the branch name lives in a record only Sunix can edit, so this is the only way to correct it.
The Branch Information card also shows the branch's coordinates — the latitude and longitude we work out from the street address, and use to order branches by distance on multi-branch groups — the Sort by nearest location button in the branch list, and ?branch=closest links. They fill in by themselves the first time the address is synced, and are left alone afterwards.
If the pin is in the wrong place — a shopping-centre address that lands on the wrong side of a suburb, say — click Overwrite next to the coordinates and type the correct pair (right-click a spot in Google Maps to copy them). The row is tagged Overwritten and syncs leave your values alone, exactly as with the name.
If the practice moves, sync the new address, then clear both boxes and save: an empty pair is looked up again from the address straight away. The card tells you when this is needed — if your address has changed since the coordinates were worked out, it says so beside them.
The email address (also shown as Reception email in the SMS Configuration card) is where booking notifications, recall summaries, patient SMS replies, and agent offline alerts are sent. It's also shown to patients in the booking page footer.
This information is used for creating new patients, in booking confirmation emails and in the map link.
Note: To prevent sync from overwriting a manually-set value, the practice phone and email are only filled by sync when they're empty in YourBooking. To force a re-sync after a change in your PMS, contact YourBooking to clear the field first, then click Sync again.
The Booking Activity tab shows a history of all booking activity, including:
The Overview tab shows:
Click Change Password in the admin header to update your login credentials.
For higher-risk admin actions — editing message templates, adding or removing admin users, changing SMTP or domain settings, or turning 2FA off — you can require a fresh passkey tap on top of your normal password login. Routine work (viewing bookings, sending links, syncing appointment types, etc.) is unaffected.
The feature uses passkeys — the same OS-level credential mechanism used by Apple Passwords, Google Password Manager, 1Password, Windows Hello, and so on. There are no SMS codes, no authenticator apps, no QR codes to scan; if you've used Touch ID, Face ID, or Windows Hello to log into anything else, you're already familiar with the flow.
Enrol a passkey:
Turn on enforcement:
Once on, any of the listed sensitive actions will prompt for a passkey tap. You can't disable 2FA again without a fresh passkey verification.
Things to know:
yourpractice.yourbooking.au and a custom domain (e.g. book.yourpractice.com.au), enrol a passkey on each.By default, patient emails (booking confirmations, reminders, recalls, follow-ups) come from bookings@yourbooking.au with your reception address as the reply-to. To have them come from your own address instead — either by adding DNS records to your domain, which needs no password, or by sending through your own Gmail or Outlook account — see the Practice Branded Email guide.
Once you've configured everything and tested the booking flow, enable online booking:
The booking page will immediately become available to patients. You can turn this off at any time to temporarily disable bookings (e.g., during holidays or maintenance).
If a Recalls & Reminders tab is visible in your admin dashboard, your practice has been enabled for the recalls and reminders module. This module automates:
For full configuration, start with Messaging Setup (the shared foundation — SMS, templates, logins), then the Reminders and Recalls guides.
To make the booking page look like your practice — logo, colours, fonts and shape — see the Branding guide.
Patient Chat lets patients message your practice and have a two-way conversation, all from one inbox on the staff dashboard:
Turn on Web Chat in the Patient Chat section of your admin settings. See the Patient Chat guide for full configuration, what patients see, and front-desk workstation setup.
The staff dashboard is available at https://yourpractice.yourbooking.au/staff. Staff can log in with the same credentials as admin (or staff-role accounts if configured). The dashboard provides:
If something shows online that doesn't match your practice management system — a day or an optometrist appearing when it shouldn't — the FAQ covers the usual causes. Sunix practices can also see Configuring Appointments (Sunix) for how availability is read.