2.1. Spay/Neuter Calendar

In this section, you will learn about efficiently navigating through the spay/neuter calendar, what all of the tiles and numbers mean, and how to use mobile locations.

Understanding the contents of this section will ensure you can use and edit it smoothly.

Moving The Calendar Back and Forward.

There are 3 ways to move to advance the calendar to the next month or go back and look at previous months – using the arrows in the upper left corner, the drop-down in the upper right corner, or clicking any of the gray squares. The shaded calendar box with an outline indicates what day it is. It’s just a visual reminder to the reader about the current day.

Turning On The Correct Tiles.

A “tile” refers to a box on the calendar that indicates the capacity or availability for a specific service.

1. Click the Tiles button in the upper right corner and tick all the tick boxes to turn all tiles on. Notice how they are displayed on the calendar.
2. The tiles that are turned on / off are tied to your user login, meaning each person (like a receptionist) may have different tiles displayed based on their settings. When you adjust the tiles, only your personal view of the calendar will change, not the view for the entire clinic. Additionally, there is no option to reorder the tiles.
3. If you do not have surgical categories like cat neuter or female dog, they must be set up in Capacity Management.

What the tiles mean

We have created a set of standardized tiles that are automatically available in HQ. There is no need for you to set these up in Settings; they come with an HQ subscription.

• Recheck – This corresponds to the “Rechk” tile. An appointment for an animal that received a spay or neuter to be rechecked due to some problem. For example, an infected incision, not eating, or lethargy. For clinics that also perform other kinds of surgeries, this recheck is specifically related to spay/neuter. Any follow-up appointment for another kind of surgery or procedure is simply a secondary wellness appointment.

• Wellness – This corresponds to the “Well” tile. A wellness appointment is an appointment for any procedure that is not spay/neuter or a recheck. This includes things like vaccines, dentals, microchipping, etc.

• Public – This tile corresponds to the “Pub” tile which are appointments for public clients.

• Transport – This corresponds to the “TTran” tile (meaning “truck transport) and is helpful for clinics who transport animals for services. This tile indicates volume client animals that will be coming to your clinic being transported by your organization.

• Self Transport – This corresponds to the “STran” tile which indicates volume client animals that the volume client themselves will bring to your door.

• E-Appointments – This corresponds to the “E-Apps” tile. This shows the number of e-appointments waiting approval for the day, indicating what appointments are requested but not confirmed. Very helpful to avoid overbooking!

• Vets – This corresponds to the “Vets” tile. This shows the number of veterinarians you have scheduled for the day, which is helpful if you have a larger clinic or shelter.

• Traps – This corresponds to the amount of trapped cats your clinic has in a day. If a any cat is marked as ‘in a trap’, it will appear. The trap tile is a great tool to see HOW MANY traps you have, but the cats will also still be noted in your Male Cat or Female Cat section. If ‘Fluffy’ is marked as a female cat and as in a trap, she will show as a number in BOTH tiles.

Understanding what the numbers mean

It should be easy to identify open appointment availability by looking at the color-coded tiles and the animal type indicated by a 2-digit or 3-digit code (e.g., “MC” for a male cat). This system provides a clear visual of available slots based on animal type and capacity.

• Daily Capacity – As in, “what do you have the capacity to do today related to female cats?” This number is set up in Settings > Capacity Manager, or by clicking the calendar square’s blank space for a daily modification. The red color shading here indicates the day is at or over 90% capacity. This day, the clinic chose to overbook. Note: If daily capacity exceeds the max allotment, no appointments will be shown to clients, even if there are open slots still available.

• Tiles by Animal Type – The first number on the tile, let’s say for FC here, which means Female Cats, is 6. That means they have 6 female cats booked on this date. The second number, 5, means that is the desired capacity for that day. In this case, this clinic chose to overbook this category. The orange shading means you’re between 70% and 90% booked. If it’s not shaded, it means you’re 70% under-booked. If your clinic is at 100% capacity for this animal type, this date will not be offered as an available date for online scheduling. You can still book internally and even overbook – although you will get an alert when you are overbooking.

• Scheduled Vets – This section on the calendar has to do with veterinarians, specifically, which vets are on the schedule for the day. This is set up in Settings > Vets > +Schedule. Some clinics may not find this helpful if they simply have one or two vets with regularly scheduled hours. It says “Clinic” here, which is just an indicator of the role the vet is playing. Most of the time, the role will be as a clinic vet, but other times you might find it helpful to assign a role like “relief vet” or “training vet.”

• Mobile Locations – This is where clinic locations that are available for a calendar day are shown. This section will only show up if you have Mobile Locations enabled in Settings > Mobile Locations.

• Staff Notes – This is a freehand note anyone can insert on the calendar. This note is visible to all clinic members. To insert a note, simply click on the date and click the Edit Staff Note button on the menu.

• Closed Day – This is a closed day. It’s important to mark which days of the week your clinic is not open. You can do this in Settings > Clinic Profile > Preferences (down toward the bottom of the page). You can also close days as “one-offs,” meaning you are normally open, but for some reason, your clinic will be closed on that date. To do so, simply click the blank space on the calendar day and click Mark today as closed. Here you will insert the reason the day is closed, in this example, Closed for a holiday.

• Edit Calendar Day – To control daily changes, you can click on the blank space in the calendar day. The general idea is that you set up the spay/neuter calendar in Settings via the Capacity Manager, then tweak individual days as needed. If you need to change your capacities for one day specifically, this is where you do it.

Adjusting The Calendar

By clicking anywhere within the day, you will see multiple options regarding that day. Here we will go over what each of these does.

• Make Spay/Neuter Appointment – Clicking on this option will start creating a new spay/neuter appointment for the day.

• Make Recheck Appointment – Similarly, clicking on this option will take you to a page where you can create a recheck appointment. Recheck appointments are only for animals that have any complications after their spay/neuter surgery. For all other follow up appointments, schedule as a wellness appointment.

• Make Basic Wellness Appointments – Choosing this option will allow you to make a basic wellness appointment for an animal. This could include dental exams or vaccines. Basic wellness appointments do not have an assigned time, in contrast to Advanced Wellness appointments which are managed on the Wellness Calendar.

• Appointment Changes – The appointment changes tab will bring you to a page where you will see a summary of that day’s appointments. From this page, you can click on any appointment that needs to be edited, rescheduled, canceled, or deleted. To reschedule an appointment, you can simply click reschedule and change the date.

• Adjust capacity for today only – With this option, you can adjust the appointment capacities for just the day that you click on. In the column that says “Daily Max,” you can input the number of appointments you need for that day for each type of animal.

Tip: You can repeat a pattern, for example, your clinic hosts cat only days every Monday. Zero out dog capacities and click Repeat every Monday in the upper left hand corner.

• Adjust vet type for today only – Adjusting the vet type means you can change which vets are working for this day and what they are doing for the day. If your clinic is small, this may not be relevant for you.

• Edit staff notes – This tab will bring up a page where you are able to add a staff note. These are notes that will show up on the calendar day for the staff to see.

• Mark today as closed – Using this tab, you can mark just the day you choose as closed. It will prompt you to input a reason for the day being closed. This is a good tool if it is a one-time occasion that your clinic will be closed on that day of the week. To undo this, you can click the link on the calendar day that says Mark day as open.

Note: If there are appointments already on the schedule for the day being closed, these appointments will still sit on this day. You must reschedule/cancel/delete the appointments scheduled on the day that is being closed. To do this, go to Appointment Changes. Read more about changing these appointments HERE.