Online Bookings

Overview

OpenVPMS can accept online bookings from external providers, such as MyHealth1st's PetYeti Find A Vet portal.

To enable support for online booking, the following are required:

1. Each participating Practice Location, Schedule and Appointment Type must have Online Booking enabled
2. Each Schedule may specify Online Booking Times. These can be used to specify different times than the default for a schedule.
3. A dedicated OpenVPMS user account should be created that is used solely for online bookings. The provider will use this to submit bookings.

Online Bookings

Online booking appointments will appear in the Scheduling display with a computer icon. In the Appointment editor, the Online Booking flag will be ticked.

If the customer is new or unrecognised, the appointment will display:

No Customer

The customer details will be displayed in the Booking Notes when editing the appointment.

Check-In may not be performed on the appointment until a customer is entered.

If the patient is new or unrecognised, its name will appear in the Booking Notes.

Security

There are a number of security considerations to be aware of:

• an OpenVPMS user account is required to make online bookings. This should be a restricted account that only has the authorities required to make online bookings.
  This can be done by creating a user that only has the Online Booking role assigned.
• the OpenVPMS web application should not be exposed to the wider internet to allow external providers to connect. Restricted access can be provided through a VPN, IP filtering, and/or URL filtering. For the purposes of online booking, only the:
     /openvpms/ws/booking
  URL should be exposed.