Scheduler

Before you start

Scheduler is a marketplace tool. To switch it on you need a Plus subscription and to adopt it from Marketplace → Scheduler → Adopt.

Once adopted, Scheduler appears in the sidebar, and its icon in the tool bar on the home page and on every patient's file.

General settings

Scheduler → Scheduler settings → Schedule tab

Time zone

Everything you see and everything sent by email is shown in this time zone, not in the browser's zone of whoever reads it. It is the practice's single reference. There is a shortcut, "Use my current time zone", which takes the browser's — check it if you travel: changing it shifts how already-booked sessions read.

Default session length

In minutes. It sets the size of the slots offered when booking.

Weekly availability

Scheduler settings → Schedule tab → Weekly availability

For each day, set the blocks of time you work. A day can have several — morning and afternoon with a break in between, for instance.

• Add block creates a new one on that day.
• Active lets you switch a block off without deleting it, useful for one particular week.
• Press Save availability when you are done. If you leave without saving, the page warns you.

Two rules the system rejects on save

In-person spaces

Scheduler settings → Spaces tab

Only needed if you see people in person. Each space has a name, an address and notes; the address and notes appear in the patient's confirmation email, so they are the place for directions like the floor or the buzzer.

Booking an in-person session requires choosing a space: it is what the patient receives as the location. You can delete a space unless it has future sessions booked — in that case the system blocks it and says so. Past sessions keep their record even if the space disappears.

Connecting Zoom

Scheduler settings → Integrations tab → Zoom → Connect

1. Press Connect. Zoom's permission screen opens.
2. Sign in to Zoom if you were not already, and authorise access.
3. You return to Alchely automatically. The integration switches to Connected.

From then on, booking an online session lets you choose Zoom and the link is created for you. It appears on the session and in the confirmation email everyone receives.

What permissions it grants

Only creating meetings in your account. Alchely does not read your existing meetings, your recordings, your contacts or your account settings. All that is sent to Zoom when creating a meeting is the date, the time, the duration and a title with the participants — for a group session, with no names —: no clinical notes, no analysis and no session data.

What is stored

The credentials Zoom returns, encrypted. They are never shown on any screen and never sent to the browser. Disconnecting revokes them at Zoom and deletes them.

Connecting Google (Meet + Calendar)

Scheduler settings → Integrations tab → Google → Connect

A single permission covers both: Google Meet links and calendar sync.

1. Press Connect and choose your Google account.
2. Accept the calendar permissions.
3. You return to Alchely. The integration switches to Connected.

With Google connected

• Online sessions can use Google Meet, and the link is generated with the event.
• Every booked session appears in your calendar, with the patient invited. In a group session the members are not invited to the event — see Couple and group sessions.
• Rescheduling updates the same event instead of creating a new one.
• Cancelling removes the event.
• The patient gets Google's invitation, so Alchely does not also attach a calendar file. You receive one either way, connected or not.

Connecting Microsoft Teams Beta

Scheduler settings → Integrations tab → Microsoft 365 (Teams + Outlook) → Connect

For practices that run on Microsoft 365. You need a work or school account: personal Microsoft accounts (outlook.com, Teams free) cannot create Teams meetings, and Microsoft turns them away at sign-in.

1. Press Connect and sign in with your Microsoft 365 account.
2. Accept the calendar and meeting permissions.
3. You return to Alchely. The integration switches to Connected.

With Teams connected

• Online sessions can use Microsoft Teams: when you book, Alchely creates an event in your Outlook calendar with its Teams meeting, and the patient is invited.
• The Teams link goes in the session, in every email and reminder —WhatsApp included— and in the patient portal.
• Rescheduling moves the Outlook event, and cancelling deletes it.
• If a patient books from their portal and Teams is your only connected external platform, their session goes on Teams.

The transcript, as a session draft

With Augmented Memory, Alchely can pick up the transcript of each Teams session when it ends and save it as the session draft, just like the Zoom summary or the Meet transcript. It is a separate step, Enable transcript import, because it asks for more than creating links:

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard or higher.
• A Teams meeting policy that allows transcription.
• Your organization's admin approving Alchely to read transcripts. If you run your own Microsoft 365, you approve it yourself when you enable it.
• Starting the transcript in each session (More → Record and transcribe → Start transcription), or turning it on by default in the meeting options.

If your admin has not approved it yet, you can still create Teams links without the transcript. And as with Zoom and Meet, without every participant's AI consent the transcript is not stored, and Alchely tells you so.

Choosing a platform when booking

Booking an online session requires choosing a connected platform. If you choose none, the session cannot carry a link and there is no way to add one afterwards: that is why the confirm button stays disabled until you select one.

If you have no platform connected at all, the booking is still allowed — Alchely warns you and links to this screen — because you may share the link yourself. An unconnected platform appears in the list marked "Not connected", greyed out, rather than hidden: that way you can see what is still to be set up.

The appointment name

When you book, the Appointment name field arrives filled in — Session with Ana Ruiz — and you can always change it. The one thing it will not accept is being left empty: "Give the appointment a name."

Scheduler emails lead with that name, in the body of the message. The subject never carries it: only the date and the time (see What gets sent, and to whom).

Couple and group sessions

The booking search lists your patients, your couples and your groups, each with its badge. You can also book from the couple's or the group's own page, with the Scheduler in its toolbar: the booking is already in their name.

A couple or group session is booked once, and the Scheduler looks after each person separately: every one of them gets their own confirmation email, their own calendar invitation and the session link.

What changes for a group

The members of a group attend together, but Alchely is not the one who introduces them. So nothing they receive says who else is coming:

• The calendar event names nobody: it is titled Group therapy - Ada Lovelace. Neither does the title of the Zoom or Meet meeting.
• Members are not invited to the Google event. An event shows its guest list to every guest, so each member receives their invitation as a calendar file in their own email. You still have the event in your calendar.
• Their email says Group session, not the name you gave the appointment — which by default carries the members' names.

Patient self-booking

Scheduler settings → Schedule tab → Patient booking

With the option on, your patients see your free slots in their portal and can book themselves.

• Your availability stays private: the patient only sees free slots, never who you are busy with or why.
• The session is created with your connected platform, without the patient choosing: Google means Meet; Zoom only means Zoom; neither means the session is in person.
• A patient can only book with you, their therapist.
• They can never book a couple or a group session: that commits other people, and it is your call.

Moving a session to another time

Scheduler → the session → the clock icon

Every upcoming session carries a reschedule button, both in the list and in the week view. Cancelled sessions and sessions already held do not: there is nothing left to move.

1. Press the icon. The dialog opens on the day the session is already on, with its current time written at the top — the grid cannot show it, because that slot is not offered while this session holds it.
2. Choose a day and one of the free slots. Only slots inside your weekly availability appear, exactly as when booking.
3. Press Move session.

If the session sits on a day already past, or on a weekday you no longer work, the dialog opens on the next day with availability instead of on an empty grid.

Only the time moves

Who the session is with, whether it is online or in person, the platform and the space all stay as they were booked. Those fields are not offered here because changing them is not what rescheduling does: for a different patient or a different place, cancel and book again.

What happens on save

• Both parties are told the new time, one message per person and each patient on the channel you chose, as with every other Scheduler notice. A couple session sends three; a group session, one per member plus yours.
• The calendar event is updated in place if you have Google connected — the same event moves, no duplicate appears, and the invitation is refreshed for everyone.
• The meeting link does not change. The Zoom or Meet room stays the one already shared.
• Any reminder already sent stops counting. It described a time that no longer holds, so the new time gets its own.
• The view follows the session to its new day, which is often not the one on screen.

If the slot is taken between opening the dialog and confirming, the screen says the time is no longer available and nothing is moved: pick another and confirm again.

Session reminders

Scheduler settings → Schedule tab → Session reminders

Alchely can send a reminder ahead of every booked session, so nobody turns up late for having forgotten.

It is off until you switch it on. A message reaching your patient is your decision, so nobody starts receiving it without you asking.

Setting it up

1. Tick Send a reminder before each session. The rest of the options appear only then.
2. Choose how much notice: from one hour to a week ahead. The usual choice is 24 hours — it arrives the day before, in time for them to tell you if they cannot make it.
3. Choose who gets reminded: your patient, you, or both. Each receives their own message, never a shared one.
4. Choose how your patient receives it: Email, WhatsApp or Both (see By WhatsApp, if your patient asks for it). Your own copy always goes by email.

There is no Save button here: each choice is stored as you make it, like the time zone and the session length above. If you switch reminders on and tick nobody, nothing is sent — the screen says so instead of leaving it silent.

What to know

• One per session. Even if sending is retried, nobody receives two copies of the same thing.
• Reschedule and another goes out. The one already sent described a time that is no longer the right one, so the new time gets its own.
• Cancel and none is sent. Reminding about a session that will not happen is worse than not reminding at all.
• A session that has already started generates none. It would arrive too late to be of any use.
• Couple and group sessions: each member receives their own, as with every other Scheduler notice.
• Both is still one reminder. It goes out once per session, on both channels at the same time.
• The subject, like every other one, names nobody: it carries only the date and the time.
• The reminder carries the date, the time with its zone, the duration and the link or the place. Never notes, analysis or anything else from the session.

By WhatsApp, if your patient asks for it

Scheduler settings → Notifications tab

For every Scheduler notification — the booking, the time change or cancellation, and the reminder — you choose how your patient receives it. Your own copy always goes by email.

• Email By email only, even if they have WhatsApp on.
• WhatsApp Default By WhatsApp to those who turned it on; by email to everyone else.
• Both By email to everyone, and also by WhatsApp to those who turned it on.

The option only appears if the deployment can send that notification on WhatsApp. If it cannot, the row reads "by email" and everything goes by email; whatever you had chosen is kept for when it can. Under each row, one line sums up what is sent, when, to whom and how.

Your patient turns it on, not you

In their portal → Home → WhatsApp reminders, entering their number with the international prefix (+34…). You cannot turn it on for them, not even with their mobile on file: Meta requires consent from the person who receives the message, and a number noted on a record is not consent.

It is the same switch as the one for Payments notices: anyone who already has it on need do nothing. They can withdraw it whenever they want, from the same place.

Worth knowing

• It comes from Alchely's number, not yours, with your name in the message so they know who it is from.
• The text never carries the video link. It gives the time and whether the session is online or in person, and the button opens their portal, where the live link is: a link pasted into a chat outlives the session it belonged to. In the reminder for an AlchelyMeeting session, the button can open the room itself.
• The time is in the patient's own timezone, just as in the emails. If they are in another country, they read their local time, not yours.
• Your copy still arrives by email. Alchely keeps no WhatsApp number of yours: asking for one would put your personal number in front of every patient who replies.
• In a couple session, each member goes their own way. Consent belongs to each person, so one can get WhatsApp while the other gets email.
• If WhatsApp fails, the email goes out. Nobody is left without the notice because a message could not be delivered.
• On Email, anyone with no email on their record receives nothing, even with WhatsApp on. Complete their record, or choose WhatsApp or Both.

Disconnecting an integration

Scheduler settings → Integrations tab → Disconnect

When you press Disconnect, Alchely does two things, in this order:

1. Revokes the token at the platform. It asks Zoom (or Google) to invalidate the permission you gave. Microsoft offers no per-app revocation, so with Teams Alchely forgets the permission on its side and you remove it at Microsoft (see below). From that moment Alchely cannot use it even if it wanted to.
2. Deletes the stored credentials, including the refresh token.

• Sessions already booked keep their link and keep working: the meeting lives in Zoom, Google or Microsoft, not in Alchely.
• New sessions stop generating links for that platform until you reconnect.
• Disconnecting always works, even if the platform does not respond: the credentials are deleted anyway and the permission expires on its own.

Removing it at the platform too

• Zoom: go to marketplace.zoom.us → Manage → Added Apps → Alchely → Remove.
• Google: go to myaccount.google.com/permissions, find Alchely and press Remove access.
• Microsoft: go to myapps.microsoft.com, find Alchely and remove its access.
• If you remove the app from Zoom without going through Alchely, Zoom tells us and Alchely deletes the stored credentials by itself.

Withdrawing access deletes nothing already in Alchely: your sessions, spaces and availability stay. To delete your data, use Settings → Data and privacy.

What gets sent, and to whom

Every booking, time change, cancellation and reminder generates one message per person: one for you and one for each patient. They never travel together in the same message, so nobody sees anyone else's address. A couple session sends three; a group session, one per member plus yours.

The body leads with the appointment name. In a group session, the members read Group session instead.

Each notification reaches only the people you chose for it — your patient, you, or both — and the reminder only if you switched it on (see Session reminders).

Your copy always goes by email. Your patient's goes on the channel you chose for that notification: by email, by WhatsApp to those who accepted it in their portal, or both. Anyone WhatsApp cannot reach gets the email (see By WhatsApp).

The hour, in its reader's zone

Every email is written in its recipient's own timezone, not in yours: the date, the time and even the subject are worked out per person. This is not cosmetic — a 00:30 session in Madrid falls on the previous evening in Mexico City, and taking one frame of reference for granted is how a session that looked correctly booked gets missed.

Where the two zones differ at that instant, the email adds a line with the other person's hour, saying whose it is. Where they agree, the line is not there: what is compared is the real offset on the session's own date, so Madrid and Paris stay silent and Phoenix and Los Angeles speak up only in winter.

The messages carry only logistics — date, time with its zone, duration, and the link or the space. Never notes, analysis or any other clinical content.

Troubleshooting