Hour visibility
Public and private are two layers of the same day
Working hours are not one row per day. They are a set of rules, each with its own visibility - which is why you can publish Tuesday afternoons without publishing Tuesday morning.
How it works in practice
Three things worth knowing before you set up your first week.
Visibility belongs to a rule, not to a day
Monday 8:00-12:00 can be private and 12:00-18:00 public. That is two rules on one day and both hold at once. The day you see in the calendar is their sum.
A break is a hole in the sum, not a hole in one rule
If one layer has a gap from 11:00 to 13:00 and another is working then, that is not a break - those are hours with different visibility. It is a break only when no rule covers it. The week strip draws the sum, and the rule list underneath shows what it is made of.
Private means private everywhere
On the booking page a private block does not exist: the patient sees neither a free hour nor a note that something is taken. The waiting list skips it too - an hour freed inside a private block goes to nobody and stays yours.
What it is actually for
The commonest reason is not the obvious one. This is not a feature for hiding from patients - it is the feature that makes publishing a booking page possible at all. A practice with a full week and a waiting list cannot put the whole week outside, because the first free slot would be gone before there was time to think about it.
The second reason is mundane: some hours are held for something that is in no system at all. A patient mid-course who has to be fitted around. The morning you collect a child. An hour kept in case somebody needs it urgently. If you have ever put a made-up appointment in the calendar so the internet could not take an hour like that, this is exactly the feature for it.
Hour visibility
Questions
Can the patient tell I am hiding something?
No. A private block does not appear on the booking page in any form - not as a free slot and not as a taken one. From the patient's side those hours are simply not in your schedule.
Can I change one day without touching the rest?
Yes. Click the day in the week strip, change the rule and save. If the same change should apply to several days, there is a "Copy to other days" button so you do not enter it five times.
What if I make a block private and there is already a booking in it?
The visit stays. Visibility governs what can be booked from now on, not what is already arranged - nobody's appointment gets cancelled because you changed a setting.
Can I still give a private hour to somebody by hand?
Yes, and that is the whole point. Private means "only you can put somebody here", not "blocked". You book whoever you like into it, from the console or over the phone.
Get started
Start with your own week
Create an account, enter your working hours, and mark which of them a patient can see. The first ten practices pay nothing for six months.