Book an appointment and prepare a consultation visit

An appointment reserves a calendar entry. A visit records the patient's attendance and clinical encounter. This guide books an existing patient, then uses Onboard Visit at arrival to create and link the visit. It ends with the administrative handoff to the clinical team.

The instructions review the Odoo 20 source and supplied forms; they do not claim a tested browser journey or edition acceptance. Start with VetSuite setup and client and patient registration.

Before you begin

Install Frontdesk with its Agenda and Notes dependencies, including the underlying Encounters modules. Use a Front Desk user, or an inherited Clinician (DVM) or Practice Manager role, with access to the patient, calendar records, company, and practice site.

Use an existing client and patient whose current authority permits the booking and responsible-party role. The initial primary owner created during staff registration supplies those roles; later authority changes need separate review. Choose an eligible veterinary employee when assigning the consultation. The staff selection uses the Veterinary Physician flag.

Book Appointment adds the client as a calendar attendee and copies the company's default appointment alarms. Calendar invitations and appointment reminders therefore need their own approved setup. Turning off the client's Medical Reminders does not disable all appointment notifications. Use an isolated training environment with outbound calendar, email, and SMS delivery controlled by its administrator for the exercise below.

Book the appointment

1. Check the intended time and veterinarian's availability under Corvus VetSuite → Front Desk → Appointments. This guide does not treat the staff booking form as a guaranteed conflict or resource-capacity check.
2. Open Corvus VetSuite → Front Desk → Book Appointment. Select Client and Patient. Verify that they are the intended existing records and that the client has current responsible authority for the patient.
3. Set Appointment Type, Start, Duration Hours, and Veterinarian. Check the displayed time against the staff timezone and intended clinic time. Enter a positive duration and only appropriate administrative Notes.
4. For a future appointment, choose Confirm Appointment. Despite this button's label, the supplied booking action creates a Scheduled calendar appointment. It does not create a visit or check the patient in. Review the returned appointment's patient, client, time, veterinarian, and status.

Expected result: one Scheduled appointment with no Linked Visit. Confirm & Start Visit is a different booking control: it creates the appointment and opens Visit Onboarding with Start Visit Now selected. Use that only when intentionally starting intake; this guide uses the separate arrival step below.

Check the visible Client and Patient before confirming, and verify the patient's company and site through the registration record and responsible administrator. The booking wizard does not expose every stored scope or responsibility value. Patient, client, company, practice site, Booked By, and responsibility snapshots are protected after the appointment is created. A correction may require cancellation and a replacement appointment; cancellation can notify the booking party and is not an innocuous editing shortcut.

Check the patient in at arrival

5. Keep the appointment Scheduled or Confirmed until onboarding. Open Corvus VetSuite → Front Desk → Onboard Visit. Select Appointment Mode: Use Existing and choose Existing Appointment. Do not press Arrived first: the onboarding workflow accepts only Scheduled or Confirmed appointments without an existing Linked Visit.
6. Review Client Mode: Select Existing, Existing Client, Patient Mode: Existing, and Existing Patient. Selecting the appointment fills patient, client, type, time, and veterinarian information; verify those values rather than assuming that old authority information remains current.
7. For an ordinary consultation intake, select Start Visit Now and Next Step: Medical Checkup (OPD). Confirm Veterinarian. Record the client's reason for attendance in Chief Complaint when appropriate. Clinical staff must supply any triage decisions or actual measurements; do not populate vitals, symptoms, or clinical findings merely to advance the form. Review the default Triage Level rather than treating it as an assessment.
8. Choose Confirm once. The supplied action creates a visit, links it to the appointment, marks the appointment Arrived, and checks the visit in. Record the returned visit number and verify Checked In status. Notes also creates a linked draft SOAP note; a supplied chief complaint is copied into its subjective section. Entering vitals or observation notes can additionally create a reception observation.

Expected result: one appointment linked to one Checked In visit for the same patient, company, and practice site. The appointment's Visit button opens that existing record. Its Linked Visit field is read-only on the supplied form; do not try to link or replace it manually.

If Start Visit Now is cleared, Onboard Visit instead confirms the selected Scheduled appointment and returns it without creating a visit. It requires an appointment for this scheduling-only mode.

Hand the visit to the clinical team

9. On the Checked In visit, review Client, Patient, Clinician, Purpose, the attendance date, and Chief Complaint. When the patient is waiting, choose Join Queue and check In Queue status and the generated Queue Number.
10. When the assigned consultation is ready, reception or clinical staff can choose Call In. A Clinician must be assigned. The visit becomes With Clinician. This action requires Front Desk access or an inherited role; it does not itself establish that the person clicking is the assigned veterinarian.

Expected result: the administrative visit record is ready for clinical work, with an appointment link and a visible workflow state. The clinical team owns documentation, observations, prescriptions, and any treatment decisions from this point.

This starter workflow stops before Complete. Visit completion requires an attributable veterinary employee with the assigned-clinician authority or the supported veterinary manager override, and it automatically approves remaining draft observations. It is not simply a reception checkout button. Completing or cancelling a visit can also update its linked appointment.

Try it with fictional records

In the isolated training environment, use fictional Riley Morgan and Pip from the registration exercise. Have an authorized administrator prepare a training veterinary employee. Book a 30-minute appointment at a training time and choose Confirm Appointment. Verify Scheduled status and the absence of a visit.

At the simulated arrival, use Onboard Visit with that existing appointment and patient, Start Visit Now, and Medical Checkup (OPD). Leave unmeasured clinical fields empty. Confirm once, then check the visit number, Checked In status, and appointment link. Join Queue and Call In when appropriate to the simulation. No clinical or messaging acceptance is implied, and this guide has not executed the exercise.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
Patient is absent or authority is rejected	Check the client relationship, responsible authority, company, and site access. Do not create a duplicate patient to work around it.
Appointment is unavailable in Onboard Visit	It must be Scheduled or Confirmed, belong to the selected patient, and have no Linked Visit.
Appointment is already Arrived	Open its linked visit if one exists. If it has no visit, obtain an administrator's supported correction path; this guide does not invent a state reset.
Appointment already has a visit	Open that visit; a second onboarding attempt is rejected.
Call In fails	Assign the intended clinician and check that the visit is Checked In or In Queue and the operator has Front Desk access.
Company or site mismatch is rejected	The patient, appointment, visit, and any selected location must have compatible company/site scope.
Confirmation label seems inconsistent	Book Appointment's Confirm Appointment creates Scheduled; scheduling-only Onboard Visit advances it to Confirmed. Check the resulting status.

Cancellation archives an appointment and may queue email or invoke SMS for Booked By. This guide does not qualify those deliveries, online booking, clinical treatment, hospitalization, completed medical notes, or report output. Return to VetSuite getting started for setup responsibilities.