Anima reads and writes directly to your appointment book so every slot type, clinician and location in your clinical system is visible in Anima in real time. This means the user booking patients in is responsible for narrowing down to the right slots so that patients are booked into the correct slots.
This page is for practices who have activating Appointments API. All practices onboarded since July 2026 are on Appointments API. If you are an existing practice that hasn't been switched over, speak to your Customer Success contact.
Top Tips
Build clearly-named presets that cover the core booking windows your team use day to day. If the team holds the habit of simply picking a preset rather than creating personalised filters each time, this will ensure greater consistency in the links shared.
More info at:
Always check the available slots showing the number of matching slots before you send. It's the smoothest fastest check to ensure the right filters are applied. If the count is too large or close to 0, review carefully before sending.
Be extremely cautious to "Update preset" when you want to add or amend an additional preset, so you don't accidentally overwrite an existing preset with personalised filters.
Clean up appointment visibility in Organisation Settings. This ensures you hide slot types, location or staff member you never want booked through Anima.
Decide practice protocols internally to understand when to send patients a booking link vs contacting patient directly to book an appointment.
Key Terms: Filters & Presets
Filters
A filter is a single condition that narrows the appointment book. You apply filters from Customise appointment filters, and can layer several together. The core filters:
Slot type — almost always the most important filter (e.g. a routine clinician slot, blood test, smear test).
Staff member — for when a patient has specifically asked for someone or filter to usual GP.
Location — for multi-site practices.
Delivery method — e.g. in-person vs telephone.
Your safety check — the green box. As you filter, a green box appears at the bottom of the screen showing how many slots now match. This is the best indicator that you've filtered correctly. With no filters applied you might see thousands of slots; filter to the right slot type and that drops to a sensible number. Use Click here to view matching slots to review exactly what a link would offer. If you've applied a filter and the count is still enormous, that's a red flag that the right filters aren't actually applied — always check the green box before you send.
Presets
A preset is a saved set of filters. It is a named combination you apply so that in one click, you can re-use common pathways without applying individual filters every time.
To create a new preset:
Open any patient request. In Customise appointment filters section under 'Invite Patient to Book', apply the filters you want (almost always include a slot type; but also add clinician, location or delivery if needed).
Click Save this configuration as a preset.
Give it a clear, obvious name so anyone on the team knows what it's for — e.g. "2–4 day Routine slots", "Blood test".
To update an existing preset
Select the preset you are looking to update.
Edit the filters so that it is calibrated to the specific filter/subset that you are looking for.
Press the Update selected preset. You will be asked to confirm.
Note: updating a preset will update for the entire organisation. Be sure that updates are authorised by project leads and do not interfere with other team members using the same preset.
How to: Send a booking link through patient request
Sending booking links is increasingly used for arranging non-urgent patient care. It ensures patients can select their own availability and ensure that reception team spend less time going back and forth with patients to find a suitable time.
To send a booking link via a patient request:
Open the request from your dashboard.
Select Appointment +, then Invite patient to book.
Choose the sign-off message. Sign-off message is simply the message the patient receives alongside the booking link.
Choose the standard date range for the appointment window. Please note that Anima adheres to slot embargoes - meaning if you have slots embargoed you don't need to restrict date range as often.
In the invite configuration window, select the relevant preset (or choose from the filters). Use the green box below to preview slots filtered to and ensure it is correct.
Opt in to include: expiry date for the link; sending the patient an appointment reminder; and any additional comments.
Press Finish.
The patient will not receive the invite to book an appointment until the entire request is Finalised. At which point, the user can do a final review of the message sent to patient before being sent.
How to: Book Appointment Now
Book appointment now is used when you're in direct contact with the patient and otherwise know their availability (i.e. you have the patient on the phone). This ensures you can place them into a specific slot. Many practices continue to prefer this for urgent, on-the-day appointments where you want the patient booked quickly with direct supervision. To complete this:
Open the request and go to Appointments → Book appointment now.
Choose the sign-off message. Sign-off message is simply the message the patient receives alongside the booking link.
Click Create New Appointment.
Apply the date range and use the Filters to narrow down scope of calendar displayed. Use presets where appropriate for ease of filtering. Press Search after applying filters.
Preview the calendar and select the slot you wish to book them into. Hovering over any slot will provide you full details of what is being booked into.
6. Press confirm details once selected. Add any additional notes for in-calendar visibility.
7. Click Book appointment now for slot to be automatically entered into your calendar. Click Save and Book Later if you wish for the booking to be entered only when the entire patient request is finalised and signed off.
Appointments Organisation Settings
Before the team starts booking, get your appointment settings right at organisation level. This is admin-only, and it's the best lever for reducing errors because it decides what can appear in Anima.
Where to find it: Settings (bottom-left) → Organisation Settings → in the middle column, below Practice Settings, select Appointments.
From here you can:
1. Control appointment visibility. Because Anima mirrors your whole book, it shows every slot type by default. Hide any slot types you never want booked through Anima (breaks, meetings, protected time, admin or non-bookable slots) and they won't appear as an option. You can also hide locations and staff members here too.
Time-saver: if you want to hide most slot types, use the select-all box at the top of the list and un-tick the handful you do want visible, rather than ticking dozens individually. Remember to Save changes.
Staff follow slot types: a staff member only appears in Anima if they have a visible slot type attached to them. So if your slot types are filtered correctly, your staff and locations tend to fall into line automatically — a receptionist with no bookable clinical slots simply won't show up. Get your slot types right and the rest usually follows.
2. Link a sign-off to its relevant presets. You can associate a particular sign-off option with the preset(s) that sign-off is relevant to. This means when the team picks a given pathway at sign-off, the associated preset is also then pre-selected. This saves one less manual click, and one less chance to send the wrong slots.
Best practice: Do your visibility clean-up before go-live, or as soon as the Appointments API is switched on. It's a five-minute job that prevents a whole category of booking mistakes. If you use GPAD triage slots with a keyword, note that the keyword is now checked across all your appointment slots — see the Activating the Appointments API article for how to keep that keyword specific.