Clinic timezone
Your clinic runs on one clock. Settings → Timezone & Time → Clinic Timezone is where you tell MedicalSuite which one.
This is the single most important setting for booking to behave, because a working day of "09:00–17:00" doesn't mean anything on its own — nine o'clock where?
What it controls
Everything scheduling-related is read in the clinic timezone:
- doctors' working hours
- blocks and breaks
- day-offs, and where one day ends and the next begins
- the booking window ("21 days ahead" counts your days)
- the times patients see on the booking widget
What patients see
That's a separate choice — Settings → Timezone & Time → Times Patients See:
| Mode | Patients see | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Clinic timezone (default) | Always your clock | Almost everything. Patients travel to you, so your clock is the one that matters |
| Their own timezone | Whatever their phone or laptop is set to | Online video consultations, where they attend from wherever they are |
| One specific timezone | A zone you pick, for everybody | A catchment area whose clock differs from where the clinic is registered |
Leave this on clinic time unless you run video consults. A patient's device is often wrong — they're travelling, on a VPN, or their phone is simply mis-set — and showing them a confidently wrong time is how people miss appointments.
Whichever you choose, patients are always told which clock they're reading, and warned when it isn't their own:
All times shown in your local time (GMT+8). All times shown in clinic time (GMT+5:30), not your local time.
This applies to the booking widget, the confirmation email, and reminder emails and texts.
The clinic timezone decides when a doctor is actually bookable — it's scheduling. "Times Patients See" only decides how those moments are written out. Changing the display never moves an appointment.
How we know a patient's timezone
The booking widget reads it from their browser and stores it on their patient record, so reminder emails sent days later still use their clock. If we never learned it — they were booked over the phone, say — those emails fall back to clinic time rather than guessing.
This is not the same as "My Timezone"
Two different settings sit on the same tab:
| Setting | Who it affects | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Clinic Timezone | Everyone | The clock your clinic actually runs on. Decides when doctors are bookable. |
| My Timezone | Just you | How dates and times are displayed to you in the portal. Changes nothing about bookings. |
A receptionist working remotely can set My Timezone to their own zone for comfortable reading, without moving anybody's appointments.
Setting it
- Settings → Timezone & Time.
- Pick your clinic's city or zone under Clinic Timezone.
- Save Clinic Timezone.
Changing the clinic timezone shifts when every doctor is bookable — 09:00–17:00 stays 09:00–17:00, but that now means a different moment in real time. Appointments already booked keep their exact time and do not move. Set this once when you start, and leave it alone.
Common questions
We never set it — what have we been using? Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If your clinic isn't on UTC, set your real timezone and check your doctors' hours look right afterwards.
A patient says the times on our website look wrong. Check this setting first. If it doesn't match the clock on your clinic wall, every slot is offered at the wrong moment.
Do we need a timezone per location? Not currently — one timezone covers the whole clinic. If you run locations in genuinely different timezones, tell us.