Having slots active in our system is how Hero keeps your bookable appointment slots in step with your EHR (EMIS or SystmOne). It pulls the slot types you actually use for online booking into Hero, and ignores the ones you don't. That keeps the patient booking flow showing only the right options, and keeps performance stable for everyone on the platform.
Hero connects to your EHR diary and reads the slot types and sessions you have configured. For each practice, we maintain a list of slot types that are actively syncing slot availability. Anything on that list is pulled into Hero continuously. Anything not on the list is ignored, even if it exists in your EHR diary.
When a slot type is on the active list, Hero reads the underlying sessions in EMIS or SystmOne, picks up the open appointments, and makes them available in the patient booking journey. Bookings made through Hero write back into your diary so reception can see them in real time. Cancellations and reschedules flow back the same way.
The sync runs continuously, but expect a short lag of up to 15 minutes between a change in the EHR and the change appearing in Hero.
Pulling every slot type from every practice would be system intensive and noisy. Most practices only use a handful of slot types for online booking. Having active vs inactive slot types lets us focus on the ones that matter and skip the rest. That keeps the system fast and stops patients seeing slot types they shouldn't be able to book.
If a slot you expect to see is not appearing in the patient booking flow, work through these in order:
Is the underlying session built in your EHR diary for the date you're checking?
Is the slot type one we have activated on smart sync for your practice?
Was the change made in the last 15 minutes? If so, give the sync a little longer to run.
Is the EHR connection healthy? You can check the connection status in your Hero admin settings.
If all four look right and slots are still missing, get in touch and we'll investigate.
Raise an issue to us with your practice name, the slot type in question, and a screenshot if it helps. We aim to respond within one working day.
