Open Dental Forum

I have been going through the forum to understand how to assemble appointments.

Since it takes 3 http calls:

1. Get all available schedules
2. Get busy appointments
3. Get providers (to get provider name)

Would it be possible for you to provide a single https API call (date/range) based that will return data attributes that can then be used to book an appointment?

Thank you

osjaved wrote: Wed Sep 17, 2025 7:59 pm I have been going through the forum to understand how to assemble appointments.

Since it takes 3 http calls:

1. Get all available schedules
2. Get busy appointments
3. Get providers (to get provider name)

Would it be possible for you to provide a single https API call (date/range) based that will return data attributes that can then be used to book an appointment?

Thank you

Hello osjaved.

The API doesn’t currently provide a single-call endpoint to retrieve all available and unavailable time slots for providers on a given date range, and at this time we don’t plan to extend the API to feature such an endpoint. The recommended workflow can be found here: API Guide – Finding Appointment Openings.

If this workflow doesn’t suit your needs, you may consider creating a query and using the ShortQueries endpoint.

Thanks!

Reviewing this: viewtopic.php?t=8334
Are there more simpler but comprehensive examples of the schedule creation?

1. What is the difference between an Operatory and a Provider?
2. When creating an appointment we have to provide both an Operatory and a Provider? Does this mean that we have to track availability of both Operatory and Provider?

Are there more examples of creating a schedule which given a day (or a time period) provides: What Provider is available at what time(s)?

Also how can a schedule be created based on Appointment types e.g. Cleaning, Exam, etc? E.g. If a patient wants a cleaning appointment are there providers that will not do cleaning? And the available appointments for Providers that will do cleaning?

Thank you

Good morning,

It is very important to understand how users interact with Open Dental to create an application. The resources they use to understand appointments and scheduling are a good place for you to start, too.

Appointments Module - This page has a large number of links.
Schedule Setup - There are two tutorial videos linked on this page.
Operatories - There are two tutorial videos linked on this page.
Providers
Appointment Types

I strongly recommend you go through the process of scheduling appointments as a user within an instance of Open Dental first. Once you have a handle on this, it will be far simpler to translate these action to API calls for your application.