Blocking a booking based on a pre-screen answer

Head Office > Service Builder > Services > Question set]

Default Flagging vs. Hard Stops

By default, marking a question as Exclusionary flags a concerning answer to the pharmacist on the consultation record, but allows the patient to finish booking. Applying a hard stop changes this behavior immediately:

• Flag Only (Default): The patient finishes the pre-screen, books an appointment, and the pharmacist sees the flagged answer during the consultation.
• Hard Stop: The moment the patient provides the exclusionary answer, the Next button is disabled and they are blocked from proceeding. They cannot reach the signature screen, cannot book, and cannot bypass the block by editing the web address. The pharmacist still sees the attempt flagged.

💡 Clinical Guidance: Use a hard stop only when booking the appointment would be clinically inappropriate. If you want the pharmacist to review the patient's answer and make a clinical judgment in person, leave the hard stop setting switched off.

Qualifying Questions & Supported Formats

To enable a hard stop, a question must meet both of the following requirements:

1. Question Criteria: Must be set to Exclusionary.
2. Question Format: Must be one of four supported types:

• Dropdown (Yes/No - Yes shows feedback): Triggered when the patient answers Yes.
• Dropdown (Yes/No - No shows feedback): Triggered when the patient answers No.
• Dropdown (Multiple choice): Triggered when the patient selects any option (or any option except the first if "Don't show feedback if user selects first option" is enabled).
• Textbox: Triggered when the patient types any entry.

Unsupported Formats

If a question uses any other format—such as tickboxes, numbers, blood pressure, BMI, heart rate, or layout headings—the hard stop setting is greyed out. These formats require numerical ranges or thresholds to evaluate answers, which hard stops do not currently support.

⚠️ Important: Ticking the box on an unqualified question will not take effect. The system automatically greys out the setting to prevent saving an invalid configuration.

Setting Up a Hard Stop

[Screenshot: Service Builder Question Set edit screen showing Question Criteria and Hard Stop checkbox]

1. Navigate to deltera.cloud/manager > Services, select your service, and click Question set.
2. Open the relevant patient question set (Initial or Follow-up) and click Edit next to the target question.
3. Under Question criteria, select Exclusionary.
4. Check the box labeled Block booking on this answer — stop the patient completing the medical screen if they give the exclusionary answer.
5. Click Save, then reopen the question to verify the box remains ticked.

💡 How to Verify: Open your public booking link, navigate to the medical pre-screen, and select the exclusionary answer. The Next button should immediately grey out and display a red warning banner. Changing the answer back should re-enable the Next button.

What the Patient Sees

When a patient selects or enters an exclusionary answer:

• The Next button greys out immediately.
• A red panel appears with the heading Unable to proceed, reading: "Based on your answers, you are not suitable for this service. If you feel this is incorrect, please contact your pharmacy."

[Screenshot: Patient pre-screen interface displaying the greyed-out Next button and red 'Unable to proceed' banner]

Self-Correction & Security

• Answer Correction: Patients are not kicked out of the pre-screen. If they made a mistake, they can change or clear their answer to lift the block instantly.
• URL Protection: If a patient attempts to skip ahead to the signature or booking screen by manually editing the browser web address, the system redirects them back to the medical screen with the same blocking message.

⚠️ Note on Custom Messaging: The blocking message is standardized across all hard-stop questions and cannot be customized per question. Any question-specific clinical guidance should be added to that question's Optional feedback field for the pharmacist to review.

Cloning and Copying Question Sets

Hard-stop settings are preserved when duplicating questions or full service templates:

• Cloning a Single Question: Retains the hard-stop setting within the same service.
• Copying a Whole Question Set: Carries the hard-stop configuration over to every copied question in the destination service.

After copying a question set to a new service, review one of the hard-stop questions in the new service to confirm the box remains checked.

Troubleshooting

• The checkbox is greyed out: Confirm that Question criteria is set to Exclusionary and that the question Format is one of the four supported types.
• The setting unticks after saving: The format or criteria did not qualify when saved. Ensure Exclusionary is selected and a supported format is active before ticking the box and saving again.
• A patient is stuck and cannot complete booking: The hard stop is functioning as intended. Check if their answer was a mistake; if so, they can correct their answer on screen to proceed.
• A question should no longer block bookings: Edit the question, untick the hard-stop setting, and click Save. Subsequent patients providing that answer will be flagged for the pharmacist instead of blocked.
• No block occurs when testing the answer: Verify that the question is in a Patient question set (rather than a Staff set), that the service is live, and that you are testing the correct service variant.

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