Scheduling Troubleshooting

This article explains a few things on the schedule that often raise questions: where the hours totals come from, why appointment times can look off, and why an appointment might get cancelled without you doing it. It also covers the most common reason a session won't start.

How total hours are calculated

On the Schedule page, the metrics summary shows a row labeled Hours: Scheduled | Signed, along with the total number of appointments in view. Every hours total is really two separate numbers, and they answer two different questions:

• Scheduled — the total length of the appointments on the calendar. Each appointment contributes its own duration (end time minus start time), and those are added up.

• Signed — the total time captured on signed session notes attached to those appointments. This comes from the billing start and end time on the note, not from the calendar block.

Both totals are broken down the same way, from the top down: Billable vs. Non-billable, then by pay code, then by CPT code. Opening the detailed view shows every appointment behind those numbers, with Scheduled Hours and Signed Hours columns per row and a link to view each appointment. All hour values are rounded to one decimal place.

Why "Signed" is lower than "Scheduled" (or shows 0)

This is the most common question, and it's usually expected behavior:

• The session note isn't signed yet. Signed hours only count notes that are signed off (or finalized without signature). A scheduled appointment whose note is still a draft, in progress, or unsigned will show scheduled time but 0 signed hours until the note is signed.

• The actual session ran a different length than the booked block. Signed hours reflect the real billed time on the note, so a session that started late or ended early will show fewer signed hours than scheduled.

Other reasons the number may not match what you expect

• Cancelled appointments are not counted. They're tracked separately (you'll see a cancelled count), so they never add to Scheduled or Signed hours.

• Unpaid leave is excluded from these totals.

• The date range and filters change the total. The numbers only reflect the selected date range and any clinician or client filters you've applied. Widen the range or clear filters if a total looks too small.

Times look off (time zones and daylight saving)

The schedule shows a note that reads "All times are displayed in [your time zone]." That time zone comes from your device (your computer or phone's clock and region settings), and each appointment also carries the clinician's and client's own time zones.

Here's the part you can fix yourself:

• Check your device clock and time zone first. If your computer is set to the wrong time zone, every appointment will look shifted by that amount. Correcting your system time zone fixes the display immediately.

• Confirm the appointment's time zones. When you create or edit an appointment, you can set the clinician and client time zones. If a client recently moved states, make sure their time zone is correct so the times line up.

If times are still wrong after that, or an appointment looks off by exactly one hour around a daylight saving change, that's a different situation. See the existing articles "Timezones and multi-state scheduling" and the daylight saving one-hour-off article for the details rather than changing settings blindly.

Auto-cancellations: why an appointment cancelled on its own

Cancelled appointments are never deleted. A cancellation always keeps the appointment on record with a reason — Patient, Provider, Equipment Maintenance/Repair, or Other — so nothing is ever truly lost. If an appointment turned up cancelled and you didn't do it, one of these is usually why.

Your request was approved automatically

When you cancel, what you see depends on your permissions. Most BTs and staff click Request Cancellation and get the message "Appointment cancellation request sent" — an admin still has to approve it. Admins (and some roles with override permission) instead see Cancel Appointment and the cancellation goes through right away with "Appointment successfully cancelled." So if a slot you cancelled disappeared instantly, it was approved automatically rather than waiting in the request queue.

A substitute search was triggered

If your organization uses substitute matching and you cancel a BT/RBT session with the reason Provider, you'll see an option to have Alpaca text approved subs to cover the slot. In organizations set up to skip the approval step for this case, the appointment is cancelled immediately so the substitute search can start. Uncheck that option if you've already arranged coverage yourself.

A clinician was terminated

When a worker is terminated, any of their appointments scheduled after their last day are cancelled automatically. These carry the note "Cancelled automatically: session scheduled after the worker's last day." If you see that reason, the fix is to rebook the session with another clinician, not to reopen the original.

What you can do about a cancellation

• Restore it. Because cancelled appointments aren't deleted, you can open the appointment and Uncancel it. You'll get "Appointment successfully uncancelled," and it returns to active. If it was a PTO appointment, uncancelling re-reserves the leave hours.

• Consultation appointments booked through Cal.com can only be cancelled or changed in Cal.com, not in Alpaca.

• If your request is stuck as pending, it's waiting on an admin to approve or reject it. Reach out to a coordinator or admin to move it along.

Why the "Start Session" button won't work

If you can't start a session from an appointment, hover the button — the tooltip tells you why. The common cases:

• "Future sessions cannot be started" — you can't start a session ahead of time. Wait until the session is current (you can't start one that begins tomorrow or later).

• "Only the assigned clinician can start this session" — you're not the clinician on this appointment. The assigned clinician needs to start it.

• "This appointment has been cancelled" — restore it with Uncancel first (see above), then start the session.

• No Start Session button at all — the appointment is non-billable (training, admin, travel, PTO, etc.). Those don't have sessions to record.