Connect Cliniko
Generate an API key in Cliniko and paste it into Quokka. It takes about two minutes, and nothing is visible to patients until you choose to go live.
Last updated 11 August 2026
Connecting Cliniko lets patients book your real availability on Quokka. We read your diary each time someone opens your profile, and any booking made on Quokka is written straight back into Cliniko as an appointment. You carry on working in Cliniko exactly as you do now.
Before you start
You need to be an account owner in Cliniko, or a user with permission to create API keys. Generating one takes a minute and interrupts nothing.
It is worth checking three things first, because they decide how your listing looks:
- Your practitioners exist in Cliniko under the names you want patients to see
- Your appointment types have their normal durations set
- At least one business has a full address, including a postcode
Note
A location without a postcode cannot appear in local search results. Patients search by area, so this is usually the difference between being found and not.
Find your region
Cliniko runs several regional servers, and your account lives on one of them. Look at the address
bar while you are signed in to Cliniko — it will read something like app.uk1.cliniko.com. The
part in the middle is your region.
Most UK practices are on uk1. If yours reads au1, au2, au3, us1 or ca1, that is the one
to choose.
Generate an API key
In Cliniko, click your name in the top-right corner and choose My info. Scroll down to
API keys and click Generate new API key. Give it a name you will recognise later — Quokka
works well, because if you ever want to disconnect us you will know exactly which key to revoke.
Watch out
Copy the key straight away. Cliniko shows it once and there is no way to read it back afterwards. If you lose it, no harm is done — generate a new one and use that instead.
Connect in Quokka
Open Health records in your Quokka portal and choose Cliniko. Pick your region, paste the key, and click connect.
Tip
If the key is rejected, the usual cause is a trailing space picked up when copying. Paste it into the field again, taking care to select only the key itself.
Check what came across
The first sync takes a minute or two. When it finishes you will have three things to review.
Locations
Every Cliniko business becomes a Quokka location. Check the addresses are the ones you want patients to see and travel to — if you rent a room inside a larger clinic, this is where to make sure the address is right.
Clinicians
Only practitioners who are active in Cliniko are brought across. Each one needs a type — physiotherapist, osteopath, private GP, and so on — before they can appear in search. If a clinician you expected is missing, see a clinician is missing.
Appointment types
Your Cliniko appointment types come across with their durations. Patients do not search for "Initial Consultation 45min", so each one is matched to a Quokka category and given the price a patient pays when booking online. Until a type is matched and switched on, it is not bookable.
What we read, and how often
| What | How often |
|---|---|
| Locations, practitioners and appointment types | Nightly, and whenever you re-sync |
| Available appointment times | Live, each time a patient opens your profile |
| Bookings made on Quokka | Written into Cliniko immediately |
We never change your availability, your working hours or your appointment types, and we never write to a patient record beyond creating the appointment itself.
If something is not right
- Nothing appeared at all. Re-check the region. A valid key on the wrong regional server looks exactly like an invalid key.
- Some practitioners are missing. Cliniko only sends practitioners who are currently active.
- Times look wrong. Cliniko can only be asked about seven days at a time, so availability further out fills in as patients look further ahead. This is normal.
If you are still stuck, use the assistant in your portal — it can see your practice's actual sync state and tell you what it found.
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