Scheduling

This screen displays two tabs:

• Appointments - the diary of appointments and their status.  The buttons allow you to move the appointment through its various stages from new to completed. For background see Concepts|Schedules, Work Lists and Workflow.
• Free Appointment Slots - provides a facility to find free appointment slots

Appointments

The appointments tab displays data in several modes:

• multi-schedule
• single schedule
• multi-day

Note that the left hand panel displays the current customer and patient. This will change as the different appointments are selected. Below the Bourke/Muffett appointment is selected (note the italic font).

First the multi-schedule display.

This is essentially a select screen. The selection fields area as follows:
View - this is used to select the Schedule View to be used
Schedule - this can be set to All or any one of the Schedules that are part of the current Schedule View.  If you select other that All, then the schedule will be displayed in single schedule mode - see below.
Clinician - this can be set to All or any one of the clinicians. If you select a clinician, then all the appointments for clinicians other that the one selected will be 'greyed out'.
Date - the date selector allows you to enter a date, go back or forth one day, or one week (the outer arrows), or, with the black square, select today.
Highlight - this can be set to Clinician, Event Type or Status and changes the colours used to display each appointment
Time - this can be set to All, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, AM or PM. This sets the part of the day for which the schedule is displayed. Note also that if there is part of the day for which the schedule is not available then there will be no slots in that part. In the picture, the Surgery starts at 8am but the main clinic not until 9am.

The display area consists of one column per schedule, each showing the events that match the selection conditions. Events may be appointments or calendar blocks; calendar blocks can be used to block out parts of a schedule to restrict appointment creation.
What is displayed for each appointment is set via the Administration|Organisation|Schedule View screen. Here you can see that this view is set to display the customer, patient and status (but not the clinician).

If a bell icon is displayed, it indicates that an SMS reminder may be sent for the appointment:

• a grey bell indicates no reminder has been sent
• a gold bell indicates a reminder has been sent
• a red bell indicates a reminder could not be sent. The Reminder Error field in the appointment will display the reason.

The buttons are as follows: (see below for when the various buttons are displayed)
New - create a new appointment in the currently selected time slot. To select a time slot, click it and it will display in the slot, then press the New button (or click the slot again) and the New Appointment screen will open. The new appointment will have status Pending.
Edit - edit the selected event
Delete - delete the selected event. A confirm window will appear. Note that you cannot delete appointments that have status Completed - if you really do need to delete a completed appointment, first edit it to change the status to other than Completed.
Print - print the selected appointment.
Mail - email the selected appointment.
Check-In - initiates the check-in process      }
Consult - opens the Visit Editor window        } click here for details
Check-Out - initiates the check-out process  }
Transfer - transfers a patient to a Work List }
OTC - Over The Counter sale - opens the New Counter Sale window to allow you to make an OTC sale
New Flow Sheet - creates a Smart Flow Sheet for the patient associated with an appointment.
Remind - sends an appointment reminder SMS for the selected appointment.
Block - creates a new calendar block in the current selected time slot.

 

Moving an event

To move an appointment or calendar block to another date/time, either:

• edit it and change the start and end times; or
• 'cut and paste' it:
  • select the event by clicking on it
  • cut it using Ctrl-X
  • navigate to the day and schedule that you want
  • click on the new time slot so that appears
  • paste it using Ctrl-V

Cut and paste allows the event to be moved to another schedule.

Copying an event

To copy an event to another date/time, either use 'copy and paste':

• select the event by clicking on it
• copy it using Ctrl-C
• navigate to the day and schedule that you want
• click on the new time slot so that appears
• paste it using Ctrl-V

---

 

The single-schedule display is as follows:

The selection fields and buttons are the same as for the multi-schedule display.

The display area columns are as follows:
Time - the slot start time
Status - the appointment status - which will be (in logical order) one of Pending, Waiting, Admitted, In-Progress, Billed, Completed, or Cancelled. Note that the status 'Checked-In' is translated here to 'Waiting' with the time since checked-in - see the 9.30 slot in the picture above.
Appointment Type - the type of appointment - those available are set via Administration|Types|Appointment Type
Customer - the customer - note that the name is a link - clicking on it will take you to the Customers|Information screen
Patient - the patient - note that the name is a link - clicking on it will take you to the Patients|Medical Records screen
Notes - the notes for the appointment
 

---

The multi-day display is the default display for Schedule Views that have Multiple Day View selected:

The selection fields and buttons are the same as for the multi-schedule display. It adds:

Dates - this allows the date range to be selected:

• Month - displays a month of appointments
• Fortnight - the default. Displays 2 weeks of appointments
• Week - displays a week of appointments
• Day - the same as the multi-schedule display

Show - this determines how schedules are displayed

• All - displays all schedules as they appear in the selected View
• Cages - displays schedules grouped by their Cage Type, with:
• total slots by Cage Type
• available slots by Cage Type, by day
• Summary - similar to the Cages view, except that the appointment details are displayed as one of:
  • B - indicates that the pet is boarding, i.e. is staying overnight
  • D - indicates that the pet is in for the day only
  • > - indicates that the pet is leaving on the day
• Check-Ins - displays all schedules that have check-ins for the selected day
• Check-Outs - displays all schedules the have check-outs for the selected day

The display area consists of one column per day, and one row per schedule, each showing the appointments that match the selection conditions.

Appointments that start on a date before the first displayed date have an icon.

Appointments that end on a date after the last displayed date have an  icon.

 

 

Available Buttons
The following table shows when each button is displayed.

Button	Displayed When
OTC	Always
New	Time slot selected
Edit	Event selected
Delete	Event selected
Print	Appointment selected
Check-In	status = Pending
Consult	status = In-Progress, Billed, Completed Note that if you press Consult on a Completed or Billed appointment, then the Visit Editor opens so that you can add to the visit record
Check-Out	status = In-Progress, Billed, Completed Note that if you press Check-out on a Completed appointment, a new invoice will be opened so that you can add items to it.
Transfer	status = Checked-In, In Progress, Admitted, Billed, Completed
New Flow Sheet	An appointment is selected and Smart Flow Sheet is configured for the Practice Location.
Remind	The selected appointment has status Pending, the appointment is either for today or in the future, and the customer can receive SMS messages.
Block	Time slot selected

Find Free Appointments

The Find Free Appointments tab simplifies locating free appointment slots.

The upper part of the screen displays the query critiera. The lower part, the free slots matching the criteria.

Below, the query is for free slots in the Main Appointment Schedule from the 1/7 to the 3/7 between 10:00am and 1:00pm that are at least 1 hour in length.

Four matches have been shown. Clicking on one of these will switch to the appropriate Schedule View on the Appointments tab, selecting the Schedule time.

 

View - this is used to select the Schedule View to be used.
Schedule - this can be set to All, or any one of the Schedules that are part of the current Schedule View. 
From - the date to start searching from.
To - the date to search to.
From Time - the time of day to start searching from. If not set, this defaults to the time the schedule starts at.
To Time - the time of day to search to. If not set, this defaults to the time the schedule ends at.
Duration - the minumum duration to search for. This defaults to the minumum duration of the selected Schedule(s).
Clinician - filters by clinician. The clinician must be rostered on within the date range.
Cage Type - filters by Cage Type. This is only displayed when Schedules have Cage Types.

Boarding Schedules

Find Free Appointments can be used to locate consecutive days in boarding schedules. These should be configured to either have no Start Time nor End Time set, or to start at 0:00 and end at 24:00.