7.2 | Entering Appointments

Appointments

Appointments are used to track sales appointments, vacation/sick time, company meetings, and anything else that may affect time at work. Appointments can be found in two places: the Appointment List and the Schedule Board. Before you can make an appointment, you need to setup your appointment preferences.

Appointments & Types

Prior to setting up an appointment for yourself or another user (depending on your permissions), you will need to ensure you have created Appointment Types. Appointment Types are easily created in The Appointment Type List. This list allows users to view all appointment types, as well as create new and edit existing types. The Appointment Types in the list are used to designate the different types of appointments employees may encounter during business hours.

Appointment Types

Appointment Types are created by accessing the Appointment Type List from the Lists Menu found under the Company Menu Option.

Once the list is opened, you will Right-Click into the list to access a pop-up menu. From this menu you may add a new appointment type, edit an appointment type or delete an appointment type. As with other lists, there are also menu options to mark appointment types inactive or export the lists. For this example, you would choose New Appointment Type.

This will take you to the Add Appointment Type screen. You will create a name for the appointment type, determine a color code for it, and select the default length of the appointment. You may select OK to save or Next to save and create a new appointment type. Once you have several different types of appointments created, you are ready to create appointments.

Appointments

Once appointment types are created, you may begin to add Appointments. To access the Add Appointment form, you can go to the Appointment List from the Company Menu option.

Once you are in the Appointment List, you may Right-Click into the list. Similar to other lists, Right- Clicking into the list will access a pop-up menu. Choosing the New Appointment option will open the Add Appointment form below.

Employee: Used to enter the name of the person the appointment is being scheduled for. Choose from the drop-down list and enter a new employee.

Cust:Job: Select a Customer:Job to associate with this appointment if it is for a specific Customer. The appointment will be included in the selected Customer:Job History form. A Customer is not required.

Type: You may create and select appointment types. These work just like work order types. Examples may include “personal”, “business”, “medical”, etc.

Description: Use this area to enter the detailed information regarding the appointment. This information will appear on the Appointment List, Schedule Board, and Calendar.

Date: This field will automatically populate with the current date. Select the drop-down arrow to the right of the field. This will display a calendar. Click on the date of the appointment if it differs from the current date.

Start Time: This field will automatically populate with the current time. Use the directional arrows to select a different appointment time.

All Day Event: Click the box to indicate this appointment is an all-day event, and this employee will be out the entire business day.

Duration In Minutes: The approximated length of time for the appointment may be entered in this field, in increments of minutes such as 60.

Private: Check this field if this is a private appointment and you don’t want others to observe the details. By checking the private field, the message will appear on the Appointment List, Schedule Board, and Calendar, but no details will be available. Note: The administrator can view all appointments, even ones marked private.

Remind Me: Check this field if you want to be reminded of a pending appointment for a certain amount of time prior to the scheduled appointment.

Remind Me In Advance: Use these two fields to indicate how you want to be reminded and when. Example: If you wanted to be reminded fifteen minutes ahead of the time of a meeting, in the Remind Me field you would enter 15 and in the “In Advance” field (using the drop-down menu) select Minutes.

Alarm Dismissed: Checkmark this field If you do not want any further reminders for the particular appointment or dismiss the reminder once you have been reminded.

Save & Close: Saves the Appointment and exits the form.

Save & New: Saves the Appointment you are on and opens up a new Appointment.

Cancel: Exits the form without saving any changes.

Completed: Marks the Appointment completed and crosses the Appointment out within the Schedule Board to indicate the obligation has been met.

Menu│Save: Manually saves the appointment without exiting the form.

Menu│Revert: This action is the same as if you clicked “Cancel”. Any changes made are not saved.

Menu│Copy: Opens a new appointment form, already filled out with the same information as the Appointment copied. Simply make necessary adjustments and save the new appointment.

Menu│Delete: Deletes the appointment.

Menu│Customer:Job: Allows you to access the Customer History, Edit the Customer, access the Customer Contact Log, and allows you to view Document Links associated with the Customer.

Menu│Employee: Allows you to access the Employee History, Edit the Employee, access the Employee Contact Log, and allows you to view Document Links associated with the Employee.

Menu│Print: Previews a hard-copy of the Appointment which is then available for printing.

Menu│Send Page/Text/Email: Will send an alert about the Appointment via Page, Text or Email to the Employee selected.

Menu│Repeat Appointment: Opens the Repeat Appointments form to setup and create reoccurring Appointments based on frequency and the day of the week to occur. See the topic “Repeat Appointments” for detailed usage information.

Menu│Help: Opens the Help Topic on Appointments for review. You may also add an appointment via the Schedule Board which will be discussed later in this section.

My Preferences

Default Appointment Duration: This preference sets the increments of time assigned to appointments.

Default Type: This preference sets the Default Type of each appointment. The Default Type may be overwritten at any time.

Use Scheduling Conflict Checking: This option will alert you to any scheduling conflicts.

Please note: Schedule Board Options will be discussed later in this section.

Company Preferences

There are no Company Preferences for Schedule Management.