Appointments Diary

Appointments Diary Menu
The diary menu bar situated at the top of the appointments diary screen provides quick button access to creating new appointments, modifying them and deleting them.

Further along the menu are options to block out time slots on the diary for multiple reasons - These can be created, modified and deleted in the PPS Look Up Table Menu, furthermore the user can add a note regarding a specific practitioners diary session, book in an event and add in or select a client that is currently on the PPS Holding List.

Finally there are options to search for specific appointment slots or a particular client’s appointment schedule, print out a section of the appointments diary and also refresh the diary screen manually.

Appointment Diary Navigation
The PPS Appointments Diary will default to the current day or week as standard. There are single and double chevron buttons which indicate the ability to move forwards and backwards by day or week. The calendar date button will allow instant access back to the current day or week’s diary.

The red symbol of a double chevron indicate the option to use the 'Jump to Date' feature, which is often used when moving forwards or backwards over large periods of time.

Appointment Diary Views
The Appointments Diary provides the ability to view all locations or specific locations, if these have been pre-defined within the PPS Look-Up tables. Furthermore, there will be options to view specific diary users or specific diary user 'disciplines' - this is dependent on the current diary view setting that has been chosen.

Appointment Diary 'Status' Buttons
The Diary Status buttons are located along the top right of the PPS Appointments diary - This are used as 'quick' buttons. If a client has been highlighted on the appointments diary, simply clicking one of the 4 status buttons will induce the required status, from marking the client as being arrived, to marking the patient as not attending their time slot.

Diary users and Time Slots
Each PPS Diary user is viewable by day or week, and can also be shown per column or per row. Initially a newly created diary user is set up with a week’s diary of 9am until 5pm with no location, treatment room or description of diary slot assigned - this can then be configured via the 'Set Up Appointment Diaries' section within the Tools menu along with start and end times for the diary users, as well as appointment duration.

Tip: Diary users can have more than one appointment slot 'description' to control morning appointment slots, non-available lunchtime slots and afternoon appointment slots.

Diary Menu
The Diary menu is accessed from the PPS Menu at the top or by right clicking on the appointment diary itself. This menu allows quick access to multiple actions in one list, from copying and appointment slot and pasting an appointment slot, to sending the highlighted client an SMS text message or changing the diary style view. This menu can also be chosen by right clicking on the appointments diary, giving a different set of options to optionally select.

Diary View Settings
In the top right corner the PPS Appointments diary, if the 'Diary Style' view is currently being used, there will be plus and minus buttons which allow the user to zoom in and out of the diary itself, allowing and increase and decrease of column and row sizes.

Additionally there is the ability to add and remove columns depending on the current diary style view setting, by using the plus and minus buttons in the bottom left area of the appointments diary, along with two shortcut buttons which switch the current user between single diary users and multiple diary user views.

Add
Look this up under the type of new record you want to add – e.g. Client - Add or Appointment - Add

Appointment
An Appointment is an entry in the Appointments Diary for a client. When you set up your diary, you are setting up the free appointment slots. You then book Appointments into these free slots. Each Appointment can be marked with a status, represented by a colour, to show that the client has arrived for their appointment (green), is currently being seen by the practitioner (orange) or the appointment is completed (purple). You can also mark an appointment as DNA (did not attend) and select a reason why the client has not attended – these are marked in red. When booking an appointment on the diary, this is normally done by highlight a free slot then selecting to add the new appointment. When doing this, the appointment details such as date, time, duration, diary user, treatment room, etc. are already known and you do not have to enter them.

Appointments Diary
The PPS Appointments Diary allows you to record your client appointments, and manage your available appointment times. There are a variety of diary view styles to suit your needs including single day, whole week, single or multiple users etc. You can access the PPS Appointments Diary from the PPS Menu: Appointments – Appointments Diary, or by pressing Ctrl-A on the Keyboard. You can also click on Appointments, or Diary on the Task Bar. The diary has a toolbar to give you access to common functions such as adding appointments, and when the diary is displayed, clicking on an item in the task bar, or selecting from the PPS menu will normally be related to the currently highlighted appointment. For example, if an appointment for Mrs Smith is highlighted, then clicking on the Accounts option on the task bar will show the accounts screen for Mrs Smith. --br-- A Practitioner on the PPS Appointments Diary is referred to as a “Diary User”. This is to allow the diary to be used by more people than just Practitioners in your practice. You can select to set up and use your diary either by Diary Users, or by Treatment Rooms – this can suit they way that you are used to booking your clients into the diary. --br-- See below for further detailed information relating to the various Appointments Diary functions in PPS.

Arrived
See: Appointment - Arrived

Calendar
See: Task Bar

Client
Client records are the hub of your PPS database. PPS refers to these records as “Clients” rather than “Patients” because PPS is used across a variety of business and clinical disciplines, some of whom use the term “client” and others use “patient”. A client record can have either minimal details entered, such as first name and surname, or can be a comprehensive range of details including full address/contact details, alternative addresses, DOB, sex, “known as”, full profile details including “source of introduction”, occupation (plus a range of entries you can set up yourself). In addition you can associate a variety of third-parties to clients such as doctors, insurance companies, etc. The more comprehensive the details you store for each client, the greater the opportunities to use these details in your reports and mail-merge operation. For example, by recording the “source of introduction” for each client (such as yellow pages, local advert, recommendation, etc.) you can run almost any report in PPS to show a breakdown by “source of introduction”, for example “practice revenue” by “source of introduction” will show where you earn the most money from – thus where you should concentrate most on your advertising!

Columns
See: Appointments Diary - Columns

Diary
See: Appointments Diary

Hide
See: Charts - Annotations

Holding List
The PPS Appointments Diary has a holding list that you can use. This is a way of recording those clients who are waiting for an appointment, or cancellation. You can access the holding list from the Appointments Diary using the <Holding> button on the diary toolbar. You can add clients to the holding list, and describe what they are holding for. You can also indicate if they are holding for a specific diary user. If you have clients on the holding list, then the number of clients on the holding list is displayed in a small yell box along the top of the diary screen. You can double click on the yellow box, or click the <Holding> button to show the holding list. You can also drag and drop appointments from the holding list onto the appointments diary – to do this, highlight the free appointment on the diary first then drag and drop the appointment from the holding list onto the diary.

List
List is the term used to describe information that either appears on the screen or on a report in rows and columns. The term List is also used in PPS as a list of items such as menu, or list of entries such as a look up table. See also: List style diary.

Location
A Location in PPS is a physical clinic location. Older versions of PPS referred to treatment rooms as locations. Now Treatment Rooms are an additional field of information. You can set up locations to use in your PPS Appointments Diary. You can set up your diary for diary users/practitioners to be scheduled to work either in specific treatment rooms and/or locations on various days during the week. You do not have to use “Location” if you only work from one location. To set up locations, select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look Up Tables, and select Location from the Appointments Diary Tables section. Here you can set up your various locations, and nominate a colour to each location to make each location clearly identifiable in the diary.

Move
See: Appointment - Move

Options
PPS has a screen on the PPS Tools menu called Options. This screen can be used to set up a wide variety of system settings that affect the way that PPS works. You can make your changes to these areas and press the OK or Apply button to save your changes. The Options screen has four tabs along the top: General, Custom Client Fields, Set Up Client Contacts, and Clinical Notes. See the entries under each of these sections for more details, for example Options – General.

Patient
See: Client

PPS
PPS is the acronym for “Private Practice Software”.

Print
You can print various types of information in PPS including client details, clinical notes, Invoices, letters, and a wide variety of reports. All printing in PPS is done using your standard Windows printer driver for your selected printer. Many screens in PPS have a <Print> button that is used to print details for that part of the system. See also: Reports – Report Output.

Refresh
See: Client Log - Refresh; Appointments Diary - Refresh; Daily Appointments List - Refresh; Accounts Screen - Refresh

Room
See: Treatment Room

Search
You can search for various records in PPS: Clients, Appointments, Third-Party contacts etc. Some screens include a <Search> button on the toolbar. The main PPS Client Search screen includes options to search on a variety of fields: for example Surname. This screen can be accessed from the Search Button on any of the client screens (main details, log, browse) or by clicking “Search” on the PPS Task Bar. The Search screen allows you to enter all or part of a value into a selected field, then when you press Enter a list of results that match what you have typed in is displayed. The most common information to search on is Surname. In the Surname field on the search screen, it is possible to enter all or part of the surname followed by a space, then all or part of the client’s First Name. This way you can narrow down your search results – useful with popular surnames. For example, you can search for Joe Smith simply by entering SMI J in the Surname field and pressing enter. All clients whose surname starts with SMI and whose First Name starts with J will be listed. --br-- You can search for existing Client Appointments or Free Appointment Slots using the <Search> button on the Appointments Diary – see: Appointments Diary – Search for more details.

Select
A term used when you choose something on the screen. Some PPS screens have a <Select> button, this normally means that you pick an option, or entry in a list, then click the <Select> button. This will “select” your chosen entry and proceed to the next screen, or return to the previous screen with your chosen entry selected.

Set Up
See: Medical History – Setting Up; PPS – Setting Up; Custom Form – Maintenance; Users – Setting Up; Letterhead – Set Up

Status
See: Client Status

Time
See: Activities – Time; Appointments – Time

Tools Menu
Options on the Tools menu are listed alphabetically in this reference guide under each Section e.g. Look Up Tables.

Week
See: Appointments Diary – Setting Up