Messages

Activities
Activities in PPS are a way of keeping a record of contacts, telephone calls, letters, etc. that you have with your Clients or Third-Party contacts. Activities can all have a specific PPS User, and Practitioner assigned to them, and can be scheduled for completion in the future or immediately. Activities appear in the Client Log for each client, as well as on the Activities List and the Task List. A System of colours is used to denote activities that are: Due – Green; Not yet due – Orange; Completed – Purple and Overdue (task list only) – Red. See Also: Activities – Activity Types

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!

Copy
When entering text into any field, you can highlight the text and use the standard Windows™ “Copy” option to place the text on the Windows clipboard. You can then paste the text back into any similar field. See also: Appointment – Copy.

Network
You can run PPS on your PC Local Area Network. If you need to run PPS across a “wide network” or across the internet, then you will need to talk to your PPS supplier for details of how to do this. --br-- If you would like to run PPS on your local network, then make sure that your PPS licence includes the appropriate number of “concurrent” users required (the number of users who can log into PPS at the same time). Extra concurrent licences can be purchased from your PPS Supplier. You are sent a new PPS Registration File each time you purchase more licences. --br-- In order to install PPS on a PC on your network, first make sure that the location that the main PPS database is installed is “shared” on the network, and allows “other users to update files”. Doing this ensures that the “network installation” of PPS can locate the database across the network and successfully log into the database. --br-- Also See: Installation New Look up this under the type of new record – e.g. appointment - new

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

Profile
The Main Client Details screen in PPS includes a “Profile” section. This is where you store specific information about each client including their “source of introduction” and “occupation”. You can set up your own profile details. This allows you to specify your own field headings which suit the type of details you need to store suitable to your business area. To set up the client profile fields select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Options, and select the Custom Client Fields tab. see: Options – Custom Client Fields 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.

Send a Message
See: Message

Task Bar
The PPS Task Bar is a tool bar that is positioned down the left hand side of the main PPS screen. It contains a calendar that can be used to navigate the Diary and the Daily List, and has quick access to various parts of PPS via Icons, headings and Prompts that can be clicked with the mouse. If your screen resolution is too small, then the icons are removed and just the Headings and prompts remain. You can switch the task bar on and off by selecting from the PPS menu: View – Task Bar.