You MUST read this documentation before installing and running PPS / MS Outlook Sync. This document will guide you through the initial steps required to start synchronising your PPS system with MS Outlook.
The PPS / MS Outlook Sync program allows you to synchronise your PPS Appointments Details directly with the calendar in MS Outlook. If you have your handheld/PDA/Smartphone already connected to your computer and synchronising with MS Outlook using Microsoft ActiveSync (or equivalent), then your PPS Appointments will automatically be transferred onto your portable device.
To use this feature in PPS you must have MS Outlook installed onto your computer. In addition, if you are planning to synchronise appointments with your handheld/PDA/Smartphone, you must also have Microsoft ActiveSync (Microsoft Sync Centre on Vista) installed and working between your PC and your portable device (or equivalent for the Blackberry etc).
You also need to ensure that you are using at least v4.0.39 of PPS.
“PPS to MS Outlook Sync” will not work with Outlook Express as this does not have a calendar.
To run “PPS to MS Outlook Sync” you will need to purchase an update to your current registration file. PPS Outlook Sync is UK £75 .00 (plus vat in the UK). You can use these features in unregistered mode to try them out. This has a limit of 5 appointments sent to Outlook.
To install PPS / MS Outlook sync, we can send you a link to download the application file.
You should save the file directly onto the PC that you synchronise MS Outlook with your handheld device on. The application file (called pps4-sync-outlook.exe) can be saved directly into the local PPS application folder – this is normally the PPSv4.0 folder on your local disk C drive.
Once you have saved the application file into the local PPSv4.0 folder, restart PPS. You will see that there is a new main menu option to the right of the help menu called “PPS Sync”.
On the “PPS Sync” menu option, select the “Synchronise with MS Outlook” option. This will display the following screen.
There are three options at the top of the screen. Selecting each option will change the middle portion of the screen to show the settings relevant to that option. The middle portion of the screen here shows the settings for “Synchronise Appointments with MS Outlook”. This is because the left hand button is selected at the top of the screen. Each of the three options is discussed below:
You can select the Diary User to synchronise appointments for. This will normally be yourself if you want to synchronise your own appointments with MS Outlook.
Select the date range – you can select from a range of popular date options such as “The Next Week” – this will populate the From and To dates for you. You must enter a “From” date, but you can leave the “To” date blank – this will synchronise All Future appointments with MS Outlook.
You can select which appointment details to send to the Outlook calendar. This will affect the detail that is shown in the “notes” against each Outlook calendar item.
Synchronise Notes: This means that any changes you may have made to the Notes section in Outlook will be updated in the Notes against the PPS Appointment. If you select this option, you will see an additional security warning in Outlook during the synchronisation process. This is for Outlook to allow PPS to read these details from the Outlook calendar and is a standard Microsoft Security Warning.
Outlook Calendar Selection: it is possible for you to have several calendars available in MS Outlook. This option allows you to select exactly which calendar in Outlook to synchronise with.
Click the GO button when you are ready to synchronise. PPS will then synchronise with Outlook using the rules as described on Page 3 of this document. You will see progress information on the screen. Once the synchronisation is complete, you will see a confirmation of how many appointments were updated in both Outlook and PPS.
You can select the Diary User to send appointments for. This will normally be yourself if you want to send your own appointments to MS Outlook.
Select the date range – you can select from a range of popular date options such as “The Next Week” – this will populate the From and To dates for you. You must enter a “From” date, but you can leave the “To” date blank –this will copy All Future appointments to MS Outlook.
Whenever appointments are sent to MS Outlook, all existing PPS Appointments in MS Outlook, for the same date range, are removed first before the new appointments are sent.
Outlook Calendar Selection: it is possible for you to have several calendars available in MS Outlook. This option allows you to select exactly which calendar in Outlook to synchronise with.
Click the GO button when you are ready to send appointments. After the appointments have been sent (it only takes a few seconds) you will see a confirmation of how many existing appointments were removed and how many new appointments were sent.
Select the date range – you can select from a range of popular date options such as “The Next Week” – this will populate the From and To dates for you. You must enter a “From” date, but you can leave the “To” date blank – this will remove All Future PPS Appointments from MS Outlook.
Outlook Calendar Selection: it is possible for you to have several calendars available in MS Outlook. This option allows you to select exactly which calendar in Outlook to synchronise with.
Click the GO button when you are ready to remove appointments. After the appointments have been removed (it only takes a few seconds) you will see a confirmation of how many existing appointments were removed.
important-text">IMPORTANT: If you are Synchronising with Outlook (rather than just Sending or Deleting), then this means that Appointments you Add, Update, or Delete in Outlook will also be updated in PPS (following the rules described overleaf). Any appointments that are DELETED in Outlook are marked as DNA in PPS with a reason of “Deleted in Outlook” rather than actually deleted from the PPS diary. You can then delete the appointment from the PPS diary yourself if required.
The PPS / MS Outlook Sync screen has 3 options: Synchronise, Send and Delete. These notes apply to the “Synchronise” option.
- All appointments in Outlook MUST have a “Category” of “PPS”.
- If the category is not set to PPS then the appointment will NOT synchronise. This means that you will need to add “PPS” as a standard category in Outlook.
- Each time you add a new appointment to Outlook you must select PPS in the Category (the category is located to the bottom right of the appointment screen in Outlook – it will be more convenient to add PPS as a standard category)
- Appointments “added to” or “updated in” Outlook will only synchronise the following information back to PPS
- Date
- Time
- Duration
- Subject (this should be used for the client name only)
- Notes – You must select specifically to synchronise notes. This is because the notes entry in Outlook is “security protected”. You will be asked to accept a security warning on the Outlook screen when you synchronise notes.
- Appointments that are deleted in MS Outlook are only deleted in PPS provided that they remain in your Outlook “Deleted Items” folder.
- Appointments in MS Outlook are marked in PPS as DNA with a reason of “Deleted in Outlook”. They are not physically deleted in PPS. If you want to physically delete these from the PPS diary, you must delete each appointment in PPS separately.
- Please make sure that Outlook is not configured to “empty” the deleted items folder when you exit Outlook. This is set in the Tools > Options > other tab.
- If you need to empty your deleted items folder, please make sure that you synchronise with PPS first. It is then OK to empty your deleted items folder.
- NEVER delete an appointment in Outlook unless you are happy for the same appointment to be deleted in PPS.
- When PPS Synchronises with Outlook, the following takes place in the following order:
- ALL Deleted items are checked in Outlook (irrespective of date range) and appointments are deleted (DNA’d) in PPS as necessary. Once the deleted items in Outlook are checked, they are marked so that they are not checked again next time.
- Your Outlook calendar is checked for “PPS” appointments (between the selected date range), any that have been updated since you last synchronised are updated in PPS
- All Outlook “PPS” appointments are removed (between the selected date range)
- All PPS appointments (between the selected date range) are sent to Outlook.
- You can only synchronise your Outlook calendar for one PPS diary user at a time. If you have multiple
- calendars in Outlook, you can select the option in the PPS Outlook Sync screen to “Select Calendar Folder” to synchronise with.
- When selecting to synchronise “notes”: When appointments are initially sent to Outlook from PPS, selected information is placed in the notes field in Outlook against the appointment. This includes the Client Address, Telephone Numbers, Appointment Type, etc. If this appointment is updated in Outlook, then the contents of the notes field will be updated against the Notes on the PPS Appointment. If you do not want this information transferred to the Notes field on the PPS Appointment, then remove it from the notes field in Outlook whilst you are updating the appointment.
- Each time you synchronise for a selected PPS Diary User, a Date / Time stamp is updated so that PPS knows when it last synchronised for this user. This Date / Time can be changed if required before synchronising. The date and time is displayed next to the selected diary user on the PPS Outlook Sync screen.
- If an appointment appears to have been updated in both Outlook and PPS since you last synchronised you will receive a prompt on screen during the synchronising process asking if you want to update the PPS
- PPS Mobile – Guide to Synchronising PPS with MS Outlook appointment with the Outlook details. Select Yes or No as appropriate. If you select “No” then the Outlook appointment will be removed and replace with the PPS one during the remainder of the synchronising process.
- We do not recommend that you synchronise PPS with more than one copy of Outlook, or synchronise Outlook with more than one copy of PPS (for example at home and at work). This is because PPS maintains a note of when each user last synchronised – this could lead to confusion when synchronising and result in appointments being updated or deleted incorrectly.
- We would always recommend that you back up your PPS database before synchronising. The software cannot be held responsible for appointments that are updated or deleted as a result of synchronising. All updates and deletions are updated in the PPS Audit log.
- It is important for you to maintain a “controlled” approach to your use of PPS Appointments in Outlook. For example, be aware that you are always working within a selected date range. This means that an appointment that you have moved from one date to another outside the selected date range may result in a duplicate appointment being created (in this example, trying to delete the duplicate in MS Outlook would then delete the original in PPS!)
- These rules have been set to partly to assist you in controlling the synchronising of your appointments between PPS and Outlook, and also to work within general guidelines and restrictions normally applied to synchronising data between two systems.
Add
Look this up under the type of new record you want to add – e.g. Client - Add or Appointment - Add Address
See: Client - Address 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. Audit
PPS maintains an audit of all updates made to the database in several key areas. As further developments take place to PPS, these areas will be expanded to include database updates in all areas of PPS. Currently, audit details are recorded for the following areas: Appointments, Client Details, Clinical Notes, and Activities. The audit details captured will allow the PPS system administrator to make audit enquiries to see which PPS user has carried out which updates to the database, and precisely when. This audit enquiry option will be available in the near future. In the meantime, support staff at PPS are able to extract all the required information from your audit should a serious need arise. Calendar
See: Task Bar Change
See: Cash Desk; Modify 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! Complete
The term “Complete” is used in PPS for both Appointments and Consultations. You can select to Complete an Appointment – where is it marked in Purple, and you can then raise the charge, book another appointment, etc., and you can Complete a Consultation – where you can decide if the Treatment Episode is completed, or how many more consultations are required, you can raise the charge, produce a Discharge Letter etc. The term “Complete” is also used for Treatment Episodes that have an “End Date” entered – see: Completed Episodes. 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. Data
Data is a general term that refers to all your records. In computer terms, data is any piece of information that you can change, so this includes your normal records (client records, billing, appointments, etc.) and other information such as letter layouts, invoice templates and so on. PPS allows you to “back up” your data, which means to make a second copy of all your data. See: Back Up; Database for more details. Database
The PPS Database can be stored in a separate location on your computer/network from the main PPS application files. This would apply to a PPS installation on a network where the PPS Application files are installed onto each computer, and the database is located centrally on the network. There is the option to change the database location as part of the initial installation of PPS, and there is also a separate “database only” installation available if the database is to be installed onto a computer such as a server where PPS will not be used on that computer – servers often reside in a “back office” and are not used as a desktop computer. Delete
Delete is the term used to remove any record or file in PPS. Most “data entry” type screens will include a Delete button on the toolbar. You can use this button to delete the currently displayed record. There are various restrictions placed on deleting records in certain parts of the system. For example you cannot delete a client record if accounts records exist for that client. The System Administrator can also decide which PPS Users are allowed to delete which type of records. This is set up as part of the User Profile for each user – see: Access Control for more details. Details
This is a generic term used to describe the information stored in any particular part of PPS. For example Main Client Details is the information you enter to this screen. In addition, there are several “notes” type fields that allow you to enter further “free text” details against a record – these are also sometimes referred to as Details. Diary
See: Appointments Diary DNA
PPS uses the acronym DNA (did not attend) as a generic term for all appointments where the client did not attend. Some of you may only be used to using the term DNA for certain types of “failures to attend” but PPS uses DNA for all types. You can mark an appointment as DNA on the diary. This then allows several further options: You can allocate a Reason for Non-attendance, create a charge for the non-attendance, and select to Re-Open the appointment slot. For more details, see: Appointment – DNA. Important
You can flag information as “important” while recording your clinical notes. For more details see: Consultation – Important information. Installation
This is the process by which you put PPS onto your computer. You can install PPS either from an installation CD, or from a single installation file that you have downloaded from the PPS web site. If you are running a network system and are accessing PPS from more than one computer, you need to Install PPS onto each computer. Log
See: Client Log. Notes
See: Client - Default Notes Entry 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. Order
This term applies to the Order in which information is listed on the screen. Information in PPS is often listed in a “Grid” with rows and columns; you can often click on the column headings to change the order in which the information is displayed. There is also a Client Browse screen that includes an “order” selection to allow the client details to be displayed in a variety of orders such as Surname, etc. PPS
PPS is the acronym for “Private Practice Software”. Registration
See Also : PPS Registration; Client – Registration Save
PPS Uses a <Save> button on many screens. This will save the updates that you have made to this screen and store them permanently in your database. One some screens the <Save> button will also close the screen. Security
See: Access Control 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. Sync
See: PPS Sync Time
See: Activities – Time; Appointments – Time Week
See: Appointments Diary – Setting Up
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