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Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:52 AM |
Good morning!
We have noticed that when we make a change to the office hours through the "holiday" schedule, there is nothing in the scheduler that alerts us to the fact that the office is closed on a particular day. I see that the Holiday week title gets added to the days that week, so that is helpful, but it still doesn't specify to the one making the appointments what changes were actually made.
I wonder if it would work to have an "alert" message come up when trying to schedule on a day that has been specified in the Holiday Hours to be closed. At first we were going to suggest that CenterPiece would prevent appointments from being scheduled, but it seems that might not be optimal. For example, next week we will be closed to attend a meeting one day. We like to be able to list the meeting on the scheduler as an appointment, so wouldn't want to be prevented from that. However, if we would accidentally miss writing in that meeting, and tried to schedule an appointment on a "closed" day, it would be nice to get a message that said, in effect, "The office is scheduled to be closed that day. Do you want to continue?"
Another idea: We use "comments" on the appointment forms quite frequently to note a reason why an appointment was missed or rescheduled, or a piece of information shared if they just stopped in for a short visit. This is the quickest and handiest way to make note of these things, and we like that feature.
Lately, however, we've been wishing that those comments would be merged with the case notes (when the appointment is connected with a case) so that information would be readily accessible in the case notes, and all in the same place with the more lengthy notes we may add after a counseling or education session. The same could be true of comments from the "correspondence" form or the "referral" form.
This would just streamline the whole documenting process and eliminate the need for double entry.
I hope I've made my ideas clear. Makes sense to me! :-)
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 Amyc
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| Joined: 11 Apr 2011 |
| Total Posts: 252 |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 03 Oct 2011 03:09 PM |
Karen,
Yes, the Scheduler intuitively knows for its purposes when you have a "holiday" schedule approaching, and it applies it as those dates come around. An alert message is certainly a possibility. Do you all use the Resource View or the Day View? You'll notice if you use the Resource View that if you are closed on a particular day that all the timeslots are taken away and unavailable and the times are grayed out, indicating closure. In the Day View, similarly, it grays out everything. While you can still click on a time and have the appointment form come up, you won't have any Resources available to be scheduled. Does this make sense?
As far as the comments, you would essentially want to compile those in some way via Notes so that you could have them all together and printable and viewable from one location? Is that correct?
Thanks again for your detailed suggestions, Karen. We appreciate you!
Regards,
Amy |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 03 Oct 2011 04:08 PM |
As to your question about comments, yes, I think you understand me correctly.
As for the Holiday Schedule issue, we have not been using the "resource" view at all because it doesn't work for us. We only have two staff and just because we have two rooms available does not mean we can schedule two appointments because we may only have one person in on that day. We just haven't figured out a logical way to use it, so I guess that will remain a problem. Are we in the minority (not using resources?).
The alert would still be a good idea, I think. I'll try to remember to use the day view in the mean time. I typically like to look at the entire week as someone is scheduling, so I can have a picture of all her options.
Thanks for your help. |
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Amyc
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| Joined: 11 Apr 2011 |
| Total Posts: 252 |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 03 Oct 2011 04:18 PM |
Karen,
I see. Certainly you have the option to use whichever of the views work best for you. I wouldn't say you are in the minority as far as not using the Resources. Many centers use them, but many don't. They are designed to be spaces or rooms in your center, but I have a fair number of centers that use the Resources as people, and this helps them to keep a better handle on scheduling. Essentially the Resources are designed to prevent double booking, so a lot of centers stay in the Resources view.
I will add the alert when scheduling during closed hours to the feature request list for the day view. If you have some time, we'd love to discuss ways to help you use the Resources that would be effective for your center.
Thanks again, Karen,
Amy |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 07 Nov 2011 02:31 PM |
Thanks for adding the alert as a feature request. You wrote "in the day view" but I think it is needed in any view (especially week and month, since that is where you can't see the specific holiday schedule.)
Thanks for your thoughts on resources as well. We have considered using resources as people, and that may work, but it seems like we still ran into something troublesome when we tried it. It's been awhile since I looked at it, so I don't remember for sure. Maybe it was the fact that not every week has the same schedule for us, so it was hard to make a regular schedule.
I'd welcome any suggestions you have about making resources a practicality. We have a similar problem with using the Optionline scheduler since we find it very impractical to set aside a particular time every day or week for option line callers when we don't get many calls from the Option Line and are generally much more available to take those appointments at any time. Again, suggestions are welcome. |
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Amyc
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| Joined: 11 Apr 2011 |
| Total Posts: 252 |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 07 Nov 2011 03:44 PM |
karen,
Thank you for the additional detail. I will add the alert as a feature request in all views for Holiday scheduling.
Sometimes it helps to talk through the process of how scheduling works. We'd love to discuss it with you! If you know your account manager's extension, I'd encourage you to give them a call. You can also call and leave a message on the main line (469-293-3079) and someone will call you back.
Thanks again karen,
Amy |
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Re: Scheduler and notes ideas
Posted: 09 Nov 2011 04:56 PM |
Karen,
To add to what Amy stated I would definintely encourage you to give us a call and we can assist you in finding a solution with how the resources can work for you and your center. The resources view provides a streamlined view of what's available to be scheduled vs. what is not. We look forward to hearing from you soon, have a fabulous day!
Blessings,
Ashleigh |
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