Multiday Appointment Book

The Multiday appointment book gives you the option of displaying several (5, 7, 14 or 28) days of appointments at once.

For example the 5-day appointment book:

To open the Multiday Appointment Book

Either

• Click File > Appointments > Multiday Appointment Book:

  

  - Or -

• If you have an Appointment icon on the main toolbar, you can select Multiday from the drop-down menu:

  

Using

The multiday appointment book has three main areas:

• The appointment book toolbar with buttons / functions related to patients and appointments, such as editing, printing and deleting details, taking payments, etc.
  (See "Appointment Book Tools and Functions" for further details).
• Clipboard – a temporary storage place used to move appointments to a new date or time. The clipboard is always available in the Appointment window whether the Activity Area is expanded or not. For this (and other) reasons, it is a very useful tool for making and editing appointments.
• Hold List – a temporary storage area for appointments viewed only when the activity tabs are expanded.
  You will be able to view appointments that are sitting on the clipboard in the hold list. Double-clicking on the clipboard performs the same action as clicking on the button under the hold list.
  The hold list can be used as a useful search function for appointments.
• Follow Up Tab – lists appointments that need to be followed up.
• Cancels Tab – lists appointments by status e.g.: planned, confirmed, cancelled, re-booked, completed, deleted and failed.
• Contact Lists Tab – Holds existing contact lists, allows the creation of new lists and booking of appointments directly from the lists.
• Arrivals Tab – Holds patient appointments for all Providers in order of appointment time for the selected day.
• Recall Lists Tab – Holds all current recall lists. Patients can be contacted from this tab.

Header Bar

The header bar along the top of the multiday appointment book window has the following buttons and functions.

Date Display / Selection

This field displays the currently selected date, and can also be used to move the display of the appointment book to a particular period. There are two ways to do this; by editing the date, or selecting a date from the calendar.

Edit the Date

To edit the date, click on part of the date to highlight it, such as the month.

You can then change the month by typing in the month number (e.g., 09 for September), OR you can use the up/down arrow keys on the keyboard to advance/reduce the month by one for each click.

Select a Date from the Calendar

To select a date to go to, click the button next to the field.

This will display the calendar:

Today's date is shown bordered by a red rectangle. Click on the date you wish to go to (in the example, December 25, 2008 is selected), and the appointment book will display the period encompassing that day.

If the calendar doesn't show the date you wish to go to, click the arrow at the top of the calendar which moves it forwards or back, then click the date required when that date is displayed.

Provider Display / Selection

The current provider is displayed next to the date:

To change the provider for whom the appointment book is displayed, use the buttons until the field displays the appropriate provider's code or initials, OR click the button to display the 'View Providers' window, from which you can select the appropriate provider:

The appointment book displayed is updated immediately to reflect the new provider selected.

Days Displayed

You have a choice of the number of days (and therefore) columns displayed. The example above shows the 7-day display.

You can also choose to display 5 days (the default), 14 days, or 28 days across the page.

Scroll Buttons

The scroll buttons on the top right hand side of the appointment book are used to move the appointment display area to show other days as described below:

Other Buttons

On the right-hand side of the header bar are the following two buttons:

Main Appointment Book Area (Multiday)

By default, when the the multiday appointment book option is first selected, it displays five days (Monday to Friday) across the screen:

Other options are the 7-day appointment book (Monday to Sunday), 14-day, and 28-day.

Each option is selected by clicking the appropriate button from those on the right-hand side of the header bar:

Whichever mode was active at the time you last closed the appointment book or exited EXACT is 'remembered' the next time you open the appointment book.

Due to space constraints, the date display for the columns in each mode is slightly different:

If the appointment book screen is resized, the column headers may also switch between different date modes as appropriate for the column widths, depending on your screen size and resolution.

TIP: If EXACT is used on a PC with two monitors, the multiday appointment book can be dragged out to cover both screens. This allows a reasonable level of detail even on the 28-day view, and is ideal for reception use.

When in 14 or 28-day mode, there is not enough room to display all the information for the appointment, as these modes are intended to give you an overview of appointments for a fortnight or month, rather than detailed information. However, you can view a particular appointment's details by hovering your mouse pointer over the appointment, which will display a tool tip, as in the following example:

Alternatively, you can double-click the appointment to open it, or revert to one of the other display modes by clicking on either the button or the button.

Changing an Appointment Time or Length

To move an appointment to another time

If you need to move an appointment to another time, you can do one of the following:

• Double-click on it to edit the details, and change the date and/or time details. When you save the appointment details, the appointment book will be updated to reflect the appointment's new date and time.
• If the appointment does not need to be moved very far (e.g., to the next day, or another time in the same day), you can just click once on it, hold down the mouse button, and drag it to the new time.

  You cannot use this click-and-drag method with a coordinated appointment; this must be edited by double-clicking the appointment.

• You can move it using the clipboard (drag it onto the clipboard, then drag it from there to a new time).

  The Hold List shows appointments which have been put on the Clipboard, and has a search facility to help you find a suitable time for an alternative appointment.

To change an appointment Length

To alter the length of an appointment, click on the bottom border of the appointment box with the mouse, and drag it down to make the appointment longer or up to make it shorter.

1. Hover the mouse pointer over the bottom border of the appointment until it changes to look like this:

   

2. Click the left mouse button and hold it down.
3. Move the mouse down the screen until the cursor is in approximately the right position for the new appointment end time, and release it.
   (Note that the appointment will snap to the nearest standard appointment length increment, usually 5 minutes).
4. A message will appear, telling you what the new appointment length will be, and asking you to confirm it:

   

   Click Yes to confirm or No to repeat the previous steps