Using the Calendar (Comprehensive, Long Post)

Upon clicking the Calendar tab, a new window opens which allows you to use the calendar and the rest of the program simultaneously. When the calendar opens for the first time, you are taken directly to the Daily View for the current day (today), with all appointments listed in order of time (earliest to latest). If that calendar has already been opened and you return to the non-calendar part of AcuBase Pro, returning to the calendar will take you back to the last window of the calendar you viewed. Settings for the calendar are found on the Calendar tab in the Preferences section of the program (accessible through the AcuBase tab on the top of the calendar screen).   

The top of the calendar screens are different from the rest of AcuBase Pro.  Because of its complexity and wealth of features, the calendar has its own tabbed system of Day, Week, Month, Year, Schedule, Appt. (Appointment) List, and AcuBase.  To the right of the AcuBase tab are 4 buttons in blue:  View as Form; View as List; View as Table; and the standard ?/Help button. (These are all icons, but you can leave the mouse over these to see their titles.)

 

The Daily, Week, Month, Year, and Schedule tabs all have some of the same buttons available within them:  Show Filters; Go to Today; Select Day;  and arrow keys to move you forward or back through time (who knew that a database could be programmed to do time travel?).  At the bottom of these screens are also a Search and a Print button, as well as a Legend and some directions as to what different colors on the screens represent.  Each screen also has unique features, and we will go over it all below…


Calendar Conventions

Much of the above button-specific information is available for reference at the bottom of the Daily View screen.  

The “Types Legend” button at the bottom of the screen may also be clicked to view the current type of appointments and their related color-codes, which may be reset from here or from the Calendar section of Settings. The Legend button will pop up and show you what each color-coded type represents (from however you set it up in Calendar Settings).  

• Red bars alongside multiple appointments show time conflicts.
• Small blue dots in the Title field of any given appointment show that there are more notes related to the appointment that are not currently showing on the screen.
• Mousing over a given field or button will usually give further direction about the function of that area of the program.  

Navigating the Calendar

The Go to Today button on the top of most screens will go to the current date, of course.  Beyond that, arrows found next to the date on the top of most screens, and down the sides (depending upon what screen you are looking at), will move you backward and forward through time—by the day, week, month, or year depending upon the screen you are looking at.  

The Select Day button will take you to a screen where you may enter a date and jump directly to it on the calendar.  Clicking on the tiny calendar button on the right-end of any date field in the program will pop up a smaller calendar that also allows easy navigation to or choice of a given day for that field. Note that the standard date entry format is mm/dd/yyyy.  


Filtering Appointments

AcuBase Pro’s calendar allows you the ability to show only certain types of appointments. Clicking on the green Staff, Patient, Resource, or Type headings in the Daily view, or clicking on the Show Filters button in the Week, Month, or Schedule views, will allow you to show only those appointments you wish to see. Clicking on the green headers that show in Daily view or when you click the Show Filters button will bring up a screen which allows you to choose what kinds of appointments you wish to see. This list comes from information entered into the Calendar section of AcuBase Pro’s Settings.

If ever you feel that fewer than all appointments are showing on the Calendar, be sure to check the Filter Appts button to be certain no appointments are being filtered out.  


Creating New Appointments

There are three basic steps to setting up an appointment for a patient, and the first two assume that the patient is already in the Patients database.  If you wish to enter a patient who is not already in the database, see #2 below.  If you wish to enter an appointment which does not involve a patient (say, “Take car in for service”) see the end of #3 below.

  To enter a new appointment for a patient:

1. Click on the “New Appointment" button at the top of the Daily view; click on a time slot in Week view; or shift+click on a date in Month or Schedule view. Any of these actions will bring up the Edit Appointment subscreen, where you may enter the specifics of a given appointment. 

2. Put in all details of the appointment.

If the appointment is for a patient, click on the Select Patient button on the top-right side of the Edit Appointment screen.  Doing so brings up the Select Patient screen, where an alphabetical list of all patients shows up by default. At the top of the screen where it says “Name begins with”, type the first few letters of the last name of the patient you wish to schedule to narrow the list and then hit the Tab key on your keyboard to show the narrowed list. Assuming there are patients in AcuBase who have last names with the letters you entered, their names will appear in alphabetical order in the list below the field. Click on the name of the patient you wish to enter an appointment for from the list. Their name will now appear on the “Selected” line. Click on the Continue button to return to the Edit Appointment window.
 
If you wish to enter an appointment for a patient who is not already in AcuBase Pro, simply click on the “New Item” button on the top-right side of the Select Patient window.  This will bring up the “Edit Patient” window, where you should enter the new patient’s name and main information.  They will then be entered into AcuBase Pro’s Patients database, and will be entered for a new appointment.  Once the new patient has been entered into the AcuBase Pro Patients database once, they will from that point forward be available to schedule and bill.  You will, of course, need to go to the new patient’s record in AcuBase Pro to enter more detailed information about them.  

Note that if you clicked on New Item and realized too late that you did not wish to add a new patient, you will need to click Continue and go back to the Patients tab in AcuBase Pro to delete the newly created (though likely blank) record.

3. Enter other details of the new appointment.  Other features of the rest of the Edit Appointment window include:

• -Date and End Date:  The current date is entered by default, but may be changed, and an end date is not necessary unless your appointment spans more than one day.  The week of the year appears small in gray at the end of the Date and End Date fields when they are filled in, and a mini-calendar at the right-end of those fields may also be popped up to choose a date.  Arrows on either end of the fields move forward and back one day at a time.
• –The Time field should also be used, but if it is not, appointments without a specific time will appear at the top of the Daily view.  End time is put in automatically based upon which provider is chosen and the default appointment lengths that are set up for that provider in the program’s Settings (see Calendar tab in Settings section of the program for more).  
• –The small “Repeating (Yes)” button will be covered in further detail below
• -The Resource field refers to resources you have set up in the Calendar Settings (see Calendar tab in Settings section of the program documentation for more).  Resources may be set up as anything from a room to a provider, and are best assigned when multiple providers and/or multiple rooms are being scheduled.  The Resources show up in calendar filters, and are especially useful to have when viewing the Schedule tab.  See more on the Schedule tab below.
• –Provider or User is assigned to the appointment by initials that have been set up in the Calendar Settings (see Calendar tab in Settings section of the program for more).  The provider seeing a given patient, or the person for whom the appointment is being scheduled, is assigned here.  In a multi-provider office, assigning different practitioners to each appointment is essential.  You may assign more than one provider/user to an appointment.  For instance, if 5 people from the office are going to lunch together, all of their initials would be clicked here, and the title and description of “Lunch at Spettro’s” or whatever would be entered in the fields below.
• -Title and Description: These fields may be left blank for a standard patient appointment, or you may wish to put a few words in about the nature of the appointment.  If you wish to create an appointment which does not involve a patient (such as taking your car in for service, gong to the dentist, taking lunch, etc.), use these fields to enter the appointment information.  When viewing most broader screens in the program (such as Week. Month, and Schedule views in General mode), you will only see the Title field on the calendar.  Daily view shows both patient and Title.  
• –The Type pop-up field is set up in your Calendar Settings section, and is color-coded.  If a new patient is scheduled, a patient cancels, reschedules, you have an urgent appointment…whatever, you may code the appointment as a given Type here. 

The Delete button will cancel or delete an appointment. 

The Duplicate button will duplicate and allow you to change certain aspects of a given appointment if you wish without affecting the original.

The (Print) Details button will print the details of the appointment currently being viewed.  

For details on the Forms button, see the Appt. List section of these Calendar instructions.

Click on the “Continue” button to enter the appointment onto the Calendar when ready. Once an appointment has been set up, you can return to the New Appointment subscreen to modify appointments by simply clicking on the appointment on the calendar


Creating Repeating Appointments

If you wish to make a certain appointment repeat (daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly), the Calendar allows you to do so quickly and easily.  Simply follow the directions above (under “Creating New Appointments”) to put in the details of the appointment.  Before clicking on the “Continue” button, however, click on the small “Repeating (Yes)” box just under the “End Date” field. This will bring up the Repeat Appointment window. By default, the first tab on the top is set to “Daily”, and the fields below it to Repeat Daily and “Stop After ‘1’ Repetition(s).” You can set the appointment to stop after so many repetitions, or on a certain date.

If you choose to repeat the appointment weekly, click on the Weekly tab.  Choose how frequently to repeat (“Repeat every x Week(s) on…”), and select as many days as you wish. Multiple days may be selected or de-selected by clicking on a given day of the week.  

The Monthly repeat option allows you to choose a certain day(s) of each month, or a certain day of each month or on a certain day of a given week of each month. Multiple days of the month may be selected or de-selected by clicking on a given day.

The Yearly repeat option allows you to choose which month(s) to repeat the appointment.  Multiple months may be selected or de-selected by clicking on a given month. The current month is already selected by default.

To end a repeating appointment, at the bottom-right side of the Repeat Appointment subscreen, choose end after (so many times), or on a given date.


Once you have selected which appointment repetition settings you would like, you must click Continue, and Continue again on the Edit Appointment window to create the repeating appointments.  Once you do, you can view all of the repeating appointments by clicking on the Show Repetitions button on the Edit Appointment screen.  You may delete individual appointments once they have been created without affecting other repeating appointments on the list, and may do so from the screen where you are viewing the appointment (Daily, Week, Month view, etc.), or by viewing the repeating appointments in the Edit Appointment window and using the small trash (Delete) icon at the right-end of each line.


Deleting Appointments

To delete an appointment, click on the appointment to view the Edit Appointment subscreen, and then click on the Delete button.  You may also click on the small trash can icon at the far right side of the appointment you would like to delete in Daily view.


Searching for Appointments

Clicking on the Search button at the bottom of any screen will take you to a blank Appointment List view, where you may do a search for dates, times, staff initials, titles, patients, resources, and types.  The results of your search will show up in the Appointment List window, from which you may click on the green arrow to the left of the appointment to go to view further details for that appointment; delete it with the trash (Delete) icon on the far-right side of the appointment line; click on the patient hyperlink to see that patient’s record in AcuBase Pro; Print the list; or go to the Forms section to print or email forms you create related to the results of your search.   For more on the Appointments List window, see the Appointment List View section below.


Printing Appointments

Click on the Print button at the bottom of any screen to print that screen’s appointment list.  Note that schedule, weekly, and monthly views may not print all appointments—best to either do a search for a given date range and print it from the Appointments List view, or to print from Daily view.

AutoBilling

The AutoBilling feature is one of the most new and exciting aspects of AcuBase Pro.  AutoBilling means that, by having a patient on the schedule, and having their billing preferences set up in the Patient file’s Cases section, you can create a HCFA or Superbill with zero data entry—just click a button. Clicking on the red or green “$” button next to a patient’s name in Daily View will create an invoice for that patient only.  (The “$” icon will be red if the invoice for that date of service already exists; green if it does not.) The AutoBill Multiple Appts. button at the top of the Calendar screens allow you to AutoBill a group of patients on the schedule all at one time after selecting a date range to bill.

To use the AutoBill feature, you must first be sure that all of the patient(s) information which you would want to appear on the Superbill or HCFA form is already entered for that patient under their “Case Details” tab.  This means patient name, address, phone number, case-specific information (diagnoses, HCFA 1500 form preferences [if necessary]), and, of course, their procedure preferences.  (See the next chapter “Using the Patients Tab”, Case Details section for more on setting up billing preferences.)

Once each patient’s information and billing preferences have been set up, they may be billed directly from the Calendar screen’s Daily View by clicking on the “$” button below their name (see “Daily View” later in this chapter), or as one of several appointments billed concurrently by clicking on the “AutoBill Multiple” button at the top of any Calendar screen.   


AutoBilling Multiple Entries

To AutoBill a group of patients for a given date range, click on the “AutoBill Multiple Appts.” button at the top of the Daily View screen, or by going to the Sripts menu, “:Create Invoices from Appointments” option. You will be asked to enter the date range that you wish to bill for.  Enter dates in mm/dd/yyyy format (i.e., December 1, 2003 would be 12/01/2003) and click OK. You will then be taken individually through each patient record in that date range and given the option to bill for that record, skip it, or quit the process altogether. Assuming billing preferences have been set for the patient in question, you will see AcuBase Pro create a new invoice for that patient with procedures from the billing preferences you set up for the patient. If you did not have preferences set up, you will be taken to a new blank invoice for that date on the Calendar, and will have to fill out the invoice manually, and the AutoBill process will cease.  If an invoice already exists for the date and patient in question, AcuBase Pro will ask you if you wish to create a new invoice, go to the existing invoice, or skip that invoice.

Assuming the process has not ceased and AcuBase Pro has AutoBilled the invoice, it will next ask if you would like to print the new invoice. Choose “Yes” to be given a choice of printing onto a HCFA or as a Superbill, or “No” to continue the process without printing.  

AcuBase will continue in this manner for each patient on the schedule for the date range you specified until all patients have been billed or skipped.  If appointment dates for appointments that have not yet occurred are chosen, AcuBase will warn you that it is about to bill for a date that has not yet occurred, and you may choose to bill or skip that invoice.


Automating Appointment Reminder Calls with Tavoca.com

Another exciting new feature of AcuBase Pro’s Calendar is Trigram Software’s partnership with Tavoca.com, which allows you to export data from your calendar in order to have Tavoca call your patients to remind them of their appointments with you.  To use this feature, go to http://www.tavoca.com, and sign up.  Once signed up, from the calendar’s Daily View, click on the “Create Tavoca.com File” icon at the top of the screen.  You will be asked to enter a date range of appointments.  Once you do, a text file will be created on your desktop called “Tavoca.tab”.  This is the file you will use to upload to the Tavoca.com website once you have an account with them.


The Forms Section of the Calendar

A Forms button may be found on both the Edit Appointment and Appointment List windows.  Innocuous as it looks, the Forms function is actually a very powerful tool which allows you to create as many new letters, forms, and/or emails as you would like, which may be merged with data from the calendar.  Examples may include birthday letters, referral thank you letters, new patient letters, and more, limited only by your imagination.  Forms sections are included in the Patients and Calendars parts of the program. We have put in some for your use, and you may use those, edit or delete them, or create your own as follows.

  Using Forms

You may view the Forms screen either by selecting an appointment (which takes you to the Edit Appointment screen), doing a search, clicking on View as List, or clicking on the Appt. List tab.  All of these screens have the Forms button on the bottom.

 

On the left side of the Forms screen are the Available Forms.  Click on the green arrow next to a form name to choose that form as the current one to work with, or click on the New Form button above the list to create a new one, entering the new form’s name or editing an existing form’s name on the list.  

When you do select an existing form or create a new one, the form name is selected in green, and you will see its specifications appear in the yellow field on the right side of the screen in “Edit” mode.  You can see the Edit and Preview subtabs above the yellow text field on the right side of the screen, and the Edit tab is selected by default.  You may enter this field and edit it to your heart’s content.  

You may add fields from the program by inserting the cursor where you wish to place the field, clicking on the Show Merge Fields button, and choosing a field from the window that pops up.  

 

Once you have chosen a field. Valid mail-merge fields will be enclosed in <<chevrons>>.

You must save the form in whatever state you like it, whether a new one or one you have edited, by clicking on the “Save changes to form” button.

Once the form has been created, it will appear on your list of forms on the left side of the screen.  Click on the Preview subtab to see what the form will actually look like.  When you do so, you will see that the previously yellow text field will become blue and uneditable, and you will be given the option to either Print or Email the form.  

Whether you choose to print or email the form, you will be given the choice of printing/emailing all of the “Found Set” or just the patient record you are currently viewing.  If you choose to find a group of records to send or print a form for do a Search first using the Search button to find a group of records, then come back to the Forms screen.  (See detailed instructions on how to perform a Search/Find elsewhere in this manual.) Select the Form you wish to print or send, click the Preview tab, and click the Print or Email button.  You will be asked if you wish to send/print the current patient record or all of the found set, and you may choose at that point.  

Printed or emailed forms are also saved into the Activities section of each patient record so that you can record the forms as activities related to your patients.

Let’s show you an example.  Say I want to create an appointment reminder letter to send out via email to all scheduled patients for the week of February 19, 2007.  First, click on the Search button to go to the Appointment List window, where you will be given a blank layout.  In the Date field, you would enter “02/19/2007…02/23/2007” to indicate you want to search for all appointment in the date range of February 19-23, 2007.  Click on Find on the left side of the screen to find all of these appointments.  When you see your list (your “Found Set”), click on the Forms button at the bottom of the screen.  From the Forms screen, choose your Appointment Reminder form letter on the left side of the screen.  It appears on the right side in the yellow field box.  Click on the Preview subtab in the middle-right side of the screen, and click on Email Form, and choose Found Set when asked.  Assuming you have a pop email program such as Mail or Entourage on the Macintosh or Outlook on the PC, the program will open and the emails will be sent through it.

Note that AcuBase cannot email through web-based email accounts that are accessed through web sites like Yahoo or Gmail.  If you have Yahoo, Gmail, or other similar web-based email, bring them into a pop-email program like Mail, Entourage, Lotus, Outlook, or the like in order to use the Email features of AcuBase Pro.

Note that forms may not be more than one page long, and that forms printed/emailed are not kept in each patient’s Activity record.


   Some Good Stuff to Know

 

• Creating a Form usually means that you will be finding/searching for a single record or group of records to send the Form to.  Though the Getting Started chapter has plenty of information on performing complex searches, one common method worth repeating here is about how to find for date ranges.  A common date range find involves using the elipses (“…”).  So, to find all people born between August 1, 1970 and December 31, 1971, in Find mode, DOB field, you would enter “8/1/1970…12/31/1971”.  To find all people born in March, use the asterisk (*), “3/*/*”.  
• In creating forms themselves, you are able to use all of FileMaker Pro (the program AcuBase was created in) in order to merge fields from the program and customize your forms.  One common field is the date (current date/today).  To add that to a form, enter “<<Get(CurrentDate)>>” (without quotes) where you want that date to appear.
• One consequence of the way that Forms work is that all forms will print in Arial font, 11 point type size, regardless of whether you make it appear otherwise using Format menu. If you want to use a different font you have to use the following example calculations:

• <<TextFont ( FirstName ; "Courier" )>>  To make the ‘first name’ field show in Courier font.
• <<TextSize ( FirstName ; 12 )>> To make the ‘first  name’ field appear in 12-point size.
• <<TextStyleAdd ( FirstName ; Bold )>> To make the ‘first name’ field bold face type.
• You can also combine calculations by nesting the functions:
• <<TextStyleAdd(TextSize(TextFont(FirstName; "Courier"); 16); Bold)>> To make the ‘first name’ field Courier 16-point, bold face type.

 

The Many Calendar Views

Tabs across the top of the Calendar screen allow users to see the Calendar in Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, Schedule, Appt. List, and Table views.  A To Do list is also available from the Daily view.  More detailed explanations of each view follows.
 

    The Daily View

The first screen you see when clicking on the Calendar tab from anywhere else in AcuBase Pro is the Daily View, which will show the calendar for the current day by default.  In addition to the standard tabs and buttons explained earlier in this chapter, the Daily View has two subtabs: Appointments and To Do List.  

Whether you are viewing Appointments or the To Do List, the right side of the screen shows the past, current, and next month’s mini-calendar, with the selected date being viewed shown in green, and today shown in yellow.  Clicking on any of the dates on these mini-calendars will take you there, and clicking on the month field on the top of the middle calendar will take you to a screen which allows you to jump to any date.  

 

 

The Daily View Appointments screen shows the greatest detail of any Calendar screen, including date, start and end time, staff initials, title of appointment, patient name, resource, and type. A blue dot in any Title field indicates that more detailed notes are present related to that appointment, and a red bar next to an app indicates that there may be a time overlap (conflict) between that appointment and another one.

Appointments are shown in order of time (earliest to latest, with appointments without assigned times showing up on top), and the details of a given appointment may be accessed by simply clicking on the appointment, which will take you to the “Edit Appointment” subscreen for that appointment. If there are no appointments set up for a given date, all of these fields will appear blank.

Green filter headings of Staff, Patient, Resource, and Type allow you to filter by those headings (see more on Filtering appointments earlier in this chapter).

If a patient has been assigned to the appointment, their name will appear as a blue hyperlink, which may be clicked upon to go directly to their patient record in AcuBase Pro, or to a Mini Screen containing some of their basic information from the AcuBase Pro Patients section.

        To Do List

The To Do List may be accessed from the gray subtab just below the date on top of the Daily view screen.  The To Do List shows all To Do items in date order (oldest first).  Items that have not been completed appear in red; those that have are in black.  The list view of the To Do List shows the To Do item’s title, the Staff assigned to it (which may be filtered—see instructions on filtering earlier in this chapter); the date due; and the date completed.  A trash (Delete) icon shows at the right end of the line indicating the ability to delete a given item.  You may print the To Do List or Search through it using the Print and Search buttons on the bottom of the screen.  

Upon clicking on a To Do List item or clicking on the New  To Do button on the top of the screen, you are taken to the Edit To Do window, where you may enter a title for the To Do List item; a description; dates due and completed; and users assigned to the task. Items may also be duplicated and modified in this window.

Return to the rest of the Calendar by clicking on the gray Appointments subtab on top of the screen, or any of the other available view tabs.


    The Week View

Clicking on the Week tab will take you to the week view for whichever day is selected in Daily View.  If today’s date is in the selected week, it will be highlighted in yellow.

 

 

 

Click on the date portion of any day (day of week or date) to jump to that date’s Daily view. Click on any appointment in the list for a given day to see the details about that appointment.

Go to the next or previous week using the arrow buttons to the left of the date on top of the screen.  Use the up-down (+ and -) arrows on the far left of the screen to see earlier or later times of the day, respectively.  

Monday through Friday shows by default, but you may click on the green “Show Weekend” button above the appointment times on the left side of the screen to show weekend days as well.  When you do show weekends, the Show Weekend button changes to say “Show Weekdays” in order to do just that.  

The Appointment times down the left side of the screen show differently depending upon the Calendar settings for Week View (in the AcuBase Pro Calendar Settings). Our basic week view shows the 7 days of the week as 7 vertical columns with the appointments for each day listed below the day.  On our “fancy” week view we place each appointment vertically within the day’s column at a point corresponding to its start time and draw that appointment in a curved rectangle whose length corresponds to the appointments duration. This view looks best when the calendar is tightly filtered (perhaps showing just one user’s appointments) so that there aren’t too many overlapping appointments. While the “fancy” week view only shows 5 days at a time, a “Show Weekends” button in the upper left will “scroll” the week to the right so that you can see the weekend.

Note that the “fancy” view will only show appointments that have a start time, where the basic week view will show all appointments, even if they have no times assigned.  

The calendar will show the starting time according to the start time you set in the Calendar Preferences, and may show in increments of 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.  The default increment is also set up in Preferences, but may be changed on the fly at the bottom of the screen.  

Because it is difficult to get all details of a given appointment into the small amount of space available on such a screen, you will see less information on this screen for a given appointment than on Daily view. You may change the level of detail shown from simple Title and color/category of appointment (default) to more detail (Patient information) by clicking on the Detail buttons on the bottom of the screen.  If you made a bunch of patient appointments without titles and descriptions, and they are all showing up as blank spaces on the Week view calendar, click on one of the Detail buttons on the bottom of the screen to see more.

To create a new appointment from the Weekly view screen, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking on the date for which you wish to make an appointment to bring up the Edit Appointment subscreen. Appointment filtering may be activated from the Show Filters button on top of the screen.

To print the Weekly View, click on the Print button on the bottom of the screen.  


   The Month View

Clicking on the Month tab will take you to the month view for whichever day is selected in Daily View.  Move back and forward a month at a time using the arrows to the left of the date on the top of the screen.

If today’s date is in the selected month, it will be highlighted in yellow. If the current date selected in Daily view is not today, it will show up in green.

 

Click on the numeric portion of any day (the date number itself) to jump to that date’s Daily View. Because it is difficult to get all details of a given appointment into the small amount of space available on such a screen, you will only see the time, user/provider initials, and title for each appointment in this view. Click on any appointment in the list for a given day to see the details about that appointment. If more appointments are available for a given day than can be shown on the screen, a small red dot will appear in the number portion of the date, indicating that more can be seen on Daily view.

To create a new appointment from the Month view screen, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking on the number portion of the date for which you wish to make an appointment to bring up the Edit Appointment subscreen.

Appointment filtering is also available from the Show Filters button at the top of this screen, and the To Do List may be viewed on the Month view by clicking on the To Do List button on the top-right corner of the Month view.

To print the Month View, click on the Print button at the top of the Monthly View screen.

The tiny “reset” button on the far-right side of the screen should not be used unless you are told to use it by a Trigram Software technical support representative.
 

The Year View

Clicking on the Year tab will take you to the year view for whichever day is selected in Daily View.  Move back and forward a year at a time using the arrows to the left of the year on the top of the screen.   Click on any month to go to the Month view for that month.


Schedule View

Clicking on the Schedule tab will take you to a Schedule view for whichever day is currently elected in Daily view.  This screen is a great feature for medical offices, and is designed to look like a standard medical booking daily schedule.  

Across the top you will see the Resources that you set up in the Calendar Preferences (see Calendar tab in Preferences section of the program documentation for more on this).  Resources may be set up as anything from a room to a provider, and are best assigned when multiple providers and/or multiple rooms are being scheduled.  While only five resources show up by default on the Schedule screen, you may scroll to more resources, or to the previous resources, by clicking on the gray “Next” and “Prev. Resources” on the top-right and top–left sides of the screen, respectively.   

The Appointment times down the left side of the screen start according to the start time you set in the Calendar Preferences, and may show in increments of 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.  The default increment is also set up in Preferences, but also may be changed on the fly at the bottom of the screen.  

Click on any appointment in the list for a given day to see the details about that appointment. Because it is difficult to get all details of a given appointment into the small amount of space available on such a screen as this, you will see less information on this screen for a given appointment than on Daily view. You may change the level of detail shown from simple title and color/category of appointment (default) to more detail (Patient information) by clicking on the Detail buttons on the bottom of the screen.  If you made a bunch of patient appointments without titles and descriptions, and they are all showing up as blank spaces on the Week view calendar, click on one of the Detail buttons on the bottom of the screen to see more.

Go to the next or previous day using the arrow buttons to the left of the date on top of the screen.  Use the up-down (+ and -) arrows on the far left of the screen to see earlier or later times of the day, respectively.  

To create a new appointment from the Schedule view screen, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking on the date for which you wish to make an appointment to bring up the Edit Appointment subscreen. Appointment filtering may be activated from the Show Filters button on top of the screen.

Appointment filtering is available from the Show Filters button at the top of this screen.  When this button is selected, it turns into a Resources button so that you may switch back to showing the Resources again by clicking on it.

Note that this screen was mainly designed to be shown on-screen and may only print what shows on screen at the time you select the “Print” button.  Should you decide to print this screen, you should also select to print page 1 to 1 to avoid printing duplicates.  


The Appointment List View

The Appointment List is a very powerful screen where you may do complex searches, print/email forms, and print selected lists of appointments.  After some time using the Calendar in AcuBase Pro, you will find yourself using the Appointment List view more frequently than perhaps any other view aside from Daily view.  

Aside from accessing the Appointment List directly from the tab itself, you will also see it if you click on Search from anywhere in the Calendar, and when finding groups of appointments from AcuBase Pro’s Patients/Appointments tab.  Clicking on View as List (two buttons to the right of the AcuBase tab on the top of the screen) will bring you to the Appointment List view as well, showing only a list of appointments for the day selected.

Like the Daily view, the Appointment List screen includes date, start and end time, staff initials, title of appointment, patient name, resource, and type. A blue dot in any Title field indicates that more detailed notes are present related to that appointment, and a red bar next to an app indicates that there may be a time overlap (conflict) between that appointment and another one.

Appointments may be sorted by clicking on a given field header, and the details of a given appointment may be accessed by clicking on the green arrow on the left side of the appointment, which will take you to the “Edit Appointment” subscreen for that appointment.  

If a patient has been assigned to the appointment, their name will appear as a blue hyperlink, which may be clicked upon to go directly to their patient record in AcuBase Pro, or to a Mini Screen containing some of their basic information from the AcuBase Pro Patients section.

At the top of the Appointment List screen next to the word “Appointments” are three boxes.  Putting the mouse over each will reveal that the first is the View as Form button, which will take you to the Schedule view for whichever appointment record is currently selected in the list.  The next box is the View As List button, which is inactive because it is the current view.  And the third box is View as Table, which is covered in the View as Table details later in this chapter.  

At the bottom of the screen are Search, Print, and Forms buttons.  Searching and using Forms are both covered in more detail earlier in this chapter.  The results of searches may be printed by clicking on the Print button on the bottom of the screen.


The AcuBase Tab

Use the AcuBase tab near the top-right side of the screen to return to the main AcuBase Pro program at any time.  The calendar will generally stay open in the background when you leave it for the rest of AcuBase, and you may return to whichever Calendar screen was last open at the time you left it by clicking on the Calendar button from other non-calendar AcuBase Pro screens, or by going to the Window menu and clicking on the calendar screen you wish to see.

 
   View as Form, List, and Table

At the top of the Calendar screen to the right of the AcuBase are three boxes which appear on all but the Year view main screens.  Putting the mouse over each will reveal that the first is the View as Form button, the second View as List, and the third View as Table.

View as Form has the intent of viewing only one day at a time, whereas View as List assumes you wish to look at multiple appointments over perhaps multiple days.  View as Form will generally return you to the Daily view from most other screens in the Calendar, while View as List will take you to the Appointment List view.  View as Form is inactive when already in Daily view, and View as List is naturally inactive when already in Appointment List view.

View as Table shows a database list view of selected appointments with all fields shown at the top in their original database field names.  This screen may be more useful for “power users” who wish to import and export calendar-related data. You may enter and search through these fields, and even click on the “Save to Excel” button on the top-right side of the screen to export the currently shown data to Excel or other field formats.


    Getting Help

To get help from any screen, simply click on the “Help” button on the top-right side of any screen. You will be taken to context-sensitive help (help specific to the screen you were looking at), which contains relevant information from this user’s manual.