View Appointment Scheduler screen. View Video, 13 min. 55 sec.

Break Times
Break times are used for lunch breaks etc.  On the scheduler, these areas are pure black and no appointments can be set within them.  A Break is defined by its Start time and its Length.  In this sample Appointment Schedule Providers screen, Monday has a Break set at 12:00 pm for 60 minutes.  This means that appointments cannot be set for 12:00 pm, 12:15 pm, 12:30 pm, or 12:45 pm.  However an appointment may be set at 1:00 pm.  A second Break may be set if desired.

Pre-Set Appointment Notes
For each patient that you schedule, you will be allowed a comment area for unlimited notes.  You may enter anything into this area that you wish to assist you in identifying what this appointment is for. The purpose of the Pre-Set Notes is to relieve you of the burden of having to write the same comments repeatedly.  For example, for a new patient you might write "New patient, exam, x-rays, prophy."  If you write this same comment for each new patient, this would be a good candidate for a Pre-Set Appointment Note.  You may enter as many Pre-Set Notes as you desire and they may be of unlimited length. The Pre-Set Appointment Note Entry screen is accessed from the Scheduler Utilities Menu.

Appointment Categories
You may create up to twelve Appointment Categories (also referred to as Appointment Types).  Each category will be associated with a color.  When setting an appointment you will be asked to indicate an Appointment Category.  When viewing the scheduler each appointment takes on its associated Category Color. For example, you might select yellow for Examinations; bright green for restorative, sky blue for crown preps, red for bridge preps, blue for endo, etc.  When glancing at the schedule and you see a lot of yellows and blue you have a quick picture of what your day will be like.  A lot of exams in the morning and a root canal before lunch.  Of course you may click on each individual name on the schedule and view the complete detail, but the color coding gives you a good overview at a glance.

Elements of the Appointment Scheduler Screen
After entering and setting the Monday through Sunday times for your providers and creating the appointment pre-set notes and appointment categories, you are ready to schedule patients.  To access the Appointment Scheduler from the Main Menu click on the Appointments button.  The Appointment Scheduler screen will open to whatever the date is on the Main Menu.  The Scheduler screen displays with three columns vertically.  Time increments are shown on the left and right sides of the screen.  Each column displays appointments for one provider for one day.  The 3 columns may show 3 different days for 1 provider or 3 different providers for one day.  Within each column up to 3 appointments can be scheduled at the same time.