What's new
Recent Developments
Appointments reminders can now be presented by an automatic phone call to a landline number. This has been introduced for those who do not have or cannot use mobile phones. The elderly are one example of this category. In addition feedback on attendance can be given by pressing a digit on the keypad.
"Unable To Attend" is a new appointment status for those who need to differentiate between a client who is cancelling their treatments (discharging) and a client who is cancelling a single appointment slot to be rescheduled. DiaryBook will use UTA instead of CANCELLED when a client does a negative feedback (using text reply, email link or voice keypad input).
There is now a detailed statistics report that can give a summary of all appointments in a given date range with totals by department. A user can schedule this report to be emailed to them automatically every month.
When adding or editing a user you can specify if that user is a Service Provider. Only users that are Service Providers can have appointments made against their name. This means when making an appointment you will only see Service Providers in the list and not a list of all the users including admin staff. This makes the list tidier and easier when making an appointment.
Users who are not service providers can continue to make appointments for other service providers. In addition Blocked Out Times can now be accessed by users that do not have administrator privileges to manage their own times.
You can now specify how client names are displayed in the list of appointments [firstname, lastname] or [lastname, firstname]. You have to dig deep to find this option. Open your user profile, scroll the tabs at the top of the window to the right until you see the Advanced User Settings. Click on that and find the ClientFirstLast setting.
Previously the allow-double-booking option would override all time checks relating to the practitioner and any resources. Now, however, the allow double-booking option no longer relates to blocked times. An appointment cannot be made that overlaps a blocked time for a user.
Each appointment can now attach to multiple resources thereby blocking those resources from being booked by another user. Resources can include anything but usually are rooms and equipment. When making an appointment the resources drop-down will show your usual list but now you can make multiple selections by ticking the ones you need. In your appointments list the RESOURCE column is now RESOURCES and will list resources used for each appointment.
As well as the column change mentioned above there is a new column - End. This shows the end time of each appointment. It is the appointment time + the appointment duration.
When making an appointment the Time field is a drop-down list of time slots. By default these are in 5 minute increments. This can be customized for each user to be any increment such as 10, 15 20, 30 and 60 minutes.
To change your increment
Double-booking will no longer work in all circumstances. A user and/or resources can still be double-booked but only if the user making the new appointment is the same user that created the existing appointment(s) too.
Redesigned User Interface
The user interface has been completely redesigned so that it acts as a web application removing the need to navigate from page to page. All screens are loaded as tabs inside the main application screen making it much easier to navigate while allowing the important buttons and search options to be always visible for viewing and adding appointments and new clients.
Terminology
The terminology of some items have changed in the new version.
Appointments Graph and Analysis
The home tab gives an overview of the current month's appointments with an analysis of the allocation of appointments' confirmation status. Confirmation status are the same as in previous version: none, confirmed, cancelled (by user), cancelled (by client), tentative, DNA and history of DNA.
Context Sensitive Help
Help icons allow the user to open relevant help tabs to describe how to use the current tab or window. In addition, under the user button, there is a help link that opens the help system in a new browser page.
Appointment Window
The appointment window is largely the same as before but with some extra features.
button opens the selected client's tab
button opens the selected user's settings screen button opens the selected user's opening hours settings
button will set the selected reminder setting as the default for the selected userWaiting Room Management
A new feature that lets the user tag when a client arrives on site and in which waiting room they currently are. The user can then flag the client as active in their appointment and complete after they have left.
In the Appointments Tab, under the Appointments Menu, is a new menu item; Attendance Status. From the menu item the user can choose between clear status, in waiting room, active - with user, finished, did not attend.
In the appointments list in the Appointments Tab, the status column still shows the confirmation status of the appointment but will also reflect the attendance status once set.
In the Appointment Types section, appointments can be linked to a particular waiting room. This is for DiaryBook systems that have touch-screens enabling visiting clients to check themselves in and be instructed on how to proceed to the correct waiting room.
In the Rooms and Equipment section, records have a new is waiting room tick box to signify that it is a waiting room record and that it cannot be booked as part of an appointment unlike the other record types.
Client View Tab
The user can now open a client record in its own tab and see a graphical representation of the client's attendance record. Using sub-tabs the user can view the client's appointment and message history.
Top open the client tab click the magnifier symbol from either the appointments tab, the appointments window or the clients tab.
Direct Marketing Opt Out
When sending direct marketing messages DiaryBook provides an opt-out facility that enables recipients to opt-out of future messages from your account. Any recipients that opt-out are automatically added to your Stop List which is a repository for all opt-outs.
Text recipients can call a free-phone number that is answered by an auto-attendant that lets them type in their mobile phone number. The auto-attendant then automatically adds that number to your Stop List.
Email recipients can click on an unsubscribe link within the email. Their email address is automatically added to your Stop List.
The Stop List acts like a filter and stops any messages you send from going to any destination address on the list.
Compose Button
There is now one compose button and compose window that the user uses to send text, email or fax messages. The compose window has three steps: the message, the recipients and message options.
In step 1 the user can open and save composed messages in either a text or email editor. (The email editor is also used for fax messages)
There is a new opt-out button which should be used for any direct marketing messages. This button gives the recipient instructions on how to opt-out of future messages from your account.
Session Timeout
The DiaryBook application screen has a dedicated sign-in window that appears when the user is idle for a long period of time. Due to the nature of the sign-in window, browsers will not offer to remember the user name and password as they might with the sign-in page.
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