How To Use The Schedule Ability
- Dylan Nigh
The Schedule Ability is used to plan out your practice's day. You can schedule patients and simultaneously access their patient records and ledger. The Schedule Ability also contains several tools to keep tabs on the status of your appointments.
This article will guide you through the basics of the Schedule Ability. This article assumes that you have followed the steps in the Setting Up The Schedule Ability article.
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The Schedule Documentation contains the following sections.
General Navigation
First, let's familiarize ourselves with the layout of the Schedule Ability.
Schedule View and Resources
When you first enter the Schedule Ability, today's date will appear by default. All appointments scheduled for this day should be visible.
At the top of the Schedule view, you can see the Resources. Each Resource is a column in the Schedule. You can manage, edit, and re-order these in the Resources Node of the Sidebar.
You'll note that there is a blue bar present on the Schedule View, visible in the above screenshot at the 12:30 PM line. This blue bar indicates the current time of day, to help better distinguish what appointments are upcoming.
Sidebar and Sidebar Nodes
In the Sidebar, there are several nodes that organize appointments based on the state of the appointment. Scheduled appointments will reside in the Appointments node.
If you have no patient selected, the node will display all appointments. If a patient IS selected, the results will filter down to display only the selected patient's appointments as shown in the above screenshot.
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Small Calendar
The Small Calendar in the lower left provides an easy method to navigate from day to day. You can also select a column or a row by clicking on the header of the row or column. For example, if a patient calls in to schedule an appointment and is only available on Wednesdays, you can click on "Wed" in the Small Calendar. The Schedule view will populate the first Wednesday, and by scrolling right you'll see the additionally selected days.
You can toggle the Small Calendar on or off by clicking the Calendar icon in the lower left of the MacPractice Window when on the Schedule Ability.
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Today's date is marked with a red dot in the Small Calendar, and the selected day or days are highlighted (shown in the screen shot below in light blue).
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To navigate within the small calendar, click the arrows to view the former or previous month. To select multiple days, select the days within the small calendar by clicking a day and dragging the cursor to highlight the range of desired days.
Double clicking on the day of the week will open every instance of that day for the month in the Schedule Ability.
You can hold Command and click on individual days in the Small Calendar to select and display multiple days, consecutive or nonconsecutive.
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Navigation Bar
The Navigation Bar enables you to tweak how the Schedule view displays.
From left to right...
Date Range Backward (<<):Â Moves the Appointment Schedule back by the number of days currently selected on the Small Calendar.
Day Backward (<):Â Moves the Appointment Schedule back a single day.
Today: Moves the Appointment Schedule to display Today's date.
Day Forward (>): Moves the Appointment Schedule forward a single day.
Date Range Forward (>>): Moves the Appointment Schedule forward by the number of days currently selected on the Small Calendar.
Horizontal Justify:Â Moves the Appointment Schedule to display all available time slots, without the need to scroll up and down.
Vertical Justify (|||): Moves the Appointment Schedule to display all days currently selected on the Small Calendar, without the need to scroll left to right.
Right Click Menu and Enabling Secondary Click
By right-clicking on the Schedule View or on an Appointment in the Sidebar, a contextual menu will appear with several convenient options. With this menu, you can easily switch the status of an appointment, find the next available free spot in a resource, tie appointments to existing recalls.
If your mouse doesn't seem to have right-click functionality, this is likely because the "Secondary Click" option is disabled in the macOS System Preferences. You can enable this feature easily.
Navigate to the Apple Menu, and select "System Preferences".
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The System Preferences window will appear. When it does, double click the "Mouse" icon.
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Make sure "Secondary Click" is checked.
Right Click Menu Options
Open: This option will open the Appointment that was right-clicked.
Cut: This option  will remove the Appointment Block from the Schedule that was right-clicked. You can then use the "Paste" Option to place it somewhere else on the Schedule.
Copy: This option will make a copy of the Appointment Block from the Schedule that was right-clicked. You can then use the "Paste" Option to place the copy somewhere else on the Schedule.
Paste: This option is present if you right click a blank spot in the Schedule. This will allow you to paste in a previously Cut or Copied appointment in the spot you right-clicked.
Delete: This option will delete the selected appointment if applicable.
View Only This Resource:Â This option will focus the Schedule Window to exclusively look at the Resource (Column) that was right clicked. This can be reversed by using the "View All Selected Resources" option.
View All Selected Resources: This option will focus the Schedule Window to look at all checked Resources in the Resources Node. If you previously used the "View Only This Resource" option, you may need to scroll horizontally to see the other Resources. Alternatively, you can use the Fit Columns to Current View button in the lower left. (The blue highlighted icon in the following screenshot)
Go To:Â This option will display a list of Abilities that, when clicked, will take you to the clicked Ability with the right-clicked Appointment's Patient selected. Only the Abilities you have purchased will appear in this list.
Set as One Patient: This option selects the Appointment's Patient.
Switch to Many: This option de-selects any currently selected Patient.
Create On-Call: This option will create an On Call record for the right clicked Appointment's Patient. This will also move the right clicked appointment into the On Call node, and then take you to the On Call node to configure the conditions of the On Call. For more information on On Calls, please refer to the On Call Node Knowledge Base article.
Check On-Calls: This option, when selected after right clicking a blank space in the Schedule, will check to see if the right clicked time slot meets any of the On Calls' criteria on record. For more information on On Calls, please refer to the On Call Node Knowledge Base article.
Export to Calendar:Â This option, when selected after right clicking an appointment, will export the selected appointment to the macOS's Calendar App. MacPractice may request permission to access Calendar to complete this task, so you may need your OS password to continue.
Find Options: These options help you find spaces for an appointment in a busy schedule. All three of these options will highlight a slot on the Schedule in blue but will not automatically schedule an appointment.
There are three Find options in the Right click menu:
Find Next Free Slot for Appointment: This option will find the next free slot under that resource that matches the time of the selected appointment.
Note: this could take you to the next day that has availability for the expected time frame.Find Next Free Slot for Resource:Â This option will find the next free slot in the resource for the appointment selected regardless of the length of that appointment.
Find Next Free Slot: This option will find the next available free spot on the selected day of the schedule. This does not check the Appointment size, it just tries to find a free spot on the selected day.
Repeat:Â This option brings up the Drawer's Appointment Tab, where you can configure a Repeating Appointment for the right-clicked appointment. For more information on Repeating Appointments, please refer to this article.
Tie Recall/Follow-Up:Â This option allows you to tie a right-clicked appointment to a Recall on the Patient's Account. Please refer to this article for more information on Recalls.
Remove Recall/Follow-Up: This option will untie a recall from the right-clicked appointment. Please refer to this article for more information on Recalls.
Print Form:Â This option will allow you to select a Form to print for the right-clicked Appointment's Patient.Â
Cancelled/Missed/To Reschedule:Â This option will set the right-clicked Appointment to Cancelled, Missed, or To Reschedule. This moves the Appointment off the Schedule into the respective node.
Appointment Statuses:Â The bottom options list out all of the available Appointment Statuses that you can set an appointment to.Â
AppointmentsÂ
To create an appointment, left clicking and drag on the desired time block on the schedule. This will create a block that will resize as you move the mouse.
When you release the left mouse button, this will create the appointment block and immediately open up the Appointment Detail Window.
The example above shows the behavior when a user has a patient already selected before performing the drag and drop. You don't need to have a patient selected prior; you can select or create the patient afterwards.
The Appointment Detail window will open. Here, you can either search for an existing patient or create a new patient.
You can move around appointments by clicking and dragging the appointment to the desired location. You can also adjust the status of the appointment, or mark it as Missed/Cancelled/To Reschedule. Marking an appointment in such a way will move it into the appropriate Missed/Cancelled/To Reschedule nodes in the sidebar.
It is important to note that marking an appointment as "To Reschedule" will retain the original appointment on the schedule for tracking purposes. This means that effectively a new appointment is created when you reschedule an appointment.
Appointment Detail Window
The Appointment Detail Window is used to fine-tune the details of a particular appointment. It will appear immediately upon creating an appointment or when double-clicking an appointment.
If a patient was already selected when creating an appt, the Acct#, Last Name, and First Name fields will pre-populate with the correct information.
Otherwise, the window will appear as in the above screenshot. You can click the magnifying glass icon to bring up a search dialogue to look for the patient you'd like to schedule an appointment for. Alternatively, you can type in the last and first name, then press tab. This will attempt to search for the name of the patient you had entered.Â
It is important to note that to select a pre-existing patient, you'll want to double click the name of the patient within the search window instead of just clicking Save. Otherwise, with "Create New Patient" checked in the lower left of this window, clicking Save will create a new Account.
Most other fields within the Appointment Detail Window are self-explanatory. With a new patient, you can fill out their birth date, phone numbers, and extensions. (Pre-existing accounts will auto-fill these fields)
You can also set the Appointment Type (required), set an initial status, provider, and you can tie this appointment to an existing recall. (You can learn more about Recalls here)
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Appointment Quicklook View
You can access the Appointment Quicklook by clicking on an Appointment in the Schedule, and then holding down the Option key and pressing Spacebar on your keyboard.
Alternately, you can access the Quicklook by right clicking an appointment and select the "Open Quicklook" option.
When displayed, the Quicklook will display a variety of information, starting with Patient Information, and then several Sections that can be expanded or contracted by clicking the triangle to the left of the section name.
You can read more about the Appointment Quicklook View at this link here.
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Repeating AppointmentsÂ
Sometimes you'll want to set up a weekly or monthly recurring appointment for a patient. You can do this by right clicking an existing appointment and selecting "Repeat". This will bring up the Drawer on the Appointment tab.
To set an appointment to repeat, you'll check the "Repeat Appointment" checkbox below the Repeats sub-tab. With that checkbox enabled, you can customize the repeat interval every X days, weeks, months, or years.
You can also set a repeating appointment to end after a number of times, or on a particular date.
Once a repeating appointment is set up, you can view all the linked repeating appointments by selecting the appointment and then viewing the Appointment tab in the drawer.
From here, you can also delete repeating appointments by selecting the appointment in the Repeats table, then pressing the Delete Key on your keyboard. You'll be prompted whether to only delete the repeat information or the original appointment.
TransparenciesÂ
Transparencies are largely used to organize your schedule. You can create types of Transparencies that cover general categories that aren't appointments. For example, you can set up a transparency type to mark off meetings, or denote a particular set of times you want a specific appointment scheduled.
Click here for an article on how to set up and use Transparencies.
If your office has the Patient Portal and Online Scheduling enabled on your license, a Transparency can also denote times when a patient can use Online Scheduling to set up an appointment without calling into the office. For more information on Online Scheduling, please refer to this article.
Recalls/Follow Ups
Recalls and Follow Ups refer to the same feature in the Schedule. In MacPractice DDS, you'll see Recalls. In other brands of MacPractice (MD, DC, 20/20), you'll see Follow-Ups.
Recalls and Follow Ups allow you to keep tabs on your repeat business to ensure they don't fall through the cracks. They can be very useful tools, but they require some specific steps to configure properly for your office's needs.
For more information on Recalls/Follow Ups, please refer to the "How to Use Follow Ups/Recalls" guide.Â
Find Tool and Find Next
Sometimes you'll need to locate a free spot on your schedule quickly for a particular provider or providers. Our Find tool, located in the Sidebar, can help with this.
From this screen, you can filter the results you'll receive by selected Resources or Transparencies, and narrow down the days or months that are available. Click "Start Search" to get all available times that meet your selected criteria.
For example, if you want to find the times Dr. Perdue is free in the month of December, Monday thru Friday, we would select Dr. Purdue's name in Resources, choose "December" in the Month list, and we could click Monday and hold shift, then click Friday to select Monday thru Friday.
If you find yourself in need to immediately reschedule an appointment, instead of using the Find Tool, you can simply right click the appointment and use one of the three "Find Next Free Slot" tools.
These options will help you find the next free space available for the right-clicked appointment.
"Find Next Free Slot for Appointment" will find the next free slot for the exact length of the Appointment.
If you're trying to find a free slot for the Resource, use "Find Next Free Slot For Resource".
On Call
The On Call node behaves similarly to a waiting list for your patients.
An On Call record is used to alert the user that a space on the schedule has freed up that matches the On Call record for a patient. Alternatively, it can be used to record that a patient was interested in a certain time slot if and when it frees up.
The other way to use the On Call node is to use it as a specific search tool to find open appointment slots that meet the criteria set.
Click here for an article on the On Call feature.
Viewing and Setting GoalsÂ
Goals information is stored within the Calendar Node of the Schedule. Goals will only display for a selected month if there is an appointment within that month's span.
You can set your overall goals in Preferences > Scheduling > Goals Tab, in the "Daily Production Amount" and "Number of Appointments" fields. These will be the default goals for each day on your calendar and takes into account all Resources on your Schedule. From Preferences, you can also choose to hide your goals if you don't want to see them.
On the Calendar Node, progress towards your Goals are noted on each individual day with an appointment, and for the month as a whole in the upper right hand corner. The bars describe, from top to bottom, the Production, Resource Hours available, and Appointment count.
You can also right click on a given day and use the "Set Production Goals" option to adjust the production goals for that particular day. You can also use the "Remove Production Goals", which will also adjust the monthly totals so it doesn't attempt to count for that day.
Printing and Exporting Schedule DataÂ
There are a couple of ways to reference Schedule data outside of the Schedule Ability.
Many offices like to print out their schedules so they have a written copy available to reference throughout the day. You can easily print the Schedule by either pressing Command-P while on the Appointments Node of the Schedule Ability, or by navigating to the File Menu and selecting "Print..."Â
Both methods will bring up the Schedule's Print window.
The Schedule's Print Window has several options available to customize the appearance of the printed schedule. You can filter it to specific days or Resources, and you can also print it as a text format by changing the "View Type" selector in the lower left.
You can also export your Schedule to the Calendar app in macOS (iCal) by clicking the "Export to Calendar" button. This will generate an .ics file that you can import.
For more information on printing the Schedule, refer to our Schedule - Print article.
Finally, you can also refer to our Scheduling Reports to pull information from the Schedule Ability.