Calendar Node and Production Goals
- Dylan Nigh
This article covers the functionality contained within the Calendar Node of the Schedule Ability.
The Calendar node has a few purposes. First, you can use the Calendar node to track any Goals which can be set in Preferences. You can also use the Inspector view and select a day to see and export contextual information gathered for a particular day, including all procedures and treatments, all patients seen, and so on. We'll cover each piece of functionality in the Calendar Node.
By default, the Calendar node displays the current month. You can adjust the month by using the navigational strip at the bottom of the Calendar view, shown in the bottom of the screenshot above.
If there are appointments on any day, the Calendar node in the sidebar will populate that date. You can jump to that day in the Appointments node by clicking on it in the sidebar.
Using the Inspector in the Calendar Node
With a day selected in the Calendar Node sidebar, you can also expand the Inspector by clicking the “I” icon in the lower right corner. This will bring up the Inspector sidebar on the right.
In the Inspector sidebar, you'll note that there is a drop down that allows you to review data relevant to the date you have selected in the Calendar Node. You can pull information for the selected day, such as:
All Appointments
All Patients with Procedures
All Patients with Treatments
All Procedures
All Treatments
Appointment Transactions
Appointment Treatment Plans
Appointments
Cancelled (Appointments)
Deleted Appointments
Missed (Appointments)
New Patients
Patients
Recall Appointments
To Reschedule
By selecting any of these items, the table will populate with the relevant information.
At the bottom of the Inspector sidebar, you'll note two buttons: Make List and Print.
The Make List button will generate a list that you can access via the Lists Window in the Window menu. You can read more about the Lists Window here.
The Print button allows you to print a sheet with the information currently selected.
Production Goals
Production Goals allow you to measure your production and set target numbers to aim for. There's a few set up steps to take first:
Setting Up Goals
To set scheduling goals for the Production Calendar, go to the MacPractice menu, select Preferences, select Scheduling in the sidebar, and click the Goals tab.
In the Goals Tab, there are three preferences to adjust:
Daily Production Amount: The amount of production the office would like to achieve per day. This is a cumulative production goal for all resources, and will count any procedures entered with a procedure date on the selected day.
Number of Appointments: This is the total number of appointments that the office would like to be scheduled per day, across all resources.
Hide Scheduling Goals: If you have no need to track Goals or target production amounts, you can check this to hide the production bars in the Calendar Node.
You'll want to ensure Hide Scheduling Goals is unchecked. You'll also want to set a target Daily Production Amount and a target Number of Appointments to strive for. These goals will be used for all days by default, but goals can be adjusted on a day-by-day basis if necessary.
When you've determined your default targets, you can close the Preferences window to return to the Scheduling Ability.
Tracking Goals
The top right corner of the Calendar Node displays three progress bars: Production, Resource Hours, and Appointments. These relate to your overall goals for the currently selected month.
Each day with an appointment scheduled will also have similar progress bars that relate specifically to that day's stats. The number of patients scheduled can be seen in the upper left corner.
These progress bars indicate the progress towards meeting the goals set in Preferences > Scheduling > Goals Tab. A red bar indicates that the office is less than half to the goal. Green indicates that the office is around halfway to the goal. Blue indicates that the office has reached the goal.
Production Progress Bars track all charges that would apply towards the period's production.
The Monthly Production Bar in the upper right hand corner indicates the monthly goal progress. This monthly goal is calculated by the target number set in Scheduling Preferences, multiplied by the number of days on your schedule with appointments.
Meanwhile, the Daily Production bars on individual days track the daily production. Daily Production is tallied based on whether the day is today, a previously scheduled day, or a future date.
If the day is prior to today, Production is calculated by the total amount of charges for that procedure date.
If the day is today, the production bar tracks both charges and treatments with a procedure date of that day.
If the day is in the future, the production bar tracks treatment plan items tied to an appointment on that date.
Resource Hours Bars track the total number of resource hours that have appointments scheduled, compared to the total available resource hours for the day or month.
Appointments Bars track the total number of appointments scheduled. The monthly bar tallies the monthly goal by the number of days with at least one appointment scheduled.
Editing Daily Goals
You can edit daily production goals by right clicking on a given day, and selecting "Set Production Goal". The Production Goal bar will then allow you to enter in a custom goal amount.
You can also reset the Production Goal to the default by selecting "Remove Production Goal".
This menu also provides shortcuts to view the day's appointments in the drawer, or to navigate to the main schedule's Appointments or Transparencies.