Transparencies in MacPractice Gen 11

Transparencies used to be split between the Schedule and the Drawer in terms of accessibility. When we evaluated Transparencies in terms of how it functioned in the old Drawer, we realized there were some opportunities to re-organize Transparencies to be a bit more intuitive.

Prior to MacPractice 10.8, Transparency Types were located under the "Transparency" node in the Schedule, while editing an individual Transparency block would use the Transparencies tab in the drawer with the transparency block scheduled. This certainly worked, but there was frequent confusion reported from our Support calls regarding the Transparency node. Many users would assume that the Transparency node would contain Transparency blocks and would create several transparency types in error.

To remedy some of these problems, we've created a Transparency Types reference node in the Schedule sidebar. This reference node behaves exactly as the old Transparencies node, containing all of your Transparency Types. They are color coded the same, you can check and uncheck them to show and hide them at your whims. We then renamed the Transparency node to "Transparency Blocks", which allows you to create Transparency Blocks by selecting this node, then dragging and dropping as with creating appointments as we're all accustomed to.

Let's walk through the new workflow of how to add a transparency type, and then to add a transparency block.

Transparency WorkflowFirst, you'll navigate to the Schedule. In the sidebar, scroll down until you see "Transparency Type". Expand this node to see your pre-existing Transparency Types. The main Schedule window will now display the configuration screen for Transparency Types. This will look very similar to the old Drawer and the Transparencies tab.

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You can edit a Type by clicking on it in the sidebar and adjusting the details in the main window. If you want to add a new Type, click the Green Plus in the sidebar. You can set up as many Transparency Types as you'd like.

Once you've set up your Transparency Types, you can now set up Transparency Blocks. Scroll the sidebar up until you see "Transparency Blocks", then select and expand that node. The Transparency Blocks node contains all transparency blocks for the selected days in the calendar.

To create a new Transparency block, with the Transparency Block node selected, simply click and drag over a time span in the Schedule just like you were scheduling an appointment. 

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A pop up box will appear where you can set the Block Name and select which Type this Transparency Block will be. You can also change the Resource or Scheduled time from here. 

From this window, you can also set up a repeating Transparency. This functionality is similar to repeating Appointments. By clicking the drop down menu for Repeats, you can choose to have a Transparency repeat Every Day, Every Week, Every Month, or Every Year. You can also choose Custom, which will allow you to set up Transparencies by every other week, or every three months, or however you'd like this Transparency Block to repeat.

The End selector determines when the Repeating Transparency Block will stop. You can set this to Never, After (x) number of times, or on a specific date with the On Date option.