Appointments Release 3.8

- Enhancements developed at the request of our users.

Summary of Changes

Appointments release 3.8 contains the following new features and improvements:

All Users

• Filters - The following changes have been made:

  • Practice/User Filters - When selecting a filter from any of the Appointments screens, you can now select from a list of either Practice or User filters.

  

  • Saved Filters Display - Saved filters now display alphabetically in order to make finding them easier.

    

  • Saved Filter Tabs - You can now order your selected filters/views in the Reception View. Drag and drop your filters/views to change the display order. The selected order is retained when you navigate away from the Reception View and then return to it.

    

  • Filter by Session Type - You can now choose session types to filter by when creating and editing filters. For example, you might want to only display slots available in sessions added with an Emergency session type.

    

    See Applying or Editing Filters and Creating Filters/Views For Your Practice for details.

• Searching Today's Appointments - You can now search for appointments on the Today's Current Appointments and Day View screens by entering your search criteria in Enter text to filter results.

  

  See Today's Current Appointments and Day View for details.

• Preferences - When updating your preferences, you are no longer required to save the changes made as this is now done automatically. A message displays at the bottom of the screen when you change a setting, advising 'Practice/User setting updated'. The message disappears automatically after five seconds.

  

• Preferences - General - Automatically adjust slot duration to match slot type change - There is now a practice wide setting to automatically update a slot duration, when a slot type is changed to one with a different duration.

  

  For example, a 10 minute slot type is changed to a 20 minute slot type, you get the following outcomes:

  • Enabled - The slot type updates and the slot duration extends by 10 minutes automatically.

  • Disabled - The slot type updates and the slot duration remains as 10 minutes.

  See Preferences - General for details.

• Display Enhancements - The following changes have been made:

  • To make it easier to see, the day of the week currently selected is now highlighted on the date selector.

    

  • Overrun slots in the Reception View and Weekly Views now display in a darker shade of grey.

    

  • Lines separating slots in the Reception View and Weekly Views now display in a darker shade of grey.

• Slot Type Restrictions - Online Booking - The following changes have been made:

  • Patients can now book online appointments in slots that are restricted by age, sex or availability, as long as they satisfy the criteria of the restriction.

  • Clinician-restricted appointment slots will not be made available for online booking.

  See Adding a Slot Type and Slot Type Restrictions for details.

• The following user requested enhancements have been made to the Preferences - Display Options:

  

  • Slot Background Colour - To improve visibility of your appointment slot status, you can now choose to display background colours for Arrived, In Consultation or Seen appointments.

    

  • Slot size on Reception and Weekly Views - There is now a setting to display more slots/appointments on the Reception View and Weekly View screens.

    

See Preferences - Display Options for details.

Desktop Users

• Single Sign On (SSO) - When you log in to Appointments from your desktop, you are now presented with the Vision Single Sign On screen:

  

  Important - It is vital that the first time you sign in to Appointments, following the 3.8 update, you are connected to the internet. This ensures your SSO set up runs correctly.

  Simply enter your Username and Password in the usual way and select Sign in, this triggers the SSO update.

  This is in preparation for SSO across all In Practice Systems Ltd, enabling you to switch between applications without having to log in again. As this facility is extended to other applications we will let you know.

  Note - This does not apply if you access Appointments from within Vision 3.

• System Tray Settings - The System Tray Settings have been updated ready for the release of our exciting new applications. Select the System Tray Arrow and right click the Vision icon:

  

  The Vision menu displays:

  

  Select as required:

  • Appointments:

    • Open - Select to open Appointments.

    • Quit - Select to close Appointments.

  • Sign Out - Select to close all In Practice Systems Ltd.

    Important - This leaves the SSO application running on your machine.

  • Exit - Select to close all In Practice Systems Ltd.

    Important - This closes the SSO application on your machine.