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Diary: Utilities

The Utilities menu includes the sub-menu Initialisation for performing housekeeping tasks on your diaries. The Utilities menu also contains options to set up block bookings, log no-shows, search for appointments, print appointments and print reminders. Each option will be explained over the course of this section.

Initialisation menu options

Once you select the Initialisation option, a sub menu will appear allowing you to manage your practice's diaries. We have already covered 'A'dd a new diary. The additional options complete the following tasks:

Delete a diary

Permits any user to delete a diary for which they have write permission. You are asked to confirm that the diary is to be deleted.

Mark personnel on diary

A field for the names of personnel who will be taking the appointments concerned is available. You are required to specify the diary, the dates, and the times you wish slots to be marked with a particular set of initials. The user must exist as a valid Premvet user.

You can also mark personnel via the Block Bookings option. The difference is that if they are marked via block booking the user I.D.'s will be carried over when a diary is expanded or re-used, with is option they are not.

If the switch setting for marking alternate slots with letters of the alphabet is in force, you may specify which alternate slots your entry is to apply to. If you have untimed slots which are numbered instead, these can be specified as ranges of numbers just as if they were times. No heed is taken of any entries which may exist already for the days and slots to be marked in this way, and the program just overwrites whatever was there previously. The last three letters of each line are used.

The personnel marked for particular slots are visible in the abbreviated booking screen in {curly} brackets after the appointment time and alternate slot letter (if any) on the prompt line.

A summary of personnel in a particular diary for a particular day can be seen from the appointments diary and waiting room list by means of the menu option Personnel. This shows slot times etc. and any initials on the same screen, without the user having to scroll to see them, giving an overview of the day ahead. If slots are booked, this is indicated by *asterisks* either side of the initials marked, if any.

Rename/Move a diary

 Permits you to change the name (or position) of any diary for which you have write permission.

If you are 'Moving' a diary you should, when prompted for the new diary name, enter the slot you wish to move the diary to. The system will attempt to change any defaults for the old diary to the new one. It is recommended this procedure take place with NO other users on the system. The 'old' diary will be re-moved from the system.

Set defaults

This displays the name of the default diary and waiting room list for the current user and surgery number, and permits these to be changed and is explained in a later section.

Transfer information

This Permits bookings to be transferred between any two diaries for which the user has write permission.

The user is asked for the range of dates between which entries are to be transferred. If both diaries have appointment times, the appointment times are preserved for each booking it is able to transfer, irrespective of whether the timings are set up to be exactly the same or not. If one of the diaries has no times at all on any slots, each booking is just transferred to the next free slot. If alternates are used on either diary, these are treated the same as if they were timed the same as the slot above. The same is done with un- timed slots at the end of an otherwise timed diary, i.e. they are timed with the same time as the last timed slot.

Any bookings which are unable to be transferred because of incompatibility of slot times, or because the booking is already taken in the target diary (the diary you are transferring to), or if the day becomes full if not using slot times, or if a page is locked by another user in either diary, are left in the source diary (the diary you are transferring from), otherwise it is blanked out.

Only entries for actual clients are transferred, and not text entry lines put in with a leading asterisk (*). Entries which have been removed from a diary due to be transferred to another one have blanks in the client number, name and animal name columns and 'Transferred' in the comments column. The index for the diary shows entries which have been removed in this way by the up-arrow symbol (^).

Expand diary

It is necessary from time to time to re-use the diary space from days which have passed to make space for future dates. Alternatively, the diary may need to be lengthened, or, if the diary has been unused for so long that the current date is no longer in it, it will need to be completely reinitialised.

The Expand diary option can be selected from the Utilities menu. When a diary is approaching the end of its life (i.e. less than 28 days to go) Premvet 5 will ask you if you would like to run this option. If the diary you selected has actually run out, Premvet 5 will automatically take you to this option.

Diary lengthening or reorganisation is a single-user procedure.

If the procedure you are carrying out involves overwriting any existing diary days with blanks, you will be offered the option of printing these days before they are deleted.

Block bookings

The Block bookings option allows you to set aside certain parts of your diary so that they cannot be booked. Certain days of the week, days of the month or the year can be block booked. You can also mark personnel and change the page comment. The options provided on the sub-menu achieve the following tasks: When editing either type of block booking, those currently set up will be displayed on the screen and the user can scroll up and down to select the block booking to be added, edited or deleted.

When you add or delete a booking you will be prompted:

Add 'Overwrite any block booking within the time period Yes No'

If you answer 'Yes' then any existing block booking that falls within the specification of the booking you are adding will be overwritten otherwise only blank slots will be updated.

Delete 'Delete ALL time periods this covers or ONLY this booking All Only'

If you answer 'ALL' then any existing block booking that falls within the specification of the booking you are deleteing will be deleted otherwise only entries matching the text will be deleted. Note: Locked diary pages, i.e. pages currently being edited, are not updated and a warning is given.

When adding or editing a block booking, a window will appear showing the types of block booking available: 

1. Block book every WWW
2. Block book every Xth WWW starting DD.MM.YY
3. Block book every Xth WW of the month
4. Block book the DDth of every month
5. Block book every DD.MM each year
6. Block book a range of dates
7. Block book the Xth WWW of a certain month
You have a maximum of sixty eight block bookings. The following is an example setting of options 1-7, above: 
1. Every Tuesday
2. Every 2nd Thursday starting 11.07.1991
3. Every 4th Wednesday of each month
4. Every 1st of the month
6. Range from 01.07.1991 to 14.07.1991
7. The first Monday in May

If you need to specify a single date which does not recur every year, specify it as a range (no. 6) beginning and ending on the same day.

If you specify the 5th 'Www' day in option 3 or 7, this means the last 'Www' day in the month, and is not ignored if there are only 4 weeks in the month.

Select the type of block booking you require. Then you will be asked: 

Start time [0000] .......
Finish time [2359] .......
If you have slots on your diary page which are untimed, these are referenced as if the number the slot is labelled with in brackets was a time, i.e. slot (14) is thought of as being at time '0014'.

You will than have the option 

Book out what? Users Comment Slots
This question refers to what the booking applies to:

User Mark the page/slot with users I.D. This is the same as the Mark Personnel option except that when a diary is expanded or re-used the 'marking' will be carried over.
This type of booking will be shown as U: user-id.
Comment Each diary page has a comment that appears on the top line, this allows the comment to be applied to multiple pages at once.
As the comment applies to the page it will be over written if other comments are later added.
This type of booking will be shown as L: text.
Slots Applies to individual time slots.

You will then be asked (based on the type of booking this is) one of:

Answer as required.

Notes:

As you re-create blank diary pages for future dates using the archiving program, these block bookings will be transferred into the diary page and index.

Block bookings appear in the diary index as asterisks (*).

As the diary is expanded over time the booking will be automatically carried over. You may find you want to alter which slots are booked out - you could delete all the booking but this may remove existing bookings. To get round this you can use the 'Slots' option on the booking menu. This allows you to alter the slots without deleting/re-creating. These will take affect the next time the diary is expanded.

Deleting a Block Booking

When you delete a block booking you wil be asked: 

Do you want to delete this booking from the diary pages?
If you answer 'Yes' (the default) then the system will remove the booking text from each diary page that it was applied to. Answering 'No' will just remove the booking from the list but NOT affect the actual diary pages.

If you delete a 'personnel' or 'Page Comment' and delete the booking from the diary page the system will do just that!! No checks are made to see if they have been changed either manually or by another booking.

You can when Editing the diary page remove an individual block booked slot by using the 'Cancel' option.

Log no-shows

You may enter a line in the consultation record of clients who failed to show for their appointments. If you use this option the program will ask you for the date to log no shows. The default is the previous day. You will then be asked for the text to put into the consultation record. This will default to 'Failed to keep appointment', with an analysis code of 235. At this point you can print a report, if required. Then Premvet 5 will search through the diary for the days specified, adding the text as appropriate.

Normally, any work with an analysis code other than 0 or that specified for clinical text will be ignored, this is to allow comments to be added before the client is seen, to override this set Diary_No_Show_Check_Ana=No in params.txt. If this is set at No then ANY comment on the card will indicate the animal has been seen and the system will assume the appointment has been kept.

This option can also be as an un-attended option.

Find Something

If someone telephones to say that they have forgotten when their appointment is, it can be found quickly using this option. You will be asked for the details you wish to find - this can include ANY details on a diary page related to a client e.g. Address (if on), animal name, reason for visit etc. The default is to scan the current day and fourteen days in the future but you can change this as suits. The lines matching are displayed (so you are limited to the 1st 15 entries). The search will include all diaries.

Print appointments

There are three options:

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