Configuration

The WebScheduler Calendar can be easily customized to reflect the terms you use in your business, your business rules, your business calendar, and the email notification rules you wish to use.

The WebScheduler Calendar can be easily customized to reflect the terms you use in your business. To change the default labels used throughout the calendar and in the email notifications select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Change configuration values'.

After setting the label values to those you wish to use select 'Reset the Values' to make the change. Values may be changed at any time and take effect immediately. In this example the 'PO Number' label is being change to 'Pt. Last Name'.

The default calendar uses the following labels which you should change as needed to fit your business:

coordinator. This is your customer. The coordinator uses the calendar to scheduler your services. In the default calendar this is a Nurse or Operating Room coordinator who is arranging for the services of medical lasers and technicians. The values for coordinator must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator by setting up log on users for the calendar. During scheduling the log on session name is used as the coordinator. Administrators may schedule on behalf of other users by picking from a list of users.

procedure. This is the type of activity for which the service is needed. In the default calendar these are operating room medical procedures. Some other possible terms are: Shift, Job Description, Work Order, Service Call. The values for procedure must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator. During scheduling they are picked from a list.

duration. This is the expected elapsed time for which the service is being requested. In the default calendar the choices for this are set to be time units picked from a list. If duration is not needed for your business model and you have a requirement for another event attribute there is an option to configure duration to accept a free form text entry up to 15 characters in length. Contact WebScheduler for further details.

surgeon. This is a person or thing connected with the event for which the service is needed. Typically this is also related to your customer. The surgeon may or may not also be the coordinator. Some other possible terms are: Foreman, Office Manager, Client Contact. The values for surgeon must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator. During scheduling they are picked from a list.

device. This is a piece of equipment needed to render the specific service being requested. In the default calendar these are medical lasers. Some other possible terms are: Specialty, Type of Service, Equipment. The values for device must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator. During scheduling they are picked from a list.

location. This is the geographical place where the service requested is to be delivered. In the default calendar these are hospitals. Some other possible terms are: Facility, Building. The values for location must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator. During scheduling they are picked from a list.

technician. This is your employee or a contractor working for you who delivers the service. In the default calendar these are laser technicians. Some other possible terms are: Specialist, Nurse, Operator. The values for technician must be set up ahead of time by the calendar administrator by setting up log on technicians for the calendar. Administrators assign technicians to events by picking from a list and technicians use the calendar to check their schedules and to confirm their availability. Administrators may also make an event an 'open case' and technicians use the calendar to request assignment to open cases.

company name. This is the name you used when you set up your calendar. You can change it at any time. It is used on the login page and in emails.

calendar name. This is the name you used when you set up your calendar. You can change it at any time. It is used on the login page and in emails.

Business days

The WebScheduler Calendar can be easily customized to reflect your business rules. To change the rules select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Change configuration values'.

Add Window sets the number of days before the event that a coordinator is able to add a new event to the calendar. If 'Use business days' is checked then Holidays as well as any weekdays checked as 'Non-business days' are not included in this calculation.

Modify Window sets the number of days before the event that a coordinator is able to make any kind of change to an existing event in the calendar. If 'Use business days' is checked then Holidays as well as any weekdays checked as 'Non-business days' are not included in this calculation.

Non-business days. Any weekday checked as a non-business day will show light yellow on the month view and will be used in the business rules regarding adding or modifying events.

Use graphics, if checked, shows the month and year and the navigation buttons in the top row of the month view in a graphic format. If unchecked these are shown as plain text.

If a coordinator navigates to a day that is inside the Add Window or attempts to change an event that is inside the Modify Window they see a message similar to the following (the message is sent to the email address set up for +admin-email and +admin-phone-mail ).

Holidays

The WebScheduler Calendar can be easily customized to reflect your business holidays. To manage the holiday list select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Manage Holidays' in the 'Calendar view maintenance' section.

Use this page to add or remove business holidays for your calendar or to get a list of holidays that have been set up. On the month view the box for a holiday shows light yellow. Holidays are used in your business rules regarding adding or modifying events.

Device colors

The WebScheduler Calendar monthly view can be customized to allow identification of the Device requested for an event by using specially assigned colors for up to five different devices.

To assign the Device colors select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Set device colors' in the 'Calendar view maintenance' section. Use the drop down menus to align up to five of the pre-set colors to your chosen Device names then use the Set Colors button to change the color assignments. The change in the monthly view will take place immediately.

Email

The WebScheduler Calendar uses email notification so that all concerned are aware when a calendar event is added or changed. The email notification rules are detailed under Adding an event, Modifying an event, and Deleting an event. This covers configuration of the email addresses and the high level rules.

Email addresses are maintained as part of the User Detail. To see the User Detail select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Show user list' in the 'User attribute maintenance' section.

The list should look something like the following:

Names in the User column beginning with + are special and important. They are discussed below.

The main rule is simple: the contents of the Email column determine whether email is sent to that user and where it goes. If the entry is 'none' then no email is sent to this user under any circumstance. If the entry is other than 'none' the calendar will attempt to send email to the address in this column as called for by the email notification rules. (This entry also determines the 'From:' address in any email sent by a calendar user according to the email notification rules. For example, if a coordinator sets up a new event or changes the details of an event then the calendar sends mail to the calendar administrator using the 'From:' address found in the user detail for that coordinator.)

To set the contents of the email column select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then in the 'User attribute maintenance' section set the drop down list selection to the right of the 'Change' button to 'Email' and select 'Change'.

Select the logon ID for the user you want to change the email for from the drop down. Enter the new email address. Select 'Change email'.

The User Detail Report will show the newly assigned email address.

Names in the User column beginning with + are special and important. You must set these appropriately to get the full advantage of the WebScheduler email notification system.

The special user names beginning with + are used as follows:

+admin-email. This is the administrator's email. In most cases when any calendar event is added or changed email is sent to this address. Emails to this address can be kept as a kind of time-stamped audit trail of calendar activity. Set this email address to 'none' if you do not wish any administrator email.

+admin-phone-mail. This is a second administrator's email The messages sent to this email address are short with not very much detail so that they will be useful on a email enabled cell phone as an alert of activity, but you can direct these emails to any address you choose. Whenever email is sent to the +admin-email it is also sent to the +admin-phone-mail. Set this email address to 'none' if you do not wish any second short form email.

+demo-email. This email will be used by a feature in a future release. For now leave the name in the user list and set the email to 'none'.

+from-admin-email. This sets the 'from:' address for all email sent out by the calendar administrator.

PDA format

If PDA format is selected at the logon screen, then all screens are formatted so as to work well on a Palm device using a wireless service such as OmniSky.

Most screens are displayed only slightly different in PDA format, except for the month view which is very different. The month name is shown in the title bar only and there are no clickable days or events. To work with an event you use a radio button to select the event you wish to work with and then select 'Display selected item' to get the event view. Pictured below is part of a month view screen in PDA format (as it appears when using PDA format in a browser).

Calendar Views

A key feature of the WebScheduler calendar is that different users of the calendar see different data depending on their profile.

Month View

The default view of the WebScheduler Calendar when it starts up is the month view. The current month is displayed in a wall calendar format. Events scheduled for a day appear in the box for that day in an abbreviated form. In the upper right and left are navigation hot spots to move to the previous month or the next month. Selecting a day number takes you to a day view for the selected day. Selecting the time for an event takes you to an event view for the selected event. The look of the monthly view may be different depending on whether you are viewing the month in a user role, administator role, or technician role.

Day View

The day view shows a detailed list of all events scheduled for a day.

Event View

The event view shows details for a selected event.

User Month View

This shows the week of the 15th through the 21st as the user would see it. Notice that all the locations are the same. This is because this user is only authorized to see one location: Jefferson Hospital. The pink color of the box for the 19th indicates that the calendar administrator has not yet confirmed an event for this day. Unconfirmed events also have no confirmation number associated with them. The event on the 18th has been confirmed by the administrator and is confirmation number 12.

Administrator Month View

The administrator view shows the status of all events. Is the event confirmed to the user? Has a technician been assigned to the event? Has the assigned technician confirmed?

This shows the week of the 15th through the 21st as the administrator would see it. The pink color of the boxes for the 18th, 19th and 20th indicates that one or more events on each of these days is unconfirmed to the user or that a technician has not yet been assigned or has not yet confirmed for one or more of these events. Any event not fully confirmed will show an asterisk.

Events not confirmed to the user do not show a confirmation number. 14:30 on the 18th, 10:00 on the 19th and 8:00 on the 20th have not yet been confirmed to the user.

Events with no technician assigned do not show technician initials. 10:00 on the 19th and 08:00 on the 20th have no technician assigned.

Events with a technician assigned and not yet confirmed show an asterisk. 08:00 on the 18th and 19th both are confirmed to the user and have an assigned technician but the technician has not yet confirmed. 14:30 on the 18th has an assigned technician but because the event is not confirmed to the user it can not be determined from the month view if the technician has confirmed or not: the asterisk indicates that not all confirmations are complete but in this case you can not tell if only the confirmation to the user is needed or whether the technician has not confirmed as well.

Technician Month View

This shows the week of the 15th through the 21st as the technician would see it. Technicians see only events to which they have been assigned or events designated 'open case'. The pink color of the box for the 18th indicates that there is a case on this day assigned to the technician but not yet confirmed. The gold color of the box on the 19th indicates that there is a case on this day designated an 'open case'. Any technician may request this case be added to their calendar. Any event not confirmed will show an asterisk. Any event designated an 'open case' will show a plus sign.

Maintaining Lists

Before you can add an event to the calendar you must have lists set up. Lists determine the values for surgeon, device, procedure, location, coordinator and technician that can be used in setting up an event . If you want to be less restrictive you can set up values in the lists like 'Other' or 'Other - see details in notes' to handle events with values not pre-set in the lists. When working with a new calendar the list set up required to add an event to the calendar is one device, one location, one procedure, and one surgeon. With this minimal set up you can add an event to the calendar because the technician is not required and the administrator can be the coordinator.

To add, modify or delete list values select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select the name of the list in the 'List maintenance' section and select 'Add' or 'Manage'

Surgeon Device Procedure

The Surgeon list, Device list, and Procedure list are all simple one value lists. Surgeon will be used as the example throughout this section but the Device and Procedure list maintenance screens and processes are exactly the same.

Add Surgeon

Enter the value and select the Add button. The value can be more than one word and up to 35 total characters including spaces may be used.

The value must be unique in the list. If it is not you will get an error message and you will need to change the value in some way to make it unique in the list.

Manage Surgeon

From the manage screen you can inactivate, activate, or delete a list value.

A value can be deleted entirely from the list provided it is not being used in any calendar events. Select the list value in the drop down list, then select the 'Delete' radio button, then select the 'Manage' button.

If you try to delete a value and it is being used in any calendar events you will get an error message.

Any list value can be made inactive at any time. Select the list value in the drop down list, then select the 'Inactivate' radio button, then select the 'Manage' button.

When a value is inactive it will no longer appear in the drop down list menus when adding or modifying an event. In the list maintenance screen drop down menu an inactive value will appear with an asterisk. An inactive value can be made active at any time.

Location

The location list is very similar to the single value Surgeon, Device and Procedure list except that it is a two value list: the location value itself and an abbreviated location value are both required.

Add location

The procedure for adding a location is the same as for Surgeon, Device, or Procedure except that there is an abbreviated form of the value required. Both the value and the abbreviated form must be unique in the list. The value for the locations can be more than one word and up to 35 total characters including spaces may be used. The value for the abbreviated form can be up to 10 total characters.

Manage location

The procedure for managing a location is the same as for Surgeon, Device, or Procedure

User

The user list contains a variety of information for all those authorized to use the WebScheduler calendar, administrators, technicians and users. To view the detailed contents of the user list (except passwords) select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Show user list' in the 'User attribute maintenance' section. If desired the list displayed can be limited to a location or user type by selecting from the drop down lists first.

Add User

All fields in the new user screen are required fields. The Username will be the logon ID for this user. The Set authorization to: will determie what views and priveleges this user has.

An Administrator set up lists and users, run reports, assign technicians, confirm events to users, and can generally see and change anything in the calendar.

A Normal user sees and can add and change events at locations for which she is authorized. A normal user can add and change events only within the calendar window permitted by the business rules.

A Technician can only see events that have been assigned to her by an administrator or that have been designated 'open case'. A technician can not add or make changes to events other than to confirm her assignments.

Special entry users are set up when the calendar is created for email notification purposes and normally there is no need to create any new special entry users. You can read more about these special entry users under Email.

Authorized Location(s) will determine which locations can be viewed and managed by a Normal user. If a user should view all locations then leave this set to 'all'.

Manage User

The procedure for managing a user is the same as for Surgeon, Device, or Procedure

User Attributes

The user list contains a variety of information for all those authorized to use the WebScheduler calendar, administrators, technicians and users. To view the detailed contents of the user list (except passwords) select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select 'Show user list' in the 'User attribute maintenance' section. To change a user's authorized locations, email, password, or authorization level select 'Administrative Functions' from the month view and then select the attribute you wish to change in the drop down list to the right of 'Change' in the 'User attribute maintenance' section and then select 'Change'.

Change user location

Select the logon ID for the user you wish to change the authorized locations for, then select one or more locations. To select more than one location hold down the Ctrl key while you make your selection. When you have the locations selected use the Change Location button to make the change.

Change user email

Select the logon ID for the user you wish to change the email address for then enter the Email address. When you are finished use the Change email button to make the change.

Change user password

Select the logon ID for the user you wish to change the password for then enter the new Password in both fields. When you are finished use the Change password button to make the change.

Change user authorization

Select the logon ID for the user you wish to change the authorization for then select one of the radio buttons. When you are finished use the Change authorization button to make the change.

Adding an event

The Administrator and Normal User monthly calendar view show an Add item button which may be selected to begin the process of adding an event. Alternatively, clicking a date number in the monthly view will bring up the day view which will also contain an Add item button (for the Normal User the add item will only show in the day view if the day is open for adds according to the business rules).

User Add

A user may add an event to the calendar by populating the required fields and selecting the Add Item button. If any required field is not populated you will receive an error message. If the date is not open for adds according to the business rules you will receive an error message. The logon ID user who is adding the event is automatically made the Coordinator/Item Owner.

Administrator Add

The adminstrator add form looks and behaves like the User Add form except for the following differences.

The adminstrator add form includes an option to choose the Coordinator for the event. If no Coordinator is chosen the adminstrator becomes the de facto Coordinator for this event. If a Coordinator is chosen and the Location chosen is not authorized for that Coordinator you will get an error message.

The adminstrator add form includes an option to assign a Technician for the event.

The adminstrator add form includes options to set Admin Confirmation and/or Technician Confirmation as the event is being added. If technician confirmation is checked but no technician is assigned you will get an error message. If the Admin Confirm is checked then a confirmation number is assigned to the event and appears in the confirmation notice.

The adminstrator add form includes options to Send email notifications to the Coordinator and/or Technician.

If the event was successfully added to the calendar a notification with all the details is shown on the screen. This same notification is automatically sent by email to the +admin-email and +admin-phone-mail. If the Send email to Coordinator check box is selected, this same notification is sent by email to the Item owner. If the Send email to Technician check box is selected, this same notification is sent by email to the Technician.