How to use Appointment Advisor
Appointment Advisor is organized around your
clients, appointments and resources.
The various functions of Appointment Advisor are accessed by
clicking on any of the six tabs:
Client details tab:
Add, delete and edit your client information on this tab.
Includes an alternate address, contacts info and a quick email function. Client data can be entered directly or imported from
QuickBooks. Use the arrows on the upper right to navigate through the client
records. Add a client by clicking the +
button on the upper right of screen.
You can include photos (two for each client, one per contact
name) and unlimited notes for
each client.
Add / Edit / Query tab:
This is where you add, delete and edit appointments and
resources. A resource could be a employee or even a piece of equipment ---
anybody or anything that is assigned to an appointment. Appointment Advisor will
not allow a resource to be assigned to more than one appointment for a given
time period. However, A client can be assigned to one or more resources for a
given time period.
Add a resource by clicking the
+ button below the lower right resource grid. Resources can also
be imported from QuickBooks.
Selecting appointments:
When you click on a client, all the appointments for that
client are selected.
Or you can use the Query panel:
The Query panel near the screen bottom is a powerful facility
that will search for appointments with just a few mouse clicks. Any
combination of the four check boxes, dates and the Status panel will work
together.
Example 1: What appointments are assigned this
week? Click This week.
Example 2: What appointments do we have
for client Abercrombrie, Kristy today? Select client Abercrombie, Kristy,
click Today and check Restrict to
selected client.
Example 3: What appointments does Jason
have this
month? Click on This month, select Jason (left click with the
mouse) and check Restrict to selected resource.
Example 4: What appointments have a status of Pending?
Check Restrict to selected status, then choose Pending.
Adding appointments:
To add an appointment, select the client from the left side
grid, select the resource to be assigned
from lower right grid and click the + button below the upper right appointment
grid.
You can also add appointments and clients by importing
customers and jobs from QuickBooks.
When adding using the +
button, you see this screen:
Now pick the date, time and length of the appointment.
Normally Auto end date calc is checked and the end date / time is
calculated from whatever beginning date / time and length you choose. Or you may
uncheck Auto end date calc and set the end date / time manually and the
length between start and end will be calculated.
You may also assign one of six status indicators (by default
Awarded, Closed, In Progress, None, Not awarded
or Pending) to the appointment or put in a comment in the Notes
area below.
You may call up any previous appointment and re-use it
as a new appointment by clicking the Find a previous appointment button.
Importing from QuickBooks:
Click the Import from QuickBooks button:
On this screen, you can import customers, customers and jobs,
employees (to resources) plus customer and employee custom fields.
To import QuickBooks jobs, select the types of jobs in the
upper right panel (Show customer jobs of job status type) and click
Show QB customer jobs. This will list all QuickBooks jobs matching the
status criteria you choose. You may import a single job or import all using
Import selected job or Import all jobs listed. All
customers are imported automatically when jobs are imported.
Exporting to QuickBooks:
Click on a client and an appointment, and that appointment
will be exported to QuickBooks as a job. You can also export the cost of the
appointment based on the assigned resource hourly rate. The exported cost is
assigned to a matching QuickBooks item name. Once exported, you can generate an
invoice, track payment, and generally integrate with the QuickBooks
accounting system.
It's also possible to sum up a resource selection and export
that total cost to a QuickBooks item.
Click the Export to QuickBooks button to export.
Editing appointments:
To edit an appointment, double-click a line in the upper
right appointment grid of the Add / Edit / Query tab. This is how the appointment editor window looks:
You can change appointment date and time, length, status add
or delete a note from this screen. You can edit the next appointment in
the displayed order by clicking the right arrow under Done. Or go back and edit
previous appointment by clicking the left arrow.
You can also edit appointments from the Visualize tab.
Removing appointments:
A single or group of appointments can be deleted by clicking
the - button under the appointment
grid. When no query exists (nothing checked in the Query panel), then whatever
single appointment is selected will be deleted. If a query has selected multiple
appointments, then all of them will be deleted when the
- button is clicked.
Visualize tab:
The Visualize tab shows your appointments as
a
Gantt chart. Whatever appointment or group
of appointments you've selected in the Add / Edit / Query tab will be
displayed here. You can move appointments by clicking and dragging with your
mouse or using the buttons in the lower left Fine task adjustment panel.
Double click a Gantt arrow to bring up the same appointment editor window as
under the Add / Edit / Query tab. Details of each appointment appear as
you move your mouse pointer over the Gantt arrows. Each Gantt arrow is
assigned a color based on it's status.
You can squeeze or stretch the chart range, and zoom in or
out using the tools in the Overall chart adjustment panel. Four
different reports can be printed using Print button.
Work Calendar tab:
Under the
Work Calendar tab, you tell Appointment Advisor about your working hours and days:
Specify your
working day, plus up to three "down" times such as lunch time and break times.
Specify which days you work in a normal work week and which holidays you
observe. If you want to schedule on a 24 / 7 basis, click the Create 24 / 7
calendar button.
The work
calendar can apply to all resources or individually to each resource. When setup
individually, you can have a different work schedule for each resource.
For example, one resource may work a day shift and another an evening shirt. Go to the Utilities tab, Setup
button, then choose the General
tab to enable individual work calendars.
My
company tab:
Enter information about your company here. This
information appears on the bottom of printed reports:
Utilities tab:
Several useful functions are included under the Utilities
tab:
There is a backup and restore feature. Backup all data
compresses the entire database (which includes clients, appointments, resources and
work calendars) into a single zip-type backup file. Smart restore
restores a Appointment Advisor backup without overwriting any existing data in the database.
You can use this feature to synchronize two or more databases from different
computers running Appointment Advisor. In other words, Smart Restore feature is
additive and will not result in the loss of any data by overwriting when you
take a backup from one computer and restore it on another.
Setup:
Clicking the Setup button on the lower right of the Utilities
tab shows the Appointment Advisor configuration
screen:
General
setup:
Specify what country your business resides in for QuickBooks (if you
want to use QuickBooks with Appointment Advisor). Specify whether you
would like the balloon help tips or not. Specify what hint level you prefer for
the appointments shown on the Visualize tab in the Chart display hints panel: When your mouse passes over
a Gantt arrow, you can choose to display the starting / ending dates, the
appointment status and notes in the balloon hint. When you check Show assigned resources,
the balloon help will show assigned resources.
Choose whether one work calendar applies to all
resources (employees or whatever) or if you would like an individual work
calendar for each resource.
QuickBooks setup:
Click the QuickBooks tab to setup for use with
QuickBooks:
Normally, QuickBooks must be installed on the same computer
as Appointment Advisor. Although, in a networked environment, the QuickBooks
company file can be on any computer in your office network. Before you do
anything else, click Install
QB access to install the software interface for accessing QuickBooks.
The easiest way to setup Appointment Advisor for use with QuickBooks
is to check Enable automatic access. With this method, QuickBooks must be
open and running when Appointment Advisor accesses it. Appointment Advisor will
access whatever QuickBooks company file that is being used by QuickBooks.
When Enable automatic access is
not checked, you must find and specify the drive, folder and name of
your QuickBooks company file. Use this method if you want to be able to
access QuickBooks data when QuickBooks is not actually running. You must also
specify to QuickBooks that you would like to use this option. Your company file
may be on the same computer as Appointment Advisor, or it may be on a networked
folder.
Here is an example of a setup with Enable
automatic access not checked:
To locate your company file, click either Browse to
company file or Find all company files. The latter option takes
longer, but you don't have to know which folder it might be in--- you will be
presented with a short list of company files.
Click Test QB access to verify QuickBooks
accessibility. QuickBooks will require confirmation on first access by
Appointment Advisor. At this point, you specify to QuickBooks that Appointment
Advisor is okay to access QuickBooks and how you would like the access to work
in the future.
Job status definitions:
If your QuickBooks has customized job status definitions
(see Edit Preferences, Job & Estimate in QuickBooks, change
the Appointment Advisor status definitions to match, or you can just define the
status definitions the way you want them, even if you don't use QuickBooks. You
can also define a color for use on the Gantt chart for each status definition:
Security setup:
You can configure each installed copy of Appointment Advisor
for read-only access. In other words, if you want users running a copy of
Appointment Advisor on your office network to be able to view, but not change the
schedules, select Read-only access with no password.
You can also require all users to log-in with a password on
program launch using the third option, Read / Write access with
password, or no password access at all and full privileges using the Read
/ Write access with no password option.
E-Mail setup:
If you intend to send E-Mail from Appointment Advisor, you need to
configure it for E-Mail:
E-mail may be sent directly from Appointment Advisor to your
Internet Service Provider or it may be sent from Appointment Advisor to Microsoft
Outlook and then to your ISP.
If you want to send E-Mail directly to your ISP, fill in the
bottom panel. Or if you want to send E-Mail through Outlook, check Use Microsoft
Outlook and browse to the Outlook.exe file on your hard drive.
Some ISPs require user name and password authentication. In
this case check Use SMTP Authentication and fill in your mail user ID and
password:
Here is an example of using Microsoft Outlook:
|
