PracticeWorks Sneak Peek - Full Screen, Updated Appointment Book

[Anon]

Good morning PracticeWorks users!

Development on PracticeWorks 8.1 is complete. We are in the process of QA'ing the release and getting it ready for release. 

In preparation I'd like to share the major changes you'll see.

*To see a larger view of the schedule click the image above. 

• The faux appointment book schedule graphics are gone, along with the green space on the right and bottom. The appointment book stretches across the entire screen, regardless of your monitor size. Offices with a lot of chairs this will now be able to see all the appointment information when using a widescreen monitor. 

• The vertical toolbar (containing the Paid, Bulk Check, Phone Lookup, etc) is now horizontal. The appointment book sticky is located immediately right of the toolbar. All sticky notes in the software are now full yellow squares rather than faux stacked sticky notes. 

• To the right of the appointment book sticky we have new appointment book navigation options. Offices with multiple appointment books will benefit from the Up/Down arrows which cycle through your appointment books without your having to access the "Select Appointment Book" screen. The Home icon returns you to the default appointment book. And finally we included the name of the selected appointment book on the schedule screen. Clicking the appointment book name will display the "Select Appointment Book" screen. 

• The full date is displayed with a calendar icon to the left. Clicking the calendar icon will Show/Hide the floating calendar. The icon will also "bump" your floating calendar when it's been moved below the Windows Taskbar or off the side of the screen. 

• On the current day you now have a Time Tracker. This is a thin red line that advances through the day and gives you an immediate visual indicator where you're at in your schedule. For all other days the red line will appear on the far left of the schedule but not across the entire appointment book. 

• The Up/Down arrows allowing you to scroll up or down on the appointment book are enlarged. This makes navigating a lengthy day significantly easier. 
• Not visible but equally important is the ability to "drag and drop" to reschedule. 

The Pending Page benefits from widescreen monitor support also, as you can see in the image below.

If you don't want the appointment book to fill the screen you can scale the application down as far as 1024 x 768 which will make the schedule look like this: 

Scaling the appointment book like so will free up room on your Windows desktop for other applications (or a place to move Clipboards and other PracticeWorks windows).

We're looking forward to this release and beginning work on even more important functionality for your practice. Please let me know what you think in the comments below.

[SueD]

I have PW version 10.1.4 and I cannot drag and drop appointments. Why is that?

[nageldds]

We haven't received our update.  Would love to be on the list for distribution!  Super excited about the new changes.

[Anon]

I've added you to the list! You should receive the disc this week.

[marinabaydental]

Not a fan of the aesthetics of the update. looks dated..like MS DOS, or a computer in Safe Mode? I liked the tabbed, more rounded graphics and sticky notes of past version. Text was bolder in past version which I preferred as well. Also, the sticky note for the day (in the toolbar now) is too blended in and doesn't yell " look at me today" to me. having it in the actual calendar area was more noticeable. 

Maybe just takes time to get used to.

-Is there an option to put toolbar back on the side? I usually have a lot of screens open at once and was easier to navigate with it on the side. 

-Is there an option to 'lock' the calendar in place? (just a right click on calendar --> lock/unlock) I like to have PW's compacted to as small of an area as possible on my desktop as I have a lot of windows open at once. I would like calendar to stay in place within the window of PW

I wish little things were updated such as:

- fix showing the year of birth to include the entire century/year and not just the year (for people born in 2000's)

- fix deleting a subscriber ID when updating insurance (sometimes only the group name changes and ID stays the same) I hate it disappearing then having to go and find it again

-add a little bit more character space in appointment description

[Anon]

Good morning marinabaydental‌,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry the changes were not effective in your practice. Our goal with this release was to address the longstanding issue of scaling and modernizing the appointment book, while simultaneously retaining the functionality. Most practices want the appointment book to fill the screen, and as you know the previous versions of PracticeWorks did not do this. A high resolution created a lot of green space on the right and bottom of the screen. 

We considered keeping the toolbar on the right but it created a narrow gap that ran down the left side of the appointment book. The toolbar is fixed in a horizontal position, left justified at the top of the screen.

There isn't currently a way to dock the calendar but this is something I'm investigating for the future. The two primary complaints I've received are 1. no place for the calendar and 2. the time tracker. If possible we'll do something about these in the next release.

Regarding the other things you mentioned:

-Version 9 displays the full birth year for people born in the 2000's. 

-Not familiar with this. Let me do some research.

-I would love this too. Unfortunately we will not be able to address in the next version.

As a sneak peak into version 9, we are actively working on allowing multiple users into clipboards, charts, and concurrent chart/clipboard access. I'll post more about this as we make progress. 

[marinabaydental]

Thank you! I don't mean to be nit-picky. Just different needs being at front office desk. 

I definitely understand the need for current changes (green space issue.. etc) We have a small practice (one Doctor and one Hygienist a day) so a lot of the above mentioned issues did not effect us)

Love the time tracker!

Anything in regards to adding a 3rd dental insurance in clipboard? maybe having the option to change one of the medical insurance spots to a dental one?

I haven't tested it yet, but do you know if the issue of clicking 'lives with' brings over the entire address including zip code (which didn't carry over)

[Anon]

marinabaydental‌,

Your comments are important and help us consider these things in the future. I don't see it as nit-picky at all!

No consideration at this time for a third insurance. I know this is a perennial issue and I do hope we get to solve this. 

In the lives with situation, did the person selected for Lives With have a zip code? I tested on my system and the zip carried over every time. Could be that it was a defect addressed prior to my involvement with the team.

Thanks!

[marinabaydental]

Yes, the people listed did have a zip code entered. I just tested one and it did carry over this time!

[marinabaydental]

juriz‌ - the zipcode thing is not fixed actually... didn't carry over when I added a new patient - lives with.

[sonyap]

I had asked about this quite a while ago, and if I remember correctly, it has something to do with you changing another factor.  I can't remember for certain what it was, but maybe it was marking the new patient as "lives with" someone, but then changing them to their own Responsible Party?

[Anon]

Hi Jenny,

I'm tagging robert.angus‌ and johnathan.d‌ from the support team to assist. We'll get to the bottom of it.

[beth217]

8.1.0 version was installed yesterday in my office. My workstation is the only one that has Windows 10 (mine workstation recently crashed and burned) - all other workstations have Windows  7.  However, I am having a terrible time with the drag and drop feature! Tried to change a time on a patient's appointment and the yellow highlighted appointment has disappeared. The appointment is on the pending page but I'm locked out of making any change to this appointment on the pending page! What is going on? The other workstations drag and drop work fine! Is this a Windows 10 issue? Additionally I was unable to return the appointment to the original time using drag and drop. Hopefully there are some office open today (Saturday) and have an answer for me. Otherwise I will be on the phone at 8am on Monday to Practice Works.

Beth

[jeanspears]

Beth-

I had the same issue with my workstation and had to replace the entire computer.  I also run Windows 10 but all the others are running Windows 7 - were able to resolve your issues you were having with PWs?  I've been holding off on doing the recent update since we just completed a server update and I was waiting for the dust to settle..... I saw your post so I was just curious.....Thanks

Jean

[joedindo]

Check your windows display settings. It seems like there's a problem if it's anything but the default.  There's a setting for text size and you should make sure that it's at 100%.

In Windows: Select the Start  menu, then type change display settings in the search box on the taskbar. From the list of results, choose Change display settings and then choose the size under Scale and layout. Make sure it's 100%

[beth217]

Thank you Joe. I actually already changed the display prior to trying to drag and drop. It was set at 125% but I'm still unable to drag and drop back into the same time slot or easily drop into another appointment time.  I will continue to try.  Do you have an idea how I can unlock the patient appointment making function - this was the appointment I was trying to drag to a different day and time. I'm now locked out of scheduling any appointments for her. I can still view her clipboard and ledger but PW says the appointment process is being utilized by my workstation. I've rebooted my computer and still no luck getting this fixed.  Thank you so much!

Beth

[Anon]

Is there program maximized?

[beth217]

Jeremy,

Not sure the answer to this. I've got some other issues that have come up so I will call support on Monday. I got thru today which is good. Thank you for your help Jeremy and Joe. I really do appreciate your input.

[sonyap]

Why does the red line flash sometimes?  Only in some columns, not all.  And I can't pinpoint it to anything (checked in, seated, waiting for doctor, etc.)

[jdowner]

Sonya,

I've noticed that as well, my best guess at the moment is it's happening when the Appointment book is refreshing.  I'm basing this on a known occurrence of the timers on appts (when enabled)  would flash when updating, or even sometimes the entire apptbook itself.   I'm partially curious to if changing the refresh rate for the apptbook could reduce it. but I'm not sure it would go away completely.

[sonyap]

I've seen the entire screen flash (much more noticeably than before), which I assume is the refresh.  If you figure out the common denominator as to why the red line in some producers columns flash when others are not flashing, I'd like to know.  Thanks.