From the Plan Configuration window you can specify the availability of a practitioner for appointments. The circumstances of a practitioner's availability is referred to as a 'Plan', and each practitioner can have multiple plans recorded.

A plan in its basic form is a series of weeks in a cycle (e.g. a four-week cycle). Where a practitioner has multiple plans, each plan follows the previous in a sequence (e.g. a four-week plan, followed by a two-week plan, and so on).

Each week in a plan is defined by:

o      The days on which the practitioner is available.

o      The times during each day the practitioner is available.

o      The site at which the practitioner will be available for the morning and afternoon sessions of each day.

o      The times the practitioner is available for particular types of appointments.

To Manage a Practitioner's Plan Configuration

1.      Select Setup > Practitioner > Practitioner Details. The Practitioner Setup window appears.

2.      Select the Appointments tab, as shown in the following image.

 

3.      Within the Practitioners section, select the practitioner for whom you wish to configure a plan.

4.      Click  The Plan Configuration window appears.

o      The example above indicates that this is the Plan Configuration for Doctor Ayres, and that his configuration contains two plans, evident at the top-left of the window. Currently, Plan 1 is selected, and its details are displayed in the main body of the window.

o      The first plan is a series of weeks, spanning the period from 1/02/2012 to 31/03/2012, after which Plan 2 commences. In the example above, the details for Week 1 are displayed, because Week 1 (of 2) is currently selected at the top of the window.

•       As Plan 2 is not superseded by a third plan, its end date is undefined, and hence indefinite.

•       Each week within a plan cycle can have its own settings.

 

o      To edit a plan, simply select it from the Plans list on the left-hand side of the window. Information on editing follows, below.

o      To copy a previous plan, select the plan you wish to copy the settings to and then click

 

5.      To create a new plan, click  You should notice that the new plan is immediately added to the list of Plans on the left-hand side of the window. The new plan's start date defaults to one day after the preceding plan's end date.

6.      (Optional) Modify the start date of your plan by entering a new date into the Start field. Note that by modifying the start date of a given plan, Bluechip automatically adjusts the end date of the preceding plan to compensate; two consecutive plans cannot be separated by a period of 'null' time.

7.      (Optional) Modify the number of weeks within your plan cycle. The example above indicates that Plan 1 is a two-week cycle. The default is 1.

8.      To edit a given week for your selected Plan, enter the week number in the Week text box at the top of the window. The example above indicates that week 1 of 2 is selected for editing. After selecting the week you wish to edit, its settings will be displayed.

o      To copy the settings from a previous week to the current week, select the week you wish to copy settings to, and then click

 

9.      For each day of the week, enter the Start and Finish times the practitioner is available, for both the morning and afternoon sessions. The image above indicates that Doctor Ayres commences on Monday morning at 9:00 am, finishing at 12:00 p.m. He then has a break for 1 hour, commencing his afternoon session at 1:00 p.m. and continues through until 5:00 p.m.

o      You can copy the settings for Monday to Tuesday through Friday, by clicking

o      You can clear the weekend of Start and Finish times by clicking

 

10.   (Optional) Enter an Offset time for each day. The offset time refers to the first time period displayed in the Appointment Book, when you open it. Without defining an Offset time, the default time of 9:00 am is used, and hence when you open the Appointment Book, the first time displayed will be 9:00 am.

For sites where your appointments commence at 9:00 (for example), this may be an inconvenience, as on opening the Appointment Book you would have to scroll down to the 9:00 am slot to view your first appointments for the day. By setting an Offset time of 8:00 am (for example) your 9:00 appointments would be clearly visible at the top of the Appointment Book window, negating the necessity for you to scroll the page to locate them.

11.   (Optional) For each day, enter the practitioner's location for both morning and afternoon sessions, via the AM Location and PM Location boxes.

12.   (Optional) For each appointment type, enter a range of times that the practitioner is available. The example above indicates that Doctor Ayres is available for New appointments at 9:00am, 10:00am and 11:00 am.

13.   Click to save your settings and close the Plan Configuration window.