News and Notes of Interest

Watch this page for the latest news regarding E·Z Schedule and special notes of interest. 

8/10/2007 -  The latest version of E-Z Schedule now allows you to define and capture up-to ten (10) custom data fields for each appointment.  For details, click here.

You can now configure E-Z Schedule to send a copy of your backup file to a designated email address.  Free services like Google Mail or Yahoo Mail provide a simple and safe offsite solution for your data backup.  You must be using a Windows MAPI client (Outlook Express, Eudora) to take advantage of this enhancement.   Designate your backup email address by adding the following statement to your configuration:

EMail Backup=mybackupaddress@emailprovider.com

Additionally, backup filenames now contain timestamps for those users who take multiple backups during the course of a day.

If you are displaying client phone numbers on the schedule, a new option allows you to designate the primary telephone number to used as the display default.  To define your preference, add the following line to your configuration file:

Primary Phone=nPhone

where nPhone is 1 for the client's daytime phone, 2 for business phone and 3 for cellphone.  The system default is 1 (daytime phone).

When printing postcard reminders, you may now opt to suppress printing for those clients with email addresses on file.

You can now suppress the use of HTML in your email reminders by adding the following command to your configuration:

Use HTML in EMail=NO

Additionally, you may now compose your own customized email reminder.  Download and modify the file at this link, saving it to your E-Z Schedule folder.  When finding this file, E-Z Schedule will use the text found therein to compose email reminder messages.  Parameters in the text of the message allow you to include client names and appointment specifics in your message.  If you are familiar with HTML, you may include HTML formatting in your message.

E-Z Schedule System Administrators may now broadcast email messages to clients that have email information on file.  When invoked from the print menus, this procedure will prompt for an HTML or text file and will broadcast to applicable clients in groups of 50 addresses per message.  To allow you to test your broadcast, add the following statement to your configuration:

EMail Test Address=myemailaddress@myprovider.com

Warning!  These messages may be considered spam. 
Be sure that your email provider does not restrict the broadcasting of bulk email before broadcasting messages.

05/15/2007 - You may now opt to include client free-form notes in the Client Information display.  Enable this feature by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Show Client Notes=YES

2/11/2007 -  This release includes the ability to define up-to nine (9) custom data fields that can be stored for each appointment.  These fields can be text, numerical, date or multiple-choice type data.  The defined fields can be later be manipulated and displayed in custom reports developed to your specification.  Typical fields might include fees, collections and type of payment.   Typical reports could detail or summarize daily revenue and collections activity.  Contact technical support for more information on how you can configure custom appointment fields.

Additionally, you may now assign a color attribute to custom disposition fields as follows:

Disposition=nCode=cDescription;nColor

Disposition code colors supercede color attributes defined for appointment types.

Finally, in addition to our Canadian regional support, E-Z Schedule can now be configured for Australian users.  Click here to download the Australian Post Code database.  Save the database file into your shared E-Z Schedule folder and enable the feature by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Country=Australia

11/2/2006 -  The process of removing appointments from the schedule has been refined.  System Administrators may now remove multiple appointments for professionals from the File/Data Maintenance menu.  A dialog will open where you may specify a date range to govern the removals.  Leaving the "To Date" field blank will remove all appointments for the professional starting at the "From Date" through the end of the existing schedule.

Client appointments may be removed in two ways:  from the Client Maintenance dialog, deleting the client will alert you to the existence of any appointments on record for that client.  Confirming the delete request will remove all appointments for that client as well as deleting the client record from the Client Database.

Right-Clicking a scheduled appointment will allow you to Remove Multiple Appointments for a client/professional combination.  Again, leaving the "To Date" field blank will remove all appointments for the specified pairing starting at the "From Date"  through the end of the existing schedule.

You can also restrict this last feature to a list of authorized users by adding the following statement to your configuration file:

Remove Appointments=WinLoginName1;WinLoginName2; etc.

Administrators are always authorized to remove appointments regardless of the configuration.

Additionally, a new system log has been implemented to provide an audit trail of major system events such as configuration changes and removal of multiple appointments as described above.  The event log will be located in the system data file EZSched.Log.  You may disable this feature by adding the following statement to your configuration file:

System Log File=NO

Finally, users may now configure and save their preference for the AutoNumLock feature which automatically toggles NumLock on/off when typing in numeric or date input fields.  User preferences may be set by clicking on the Help menu item on any calendar view.

6/20/2006 - For easier recognition, the times in the first column of each view now change color to reflect the current schedule row.

2/04/2006 -  You can now stretch and compress Break blocks along with Appointments and Tasks [Alt+Up/Dn].

10/27/2005 -  A new feature has been added to provide client alerts when saving appointments.  The alert can serve to warn you when a client has a history of no-shows, non-payment or similar behavior that warrants attention.   Activate the client alert from the editing screen during client notes update.  If you don't have client notes and/or client alert available on your client maintenance screen, repair your databases from File/Data Maintenance/Repair Databases.  The repair process will add the notes and alert fields to your client database.

Additionally, a new feature has been added to allow you to export your appointment data for a specified date range to CSV text and/or dbase standard files.  You can access this feature from the File/Data Exchange menu.

7/18/2005 -  You can now opt to print Client notes on your daily schedules.  Add the following statement to your configuration:

Print Client Notes=YES

If you don't have client notes available on your client maintenance screen, repair your databases from File/Data Maintenance/Repair Databases.  The repair process will add the notes field to your client database.

Additionally, you may now define a retention period for your backup files by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Backup Retention=nDays

where nDays is a number (0-999).  Backup files that are older then nDays days will automatically be deleted as part of the backup process. To retain your backup files indefinitely, remove the statement or set nDays to zero.

4/1/2005 - For out Canadian users, we now offer support for Canadian postal code lookup.  Click here to download the Canadian Post Code database.  Extract the database files into your shared E-Z Schedule folder and enable the feature by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Country=Canada

Remove any previous configuration statements addressing postal codes.

Additionally, you may now define one or more custom periods on the Schedule Appointment Forward context menu by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Next Appointment=nWeeks; nWeeks; nWeeks

where nWeeks is a number (1-52). 

11/7/2004 -  You may now send appointment information to your Palm Desktop via vCalendar (.VCS) files created from File/Data Exchange.  These file cans be imported by your Palm Desktop (or any program that uses vCalendar exchange files) which can then synchronize events with your PDA.   Additionally, you may invoke the desktop exchange process immediately after creating the VCS file by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Run PDA Import=YES

To disable vCalendar support, add the following statement to your configuration:

PDA Export=NO

9/20/2004 -  You may now schedule a task for all the members of a group in the group view.  Select Insert a Group Task from the context menu.  Additionally, you may now allow the automatic removal of future appointments for a client by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Remove Forward=YES

9/8/2004 -  Free form notations have been added to the client database to allow the recording of unformatted comments and client information.  System administrators may effect the addition of the notes field by executing the "Repair Databases" procedure under File/Data Maintenance.  Comments can be added and reviewed on the client database maintenance screen (look for the clipboard icon).  Additional access to the notations from other program screens is forthcoming.

8/20/2004 -  You can now remove the date sensitivity from appointment dispositions by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Date Sensitive Dispositions=NO

This will allow you to assign a disposition to any appointment regardless of its calendar date.

Additionally, you may now display up to 20 people in the group view.  How practical this is in terms of readability will depend on your screen resolution and your personal preferences.  The system default remains  seven (7) but you may override this setting by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Group Maximum=nMaximum

where nMaximum is a number (2-20).  Please note that this statement must precede group definitions in order to be acknowledged.

5/18/2004 -  Appointment and task comments have been added to the Weekly and Group Schedule printouts.  Comments will print out as space allows on the appointment block.  To suppress the printing of comments on these reports, add the following statement to your configuration:

Print Comments=NO

2/06/2004 - New configuration options have been added to give additional flexibility to your user interface:  Having set Show Dispositions=Yes, you may now define up-to 99 alternate appointment dispositions using the following configuration statement:

Disposition=nCode=cDescription

where nCode is a number (1-99) and cDescription is a brief phrase to describe the appointment status.  Also, you may assign a Default Location to any individual being scheduled by adding a numerical location code to the Person definition as follows:

  Person=John Smith;Smith001;nLocationCode

where nLocationCode is the numerical code for one of your defined locations.  This will not interfere with the enhancements of 7/16/2003 should you have defined schedule restrictions by Windows login name.  Finally, for you Canadians, you can now switch the system-wide date format to dd/mm/yyyy by adding the following statement to your configuration:

Date Format=Canadian

1/16/2004 -  A new report has been added for users requesting a summary of the daily schedule that would fit on one page.  The report appears on print menus as "Print Daily Summary" and lists only the appointment time, Client Name/Task Description, Type and contact telephone number where applicable.

1/5/2005 - New options have been added to the context menu of scheduled appointments that will allow you to record the disposition of that appointment (e.g., Canceled, No-Show, etc.).  To activate this feature, add the following line to your configuration file:

Show Dispositions=YES

Additionally, you may invoke a search for all scheduled appointments for the client directly from the appointment context menu.

Also, you may now print the results of appointment searches.  Right-click the Print Button on the search results dialog box for printing options.

Return addresses can be now be added to postcard reminders by including a line similar to the following example in your configuration file:

Company Address=67 Wall Street; 22nd Floor; New York, NY 10005-3111

As indicated above, separate individual address lines with semicolons.

Finally, System Administrators may now view active users by hitting [Alt·U] from any view or by selecting Display Active Users from the File Maintenance Menu.

11/18/2003 -  A new option has been added to the context menu of scheduled appointments that will allow you to schedule that appointment forward to the same weekday and time of the following year. 

Appointment Type definitions have been expanded to allow the restriction of appointment types to specific persons.  Use the following format to restrict access to appointment types:

Type=nCode=cTypeLabel; nBlockColor; nApptLength; cAccessList

where "cAccessList" is a list of defined Person Codes delimited by commas, e.g.,

Type=005=Audit Consultation; -1; 60; ACCT0001,ACCT0002,ACCT0003

Type=008=Pediatric Exam; -2; 45; PEDIAT01,PEDIAT02,PEDIAT03

Note that access restrictions defined for the first appointment type will be ignored.

Finally, two new shortcuts were implemented:  when adding an appointment, right·clicking a name in the client browser will reveal basic client information for identification purposes; holding down the [Shift] key when right·clicking a scheduled appointment or task will bypass the context menu and reveal  client/task information.

11/5/2003 -  The appointment search function has been re-written correcting an intermittent bug that emerged for some users.  Keyboard shortcuts were expanded for many options.  These shortcuts are displayed where available and can be suppressed via the user preferences menu.  An icon has been added to the group view to jump to the current day's schedule.  We have expanded our client database import routines to accept CSV/Text files.

A new To-Do List feature has been added.  This is a simplified, convenient way for each user to maintain his/her own list of tasks not necessarily associated with client/patient schedules.  To activate this feature, add the following statement to your configuration:

Show To Do List=YES

9/30/2003 -  Postcard reminders have been reformatted the to meet USPS addressing standards.  Also, the available schedule periods for postcard and Email reminders have been expanded and two minor bugs have been repaired.

P.S.  For those of you needing a good source for quality postcard stock in a variety of tones, check out Desktop Publishing Supplies, Inc.

8/05/2003 -  A new configuration option has been added to allow you to print the weekly and group schedules on legal size (8˝ x 14") paper.  This option will improve legibility for those who are scheduling groups of 5 to 7 people.  To use legal paper,  add the following statement to your configuration:

Use Legal Paper=YES

7/29/2003 -  Get your E-Z Schedule desktop wallpaper here!

7/25/2003 -  A new context menu option has been added on all views to allow you to update client information directly from the appointment schedule block.

7/23/2003 -  A new context menu option has been added on all views to allow you to send an email to a scheduled client whose profile contains email information.

7/16/2003 -  New configuration options have been added to allow the restriction of schedule access based on users' Windows login names.  To restrict a group of users to view-only access to the entire database, add the following statement to your configuration:

View Only=WinLoginName1;WinLoginName2; etc.

where WinLoginName1, WinLoginName2, etc. are the full Windows login names of the restricted users.

To completely restrict access to a particular person's schedule, modify the Person Definition statement in the configuration as follows:

  Person=John Smith;Smith001;John Smith;Bob Jones

In this statement, Smith001 is the previously defined code for John Smith.  Only users with Windows login names John Smith and Bob Jones will be able to view the schedule of John Smith.  That schedule will be hidden from all other system users.

7/1/2003 -  New configuration rules have been implemented for both the Type= and Location= statements.  The new rules require the assignment if a 3 digit numerical code to each defined location and appointment type.  These rules have been added to avoid confusion as some users inadvertently repositioned those statements in their configuration files causing loss of type or location definitions.  This new method of code assignment will allow users to reorder the location and type lists at will without compromising the schedule information.  The new formats of Type and Location statements are as follows:

Type=nCode=cTypeLabel; nBlockColor; nApptLength

Location=nCode=cLocationLabel; nLabelColor; LOCK

Install the update on the administrator's workstation first. The system will automatically rewrite the current configuration file in the new format when first started to reveal the internally assigned Type and Location codes.  All remaining workstations must then be updated to conform to the new coding rules.

5/24/2003 -  A print option has been added on the client management dialog screen for those that have requested a simple way to print client data.

3/3/2003 -  You may now quickly jump to any calendar date by hitting [Alt-D].   A dialog box to opens accept a specific date.  Hitting [Enter] moves you to that date in any view.

1/29/2003 -  A new feature has been added to allow you to confirm client appointments.  Appointments that are not confirmed appear in yellow and are flagged with an asterisk.  Right-clicking the appointment provides an option to toggle confirmation status.  To activate appointment confirmations, add the following statement to your system configuration:

  Confirm Appointments=YES

1/01/2003 -  You can now assign default appointment lengths to appointment types.  The configuration statement for Type has been modified as follows:

  Type=cTypeLabel; nBlockColor; nApptLength

The lengths are defined in minutes and should be multiples of the standard appointment interval.  To assign an appointment type length without overriding the default block color scheme, use -1 for nBlockColor.

12/20/2002 -  Client database search facilities have been extended to allow lookups by phone numbers.  Three Locate buttons have been added next to the Home fields of the Client Maintenance Screen.

A new search index must be created to activate these facilities.  The simplest way to effect this is to erase the file Client.CDX from the E·Z Schedule data directory.  The new index file will be created when you next start the application.

11/22/2002 -  The configuration of office hours has been expanded to allow different schedules for specific days.  Remove references to Day Start and Day End and reconfigure your office hours as follows:

  Normal Office Hours= 09:00 to 18:00

To assign different schedules to specific days, use additional lines as demonstrated following:

  Wednesday Office Hours= 11:00 to 16:30
Saturday Office Hours= 13:00 to 15:00

After installing the enhancements, revise your system configuration file according to the above scheme removing any references to Day Start and Day End.  Also, be sure to use 24-hour notation when configuring office hours .

11/8/2002 -  You can now assign specific colors by appointment type so that you can emphasize those appointment blocks.  The configuration statement for Type has been modified as follows:

  Type=cTypeLabel; nBlockColor

11/6/2002 -  An MS Word template embedded with the graphics from these pages is now available for you to print to the reverse side of the postcard reminders.  

Click here to preview the graphics.
Click here to download the template.

11/4/2002 -  Configuration of day breaks has been made more flexible.  Up to nine break types may  be configured as follows:

  Break=cBreakLabel; nBreakLength; nBlockColor

After installing the enhancements, make sure to revise your system configuration file according to the above scheme removing any prior references to breaks (Lunch Break=, Dinner Break=, Break Color=).  Check the help file for more details.

11/1/2002 -  E·Z Schedule will now print out postcard reminders and/or generate Email reminder messages for your clients' upcoming appointments.