Tip: Did you know that the calendar selector allows you to jump several months or years? Click on the name of the month or year to get a selection list.

Set duration: This defaults to 10 minutes but can be of any duration always measured in minutes.

Select all staff: Select the staff mnemonic of the teacher for whom you want to make appointments and click the Add button.

Delete Staff: If you include staff by accident or you later discover you don't want them you can delete them in like fashion - select their mnemonic and click Delete. If a member of staff has slots (i.e. allocated spaces for appointments) these will also be deleted together with the appointments that may have been allocated to those slots. You will get a warning but people have been known to ignore such warnings!

Appointment slots: You may want to pre-set slots for appointments or you may just want to type in each appointment - the choice is yours. You can also create slots and then edit as you see fit.

Creating Slots: Select the date for the slots. If you want slots on several days, you will have to select each date in turn. Set the start and finish time. Please note that the system will create slots up to AND INCLUDING the finish time. So if you have a 1 hour lesson which you can use for slots, the lesson starts at 0900 and finishes at 1000 with 10 minute duration slots, select 0900 to 0950 as you will not want an appointment at 1000! Once the time and date have been set, click the Add slots button.

Edit slots: Slots can be deleted, the times changed or more added. Adding can be on a line by line basis where you type in the date, time and select pupil and parents or you can use the Add slots button as many times as you wish.

Select pupils: The drop down will show a list of pupils that have been tagged for your selected tag list. If you find that there are pupils missing from this list, you can always manage the tag set in the normal way.

Select parents: Most children have one parent set and this will be found in the selection drop down. If a child has more than one primary set of parents then the list will show all such sets. The priority will also be displayed to ensure you select the right parents.

Questions and Answers

Q Can a pupil/parent have more than one appointment in an appointment set?
A Yes - it is quite possible that a child be selected more than once. It may be that you need to see both parent sets independently - arrange two appointments for the child - one with one parent, one with another
Q Can more than one staff member be involved with an appointment?
A Yes, just go to the second staff member and use an appointment slot with them for the same child/parent set. The time could be the same or could be different dependant on your needs.
Q Could an appointment for one particular family be longer than the general duration?
A Yes - the start time for an appointment is fixed but not the end time. The presumption is that the next appointment slot will dictate the end but you can delete the next slot or use it to add the pupil / parent in for an immediate second appointment. The first method is the preferred method.

Appointment Reports

There are five reports available at present. Each is triggered directly from the menu.

General: Lists all appointments and slots. It is grouped by child such that you can see where a child has multiple appointments - whether that is by design or by accident.

All Staff: This lists all slots for all staff in date and time order. All appointments for a single member of staff are on a single page (if they will fit) but you can get several staff on one page.

Selected staff: Just select a member of staff and click 'Selected Staff' to get a single page for that staff member.

Selected date: Set the date using the calendar control or just type in the date. All appointment slots are shown for the selected day.

Tag list: This will list all pupils who are tagged, regardless of whether they have an appointment set or not.