New Features webinar, blog or video for this release:

Portal blog and video for EXACT v12.4

Rolling list of changes (CTRL-F5 to refresh):

Upgrades, Fixes, Issues (.TXT file)

General hardware and software requirements:

System Requirements | EXACT System Requirements

Email prompt before sending is now configurable

Before v12.4 practitioners were prompted before EXACT sent an automated appointment Email. This enabled practitioners to flexibly select appointment slots and only confirm the prompt when an appointment was finalised.

By default EXACT now delays appointment emails by 10 minutes, providing practitioners sufficient time to finalise appointment bookings before notifications are sent for those bookings.
Only one Email is sent, even if the practitioner had multiple attempts at appointments.

The Prompt before sending option is disabled by default, but can be enabled from the Automatic Emails screen of the Automatic Appointment Reminders Wizard, as shown in the image at left.

However, if you use iCal Personal Calendar Appointments we recommend that you leave this option un-checked because when prompted receptionists may sometimes click Cancel, which would cancel the automated confirmation email with its .ICS attachment, and provide an inconsistent experience for patients. Rather un-check this option to ensure consistent automated functionality.

Configuring Automatic Emails

iCal Personal Calendar Appointments

iCal Personal Calendar Appointments

Use this feature to email .ics format appointments automatically from EXACT to patient Email Inboxes.

Patients then open the .ics attachment to insert the appointment into their calendars.

This feature is included in the base software (it is not a registered module), so it just needs to be configured to be functional.

iCal Personal Calendar Appointments

Configuring Automatic Emails

iCal User Guide

Address Lookup

Solicit address data from a patient and then perform an address Lookup that displays a menu of valid addresses for selection.

Address Lookup

Changes to appointment booking Emails to Providers

Providers can opt to receive Email notification when patients book their services.

These notifications use the template set in the Email appointments field.

Historically there wer two options: receive notification (a template is specified) or don't receive notification (the template field is blank).

From v12.4 Providers have a third option: only receive notification when an appointment book or online booking is made in advance of when the Provider next expects to service a booking.

For example:

Provider RGP's next appointment is scheduled for two days from now. A patient books online, selects RGP as Provider and schedules her appointment for tomorrow. Because this new appointment is in advance of the next appointment that RGP is expecting, RGP receives an email notification.

Booking notification Emails sent to Providers

Changed behaviour in View Note Types window

NOTE: From v12.4 editing of Note Types is removed from the View Note Types window, resulting in a subtle change in behaviour... Previously, double-clicking on a Note Type in this window would display the Edit window. Double-clicking is now the same as clicking the OK button, effectively choosing the selected record.
To "edit" a Note Type, delete and then re-create it.

Affected topics:

Using Quick Notes to speed Note creation

Creating and Deleting Quick Note Types

Additional explanation in Allocated Payments Report

An explanation of "Unknown" Payor has been added to the text Notes in the Allocated Payments Report.

The receipt should not change from one report period to the next, so the report always uses the posting date position for the receipt as its starting value.

Consequently, the payor can remain 'unknown' even when the payment is later fully allocated.

Affected topic:

Interpreting the Allocated Payments Report

Change the ordering of online booking reasons as displayed on the booking site

From the Online Booking Website Builder configuration screen you can customise the ordering of Booking Reasons that will display to customers on the booking site.

This screen also features a listing of Booking Reasons that are associated with marketing campaigns.

Configuring the online booking website

Campaign media Sending Day

For Marketing Manager the Sending Day is now shown in the Edit Campaign window in campaign setup, so practitioners can see this information locally, without going to the online Campaign Design.

Topics affected:

Creating a new Campaign

Creating an automated campaign with Campaign+

Appointment Statuses

Appointment Statuses indicate the patient's current position in the appointment workflow. Two new statuses have been added:

Appointment moved

Appointment deleted (only visible when the Show Audit checkbox is checked)

Topics affected:

Appointment Status

Appointment Statuses, Icons and Triggers