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iCal Personal Calendar Appointments is included in EXACT software from v12.4.
It requires no registration but is disabled by default, so simply needs to be configured by means of the Configure > Automatic Appointment Reminders > Automatic Emails configuration screen.
With iCal configured, patients booking online will also receive a confirmation email with .ICS attachment.
As one of the most widely used formats iCalendar is compatible with many patient of platforms.
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From Wikipedia: iCalendar is a computer file format that allows Internet users to send meeting requests and tasks to other Internet users, via email, or sharing files with an extension of .ics. Recipients of the iCalendar data file (with supporting software, such as an email client or calendar application) can respond to the sender easily or counter-propose another meeting date/time. iCalendar is used and supported by a large number of products, including Google Calendar, Apple Calendar (formerly iCal), IBM Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Calendar, Evolution (software), eM Client, Lightning extension for Mozilla Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, and partially by Microsoft Outlook and Novell GroupWise. |
Apple iPad example:
Microsoft Outlook example:
This is the reminder that patients will see in their own electronic calendar in advance of their appointments. The alarm setting is included in the iCal appointment to alert the patient ahead of the appointment. The default alarm interval is 60 minutes, but this is configurable from 0 to 99 minutes.
Note that this does not replace the normal automated appointment email and SMS reminders in EXACT; it is a calendar-based reminder that works with the patient's calendar appointment.
Receptionists often change appointment bookings multiple times before the patient commits to a particular appointment slot.
To allow time and flexibility for Receptionists to make these changes, you can configure an outbox delay (default is 10 minutes) during which EXACT will not email the .ICS appointment attachment to the patient.
Without this delay period EXACT would send iCal entries prematurely and the patient could have multiple incoming email appointment iterations.
iCal remains valid even for EXACT multi-location databases where Providers function within specific locations.
If the patient or the practice moves the appointment after it was created and after the .ics attachment was sent to the patient, EXACT creates a new .ics attachment and sends it to the patient, then when the patient opens it, this new attachment prompts the patient to Accept the new attachment:
IMPORTANT:
When rescheduling appointments Receptionists need to cancel the original appointment. This will cause EXACT to send the patient an ICS that when clicked will remove the original appointment from the patient's calendar.
If Receptionists fail to do this, patients will have the original appointment and the rescheduled appointment in their diaries.
If the patient or the practice cancels the appointment after it was created and after the .ics attachment was sent to the patient, EXACT creates a new .ics attachment and sends it to the patient, then when the patient opens it, this new attachment deletes the previous attachment and prompts the patient to remove from calendar:
Co-duty iCal appointments are emailed as for single appointments, but the wording includes the names of both co-duty Providers:
