What is the context?
Meddbase allows booking meetings outside of appointments during clinician's normal working schedule, and add clinicians, and non-medical staff as attendees.
This helps to:
- Plan activities
- Reduces the chance of double booking a clinician's diary
- Provide clear visibility of commitments for clinicians.
Click here for more details on Working with Meetings.
Click here for more details on Booking & managing Online Meetings.
What is the purpose of the article?
It is now possible to book meetings that recur according to a particular schedule. This article describes the additional functionality and related configuration, including:
- Meeting recurrence options on the 'Book a meeting' page.
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Editing the meeting, adding attendees and saving the meeting on the 'Book a meeting' page.
- Meeting Collaboration Page.
- Meeting Invitation Email.
Meeting recurrence options on the 'Book a meeting' page
When booking a meeting (via Calendar, Clinician's Diary or Room) the Meeting Booking page will display a checkbox allowing a user to set a recurring schedule for the meeting.
In this article we will book the meeting via Calendar or Clinician's Diary, as follows:
1. Begin booking the meeting:
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- If booking the meeting for yourself - From the Start Page click Calendar.
- If booking the meeting for someone else - From the Start Page click Find Clinician, search for the Medical Person using the available search criteria and click on the search result. On the Clinician Details page click Diary.
2. Navigate to the appropriate date via the monthly calendar in the top-left part of the screen (top-right when booking via Clinician's Diary).
3. Click in the time slot on the day that denotes the time you wish to block out.
4. On the Book a meeting dialog, click the Make recurring checkbox.
This opens the Set recurring schedule dialog and allows defining the below options:
This opens the Set recurring schedule dialog allowing setting the meeting recurrence options:
1. Starts on - the first date (DD/MM/YYYY) for the meeting series. This, by default, reflects the date of the slot clicked in the calendar or Clinician's Diary, but can be overridden.
2. Frequency - this section allows setting the frequency of the meeting recurrence to:
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- Daily - when this option is selected, the meeting will recur every 1 day by default (see point 3).
- Weekly - when this option is selected, the meeting will recur every 1 week by default (see point 3).
- Selecting weekly frequency allows picking the days of the week (Monday to Sunday) the weekly meeting will repeat on.
- Consider the below example setup, where the meeting will recur every 1 week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
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- Monthly - when this option is selected, the meeting will recur every 1 month by default (see point 3).
Selecting monthly frequency provides the option to set Rules for the monthly recurrence:
The Rules* section will show 2 dropdown menus, where you may select either specific days (Mon - Sun) of the week in specific weeks of the month (First, Second, Third, Fourth or Last).
And finally in the first dropdown you may also select the Specific day which changes the second dropdown and allows you to choose specific days of the month such as the 1st, 3rd, 11th etc. This also allows picking days in reverse to accommodate the ability to pick the Last day of the month.
You can also use the Add button to add a new row and thus include as many days of the month as you wish.
*When attempting to set meeting recurrence with invalid/mutually exclusive criteria, e.g. book First Saturday of the month, but do not include weekends (see point 4), will result in a 'Problem' message being displayed on screen.
Consider the below example setup, where the meeting will recur every 1 month on the First Tuesday of the month, Last Friday of the month and every 15th of the month.
3. Repeat every - set to 1 by default, meaning the selected Frequency will apply every 1 day, 1 week or 1 month accordingly. The default value can be changed, e.g. if set to 2 the selected Frequency will apply every 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months accordingly.
4. Includes
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- Bank holidays - ticking this checkbox will result in the above settings applying on Bank Holidays
- Weekends - ticking this checkbox will result in the above settings applying on Weekends
Both checkboxes can be ticked simultaneously. When setting weekly frequency and selecting Saturday and/or Sunday, the 'Includes Weekends' checkbox becomes obsolete.
5. Stops - this section allows setting a time frame for the meeting recurrence, so that it does not recur indefinitely
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- After* - this box allows entering an integer to set the number of recurrences of the selected meeting frequency. Having repeated the set number times, the recurrence of the selected meeting frequency stops.
- On - this field allows setting a specific date (DD/MM/YYY) when the recurrence of the selected meeting frequency stops.
*The maximum number of meeting recurrences is 2000. Setting a higher value will result in a 'Problem' message being displayed on screen.
6. OK - clicking this button saves the meeting recurrence configuration and takes you back to the Book a meeting dialog.
Editing the meeting, adding attendees and saving the meeting on the 'Book a meeting' page
Once back to the 'Book a meeting' page you can edit the meeting setup, add attendees and finally save the meeting.
Editing the meeting
To edit the meeting on the 'Book a meeting' page:
1. Click the Edit settings button.
2. Make relevant changes to the meeting setup.
3. Click OK to apply the changes and you will be taken back to the 'Book a meeting' page, where you can see the Summary of the meeting setup.
Adding attendees
To edit the meeting on the 'Book a meeting' page:
1. Click the Add attendee button.
2. Search for the relevant individual(s) you wish to invite to the meeting and click on the search result.
3. Click OK to apply the changes and you will be taken back to the 'Book a meeting' page, where you can see the Summary of the meeting setup.
Saving the meeting
Once ready, click Save on the 'Book a meeting' page.
If the meeting recurrence pattern is set such that no dates fall within it, then a single meeting is booked on the date set in the booking dialog.
Meeting Conflicts
If the system identifies any conflicts in the scheduling of the meeting with other meetings with respect to attendee or location, a Confirm Save pop-up appears upon saving the meeting.
The Confirm save dialog provides information and options:
1. This section lists the proposed meetings that have conflicts with respect to attendee or location
2. The Skip conflicting meetings checkbox, ticked by default, results in the listed meetings not being booked. You can untick this box, which will result in double-booking on the listed dates for the listed attendees and/or locations.
3. The Book button let's you go ahead with the meeting booking and either Skip conflicting meetings or Double-book.
Meeting Collaboration Page
Clicking on a Meeting block on a calendar timeline opens the Meeting Collaboration page where details of the meeting series can be viewed and edited.
Meeting Menu
The top action bar of the collaboration page includes a Meeting button. Clicking presents some options:
1. Show All - this button opens a table that replaces the Meeting Feed section (a Back to meeting button becomes available on the top action bar that brings back the Message Feed). Available options are explained in the (click here ->) Show All Meetings Table chapter below.
2. Add new - this button opens the Add new meeting dialog that allows you to add new meetings to the same series. The fields of the meeting booking dialog are populated in the same manner as for editing a meeting. This means that the subject, notes, the online meeting setting and attendees are pre-populated. If the subject, notes or telemedicine setting are different for the new meetings, they apply to all the meetings after now. Similarly, as with editing a meeting, if there are any new attendees, they are added as collaborators to the network.
Meetings List
To the left hand side of the collaboration page which can show up to 11 meetings and additional options:
1. View meeting activity - this button allows viewing the activity log for a given meeting, e.g. when and by whom it was booked or who and when had made changes to it.
2. Edit meeting - this button opens the Book a meeting dialog for the given meeting where it can be amended and saved.
3. Cancel meeting - this button let's you cancel a meeting in the series.
4. Show all - (also available under Menu on the top action bar) this button opens a table that replaces the Meeting Feed section (a Back to meeting button becomes available on the top action bar that brings back the Message Feed). Several options are available here, explained below
Show All Meetings Table
Clicking Show all presents a table that list of all the meetings in this series.
1. Text fields - these fields allow you to provide a From - To date range and view meetings in the series accordingly.
2. Checkboxes - these checkboxes allows you to multiselect meetings in the series. The top checkbox allows you to Select/Deselect All. You can subsequently Cancel meetings in bulk.
3. Edit a meeting in the series - the button opens the Book a meeting dialog for the given meeting where it can be amended* and saved.
*If the meeting being edited is in the future, the subject, notes and telemedicine settings apply to all the meetings after now. If the meeting being edited is in the past, then subject, notes and telemedicine settings apply to all meetings after that meeting. Other settings of the meeting such as time, length etc only apply to the meeting being edited.
4. Cancel selected meetings - this button allows cancelling the selected meetings in bulk.
Meeting invitation email
When adding recurring meetings, an invitation email for the first meeting is sent to all attendees. The content of the email is same as it would be for a non-recurring meeting. When editing a meeting in the series, an email with the new details of that meeting is sent.
The attendee can also use the Leave meeting button available in the received email. When an attendee leaves the meeting they are removed as attendee from all the meetings as well as collaborator from the network.
Review date
This article was last updated on 22nd of Feb 2023 in the context of Meddbase version 1.265.1.16381