General Calendar
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I started using CGI Calendar several years ago when helping an injured technician cover his customers because it allows two different people to schedule appointments from two different locations at the same time. Being internet based, both parties stay on the same page so to speak. This is perfect if you have someone helping with your scheduling from a different location.
It can also be used by a single schedular and appointments can be added from anywhere that has an internet connection. There are a number of other benefits to this system as well. At the same time, being internet based, it is important to implement a backup strategy which is a simple as saving one internet file to your computer on a frequent basis. You can do this with the "back up data" link (using the Save option) from any calendar page.
I have recently made a "View Only" version that will work in conjunction with the main calendar so that you may make this "View Only" version available on your website along with a request for appointment form. This opens up many time saving opportunities to cut down on phone time.
While this calendar has some limitations, and almost all calendars do, there is a simple system that works quite well and the calendar is extremely easy to learn to use. The main trick is to put Town;Lastname in the What field. This allows you to quicly scan the month and schedule appointments near each other geographically. If planning to make the "View Only" version available to your clients on your web site, your might prefer Town;Closed to hide the Lastname. (Outlook Calendar Users see below)
Data input window sample:
What Sacramento;Closed (or City;Lastname) (or City;Open)
When 10:30 AM
Where (I leave Where blank)
Additional Details 09-07;13;10:30a;;;Tremaine;Parsons;P. O. Box
241;Georgetown;CA;95634;530-333-9299;;steinway;uprt;;3081 B St lft on main
rt on harkness lft on B st last on lft;;Sierra Software
Services;;;sbwss@sbwss.com;
Note: The Additional Details text was created using the Internet Explorer Data Entry Form Template or Firefox Data Entry Form Template as a source to paste data into the Additional Details text box. This format may then be copied and pasted directly into a Ptools client record from the Additional Details box. These templates are recommended even if you do not use Pscale as you have a consistant, delimited, format that may be importable to other programs.
Note: When you save the data input window, it will look like your Additional Details get scrambled but it is just the script adding special characters to preserve spaces in your text of details.
There is another anomoly that I recently noticed: When editing an appointment, the top row has Date settings which one might believe will move the current appt. to a different date. IT DOES NOT and will merely delete the appt. if you change the date.
The data file is stored in a "flat file" format as a simple text file. I plan to explore possible utilities in the future for reading and manipulating this data.
Outlook Calendar Users:
If you use the following format in MS Outlook Calendar then you can use our OCTOOLS utility to publish your calendar to the CGI Calendar.
Subject Sacramento;Closed
(or City;Lastname) (or City;Open)
Additional Details 09-07;13;10:30a;;;Tremaine;Parsons;P. O. Box
241;Georgetown;CA;95634;530-333-9299;;steinway;uprt;;3081 B St lft on main
rt on harkness lft on B st last on lft;;Sierra Software
Services;;;sbwss@sbwss.com;
Start Time 10:30 AM
End Time 12:30 PM
Placing the delimited string into the location field will render a good weekly printout so as to not require a dialy printout.