When Outlook Scheduling is Not Enough

Posted on January 25, 2011 by asuresoftware

Here’s a quick experiment: Take a glass of your favorite drink, and pour half into a second glass, so you’ve got two half-full glasses (or half-empty, if you prefer). Now, fill one up with water, and leave the other alone. Which will taste better? Let’s put it another way: in your office, you have recently gone from having an average of two meetings a week to having daily meetings. In which system did the meetings have more impact? In both of these cases, the preferred option is the undiluted version. Too much water ruins the flavor, and too many meetings will ruin the impact of meetings.

When you schedule meetings, begin by taking steps to ensure it’s a necessary event. For the past several years, the average number of meetings has increased while employee dissatisfaction with meetings has increased. The solution is to decrease the number of meetings, which will help with both issues. Once that has been accounted for, the work of the scheduling begins, and for many the easiest way to do so is with a tool found in a huge number of companies.

Microsoft Outlook scheduling is capable and surprisingly full of features for an email client. Prasanth Chandra explains the basics in an informative how-to guide for Outlook scheduling. There’s an easy way to click on the desired date, invite members and make changes as needed. The option to make a recurring appointment is particularly useful. And yet that’s still a pretty limited interface for meeting scheduling. There are a lot more needs that need to be met. Outlook scheduling is adequate for certain businesses and situations, certainly. On the other hand, Outlook scheduling is absolutely ineffective for organizations with more complex needs.

For instance, when creating a meeting with Microsoft Outlook scheduling, you do so as an attendee. That can result in double bookings, which is entirely unacceptable. Another key feature you won’t find in Outlook scheduling is the ability to schedule resources. If a room has or needs a projector, you won’t be able to ascertain that information with Outlook scheduling. Companies who rely on equipment and vary rooms certainly won’t be able to use Microsoft Outlook scheduling as a stand alone product. Of course because Outlook is so widely used, it’s still a valuable tool to incorporate in a proper scheduling software. Outlook scheduling will only be comprehensive when it is supplemented with a feature-rich software client.

Potency can be achieved through two ways: removing the excess, or by increasing the relevant material. Meeting potency therefore can be achieved through simple math: Decrease the superfluous meetings. Increase the scheduling method’s ability, thus reducing the error and waste.

Photo courtesy Fosforix

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Controlling Your Own Destiny in a Down Year

Posted on January 19, 2011 by asuresoftware

Twenty five percent of almost a thousand companies surveyed plan to upgrade, expand or implement a resource scheduling tool in the coming year, according to a recent Forrester Research report. The other 75% are in a “holding pattern,” expecting no further investment in resource scheduling tools.

Like many statistics, these indicate good news and bad news at the same time. The numbers are down 4% from 2010, but it’s still much better for the industry than the very poor 2009. Chris Kanaracus for PC World further reports that around half of the customers who use resource scheduling tools are using outdated products, released sometimes two versions behind.

It’s certainly an interesting time for the resource scheduling industry. The economic tea leaf readers don’t have too high of hopes for 2011 and most sectors look to stay stagnant. However, there’s reason to be optimistic about the usage of a software based resource scheduler. Although only a small percentage of those surveyed plan to spend money on a resource scheduling tool, that’s more indicative of a budgetary situation than a need or desire for a resource scheduler. In fact, one advantages of a solid resource scheduling tool for a competitive company is that its implementation and use can reduce overhead costs. This means that though there may not be money in the budget for new software, a software program that could pay for itself through savings can be considered.

Looking more deeply, we can see there’s more cause for optimism. A 25-29% drop over the last year wouldn’t seem to inspire so much good tidings on the surface, but again the situation can be called into focus. Because so many markets and industries are expected to have a horizontal profit line, companies will focus internally on efficiency to reduce overhead wherever they can. Resource scheduling tools, like a lot of software solutions, offers ways to cut fat in the busy-work area of man hours. Keeping track of projectors and speakers isn’t really a good use of employees, after all; it’s simply more practical to use a resource scheduler. So when companies looking to stay profitable or even expand during a lean year need a way to gain an extra advantage, a software-based resource scheduler could help contribute to a more efficient organization.

There’s no way to know for sure what 2011 will hold for your company, of course. (Unless you’re working for the NFL, in which case there’s a pretty solid chance there will be a lockout.) That’s why finding ways to cut unnecessary costs — like a resource scheduling tool — is such a good idea in during relatively lean times.

photo courtesy photos8.com

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Seek and Ye Shall Find: A Lesson in Software Shopping from Across the Atlantic

Posted on January 18, 2011 by asuresoftware

There are no shortage of considerations to juggle when you’re shopping for software. An intensely competitive field, there are countless options to judge and many more options to choose from. Sometimes the sheer abundance of variety is paralyzing in and of itself: Mr. Burns, the fictional tycoon from The Simpsons, went out to grocery shop for the first time and found himself committed to an asylum based on his inability to determine the difference between “catsup” and “ketchup.” The magnitude of choices is less of a factor than the underlying reasons behind such a software purchase, which means that by knowing what you need before you compare options, you can drastically cut down on the difficulty of selection.

For an example, let’s look at the process of choosing software through a software designer. In 2002, Jurgen Lust was asked by the Ghent University to drastically overhaul its class scheduling system. The old class scheduling software was on MS-DOS, which was unfriendly to users and not very “smart” — allowing conflicting schedules and room usage, for instance. Mr. Lust, tasked to design and develop a completely new classroom scheduling software, started by studying current iteration of class scheduling. This allowed him to determine exactly where the users were most frustrated with the old class scheduling software, as well as find out the biggest problems. The process is a little like the (possibly apocryphal) story of Michelangelo, who when asked about his process for creating the magnificent statue of David, replied, “I simply carved away everything that wasn’t [David].” The lesson is that knowing what not to use is as important as knowing what to use.

Next, Jurgen focused on the class scheduling system requirements. The University specified a few key necessities, such as fine user acess control, user friendliness, and scalability for 36,000 people. By incorporating the full list of his client’s needs with his first hand reference of the old software, Jurgen was able to develop his vision of the ideal system for classroom scheduling.

After all was said and done, Jurgen successfully supplied Ghent with their class scheduling program, which is still in use more than seven years later. The program he built allows students and staff to retrieve their personal calendar and to schedule appointments in an online calendar, much like Google’s popular version. One of the coolest features provides user-specific responses to classroom scheduling requests: administrators receive all information, for instance, while biology teachers asking the same request will learn only their department’s available rooms.

Now, you don’t have to spend months of research before you buy software for your own class scheduling needs. However, the salient advice to be taken from Jurgen Lust’s approach is that doing the research requires the equivalent effort of doing the project itself. Figure out what doesn’t work with the current system, what the requirements of a new one are, and suddenly the baffling array of choices is winnowed down to relevant, manageable choices.

photo courtesy Wesley Oostvogels

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Paperless Notes and the Doctor’s Office Of Tomorrow

Posted on January 12, 2011 by asuresoftware

It’s often been observed that the person you spend the least time with at the doctor’s office is the doctor. The reasons for this are fairly obvious (the doctor’s time is valuable and has to be split amongst various patients) and to some extent unavoidable. So how is the trip to the doctor going to change in the near future? How will technology evolve to enhance the medical field? Forth Worth, Texas, has a glimpse into what these visits might look like in the next few years.

At Baylor All Saints Medical Center, Monique McLauren works as a medical scribe for Dr. Ampelas. Using a laptop, Monique enters patient information, charts, prescriptions, conditions, and notes, while also taking care of the complex electronic filing. Since the industry is still in its infancy, keeping up with the online records is difficult or at least time-consuming for most doctors. Trained scribes, usually with medical backgrounds of their own, allow the doctors to spend more time with patients, and then more time with each patient. It’s not just about the length of time but also the quality: Doctors with scribes aren’t looking down into their chart or behind a computer, they’re examining patients.

It sounds like a welcome step forward. As the medical and medical appointment software fields grow, there become more opportunities to reshape the current health care landscape. Consider medical scheduling software, for instance. With whom do you spend the most time when you visit the doctor? It’s probably the receptionist, who gives you the paperwork, takes the phone calls, schedules the appointment, and so forth. What do those things have in common? They’re all busy work, things that advanced software should be able to do automatically. Medical appointment software can be used to drastically cut down on the employee time devoted to medical scheduling. Software can confirm appointments and avoid double-booked rooms, and health care workers can spend time on people who need health care.

Medical appointment software changes the experience of going to the doctor before you even step foot into the building. Rather than a phone call, or a card in the mail reminding you to get your teeth cleaned — those six months always fly by — you can receive an email. Medical scheduling software makes it easy: You could click on a calendar on the doctor’s website, confirm with a second click, and be all ready to go without being placed on hold. Medical scheduling software is an important first step.

Once into the next generation of doctor’s office, you’ll probably still spend some time in a waiting room. It would take a rather drastic technological leap to clear that particular hurdle. However, there’s still hope for a better and more modern experience in the doctor’s actual office. Scribes where there was a distracted doctor; medical appointment software where there was a receptionist navigating multiple phone lines; electronic records where there was endless forms of paperwork and pens with no ink left. Some of these are farther into the future than others but fortunately medical appointment software is one that’s already around. In the meantime, it’s still best to bring a book from home when you have your check up.ph

photo courtesy Instant Vantange

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Tightening Their Belts: Law Firm Software May Help In a Competitive Field

Posted on January 6, 2011 by asuresoftware

At the end of the year, many folks use the opportunity to take personal inventory of their lives and set goals for the upcoming calendar change. It’s no different for the business world. What better time to go over the books, analyze the trends of the market, and start coming up with new ideas?

The AM Law Daily investigated the state of the legal industry, and, as in many sectors, it was not as good a year as was hoped for. There’s a silver lining in the clouds, though. With the money stream slowed, law firms are looking for ways to become more profitable without increasing their billing rate. Some are outsourcing offices to cheaper locations or even overseas in order to save on the bottom line — yet that appears to be a fairly drastic decision. For most in the legal industry, simple efficiency changes in the structure of the firm can make enough of a monetary difference to stay on an increasingly-crowded playing field. It can start with law firm software upgrades, or green-technology based upgrades in the existing building.

Many firms are experiencing flat revenue growth, according to the article. That’s not the most positive news, but there are two important factors to consider: the market itself is getting smaller, and the number of competitors in the industry is rising. Firms have responded in a few unique ways, one of which is to offer alternative fee arrangements as a way to sidestep price wars currently being held using the traditional billing hours method. They’ve also begun focusing on their own operational efficiencies.

Law office management is a huge endeavor; as many know all too well, it takes a lot of hours and effort to run a law firm. Law firm software is a new solution that can help. Law office management software facilitates a lot of law office management headaches, whether it’s allocating resources on the fly, synching with current outlook standards, or simply having an easy-to-find web-based public calendar.

Many firms use their own proprietary systems for their law office management software. For other, smaller companies, there are still issues of integration, functionality, and pricing. Law office management software is tremendously helpful and efficient, but that doesn’t preclude any integration problems. If you’re looking to help lower in-house costs and give your firm more time to spend on clients (and less on law office management), law firm software is a good area to consider a change.

The law has always been a premium industry — now it faces a new challenge. With law schools reporting increasing attendance year after year, and wages across the board being lowered, the market will continue to be competitive while in all likelihood shrinking for the foreseeable future. The new adapters, those quick on their feet, will be the ones who last.

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The Best (and Worst!) Conference Rooms In America

Posted on January 5, 2011 by asuresoftware

The conference room isn’t just a place to have meetings. Not anymore! Whereas most office buildings seem to be constructed with the premise that creativity is negative in relation to work, the modern office space has evolved. Office design has of course changed tremendously from those cookie-cutter beginnings, and the most important design in any office is the conference room. Conference rooms are the soul of the office; they are the best place to go to understand any organization.

Pixar Office

The most effective conference room design will reflect something of the organization. There might be more aesthetically pleasing designs than Pixar’s offices in Emeryville, California, sure. The cubicles look like little sheds, the shared spaces have regular couches and tables. Yet no high design would be this well-suited to Pixar. The conference room is a huge, open area that can house the whole team and also incorporates some of the best audio visual equipment in the world.

North Advertising

North Advertising, in Portland, Ore., has a particularly striking conference room design. Over the office floor, which is itself a long table that serves as a workstation for a dozen employees, the second-level meeting room protrudes. The conference room is effectively an office aquarium, a striking glass-enclosed centerpiece for a wholly original take on what a meeting space can look like.

Even more so than Pixar, game studio Three Rings Design in San Francisco made their office space unique to their culture. Modeled after Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the offices have an attacking octopus couch, a secret lounge, places hidden behind bookcases, and of course a section of a wall made to look like a porthole. The conference room is in fact just a table and chairs, modeled after the style of table aboard the Nautilus, with a huge glass window to its side. Why is this one of the best conference rooms in America? Because it fits Three Rings Design. It lets them be creative, to come to a consensus, to get their work done. In the end, that’s what really matters. (It doesn’t hurt, of course, that it’s also very cool-looking.)

The Worst

Now we come to the worst conference room. You’ve probably been here before, or in a room just like this. The chairs were fabric that was just a little too old, the tables were plastic and collapsible. The audio couldn’t sync with the visual for the first part of the presentation. These are all very common experiences in corporate meeting rooms. The bland, generic, fast-food style design is efficient for places that might host conferences (easy to adapt, clean, etc.), but it’s certainly displeasing to the participants of the meeting.

Functionality and design don’t have to be at odds. Pixar, for example created a middle area in their office space to double as a huge conference room, while North Advertising added a second floor for a single room. The worst are reminiscent of a Slurpee without syrup, all of the form but none of the heart. The best conference rooms will be visually interesting, practically usable, and appropriate for the organization that uses them.

Photos credits : Pixar courtesy DPR, North Advertising courtesy SD Examiner,  Three Rings courtesy Wired

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Medical Appointment Software: Reinventing Student Health Care

Posted on December 15, 2010 by asuresoftware

There’s a lot to dislike about getting sick that doesn’t involve illness in any way. It’s a hassle, a waste of time, and it’s entirely inconvenient just to set an appointment and see a doctor. Then, in the process of medical evaluation, there are tests to run. MRIs or x-rays can result in out-of-pocket costs or cause delays waiting for insurance to be filled and processed. After all those minefields are successfully cleared, there are still payments and records to consider. The Student Health and Wellness Center for Utah State University decided to change their file system and installed medical scheduling software to manage the tedious details. The results have been overwhelmingly positive!

Medical appointment software is the first convenience that Aggies will notice. Rather than calling during business hours to schedule a visit, students can do so online and receive confirmation first thing next morning. As any college alumni can tell you, being able to set a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the night is a huge convenience.

Medical appointment software isn’t just helping students. On the administration side, the Student Health and Wellness Center (SHWC) employees are saved many hours they normally devoted to filing. It’s reduced workload and allowed the SHWC receptionists — who previously had to make use of a typewriter to complete charts — to do a better job. Medical appointment software lets one receptionist do the work that used to require three.

Furthermore, medical scheduling software has helped cut some of the annoying red tape that exists in the billing department of health care services. The SHWC at Utah State can now use the medical scheduling software to directly bill insurance companies, reducing expenses that many students can’t afford.

The change has worked well, but there are some slight disadvantages to medical scheduling software implementation to consider. Some nurses and staff have had difficulty in training and learning to use the new system. Even with increased efficiency from the medical scheduling software, there is still a learning curve.

Hospitals and health care centers like the one at Utah State are entering a new world of operation. Right now we have incredible medical advancements and ability, but it’s easy to lose track of the many failures of the medical industry. Paperwork errors have resulted in erroneous surgeries, insurance fraud, patients being denied coverage, and thousands of other problems ranging from slightly annoying all the way to lawsuit-worthy negligence. With advanced medical scheduling software controlling the worst aspects of hospitals and health care centers, many of those issues will be things of the past.

 

 

Photo Courtesy katieloupoo1

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Planning a Holiday Party? Try Interactive Scheduling

Posted on December 13, 2010 by asuresoftware

It’s getting to be that time of year. When the days shorten and you can see your breath hang in the air, you know the big event is just around the corner: the office holiday party. More likely than not, if you’re an office manager, you’ll be in charge of making arrangements. It may sound like fun, but planning a party is no different than planning a meeting and can be difficult to arrange. Treating a party as a business event by using interactive scheduling and an online calendar can go a long way to helping limit the time you spend on arrangements.

In the last few years, companies have cut back on office parties and events, which is to be expected in such rough economic times. However, this year surveys have indicated a rise in holiday party frequency. If your office is one of those, you can follow these 5five guidelines to ensuring an enjoyable celebration:

  1. Have entertainment. Maybe a small band, or a karaoke machine. If you don’t have a budget, you could initiate a $10 maximum gag gift exchange between employees, or have an ugly sweater contest.
  2. Serve food. A few items that don’t necessitate a knife and fork is enough, there doesn’t have to be a full spread buffet table.
  3. Have drinks. If there’s alcohol, then make sure to incorporate the season into festive drinks. For those who don’t drink, be sure there’s a few equally appealing non-alcoholic drinks, and stock up on water. For employees imbibing, dancing, or doing both, being hydrated is important.
  4. Consider an off night. Most office parties happen on the first or second Saturday evening of December. There are more options and deals if you host the party on a less traditional day. To help with the dates, use interactive scheduling and online calendars.
  5. Transportation for the partygoers is mandatory if you’re serving alcohol. That can be as simple as arranging a few rides for a smaller get together, but for larger groups consider a hotel as a place to throw the party: there’s always a line of cabs outside waiting for riders.

As with a meeting, there are plenty of ways to keep the partygoers in the loop. Online calendars are used to arrange meeting room logistics, and they can be of great use to party planners. Interactive scheduling is a good way to ensure number four (above) gets vetted by the employees at large. A shared online calendar that displays work schedules and can be modified on both the administration and employee side is useful to picking an off day that works for everyone.

With some advance work and a little foresight, the holiday party will be an event to remember for all involved. Online scheduling will help alleviate logistical hassles for entertainment and transportation. Interactive scheduling coupled with online calendars for visibility and convenience will help ensure everyone can make it. After all, the holidays only come once a year.

Photo courtesy Dano

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Scheduling Comes To The Great Outdoors

Posted on December 7, 2010 by asuresoftware

Pretend you’re planning a weekend in the

woods, a camping trip for your family. After you finished scheduling your time off, you’ll need to make arrangements for transportation; maybe a rental car or plane tickets. You go online and book the travel, make a reservation for an SUV, and you’re all set. Then there’s just the simple matter offinding a place to sleep.

Most campgrounds or state parks have their own reservation system to keep track of the people sleeping under the stars. You’ll drive up, find a ranger or a park attendant, and figure out a place to set up the tent. It’s how it’s been done for decades.

North Carolina recently decided this wasn’t the best scheduling system they could use: what if your family was delayed on the road and couldn’t get to the campground before nightfall? They wanted a better reservation system for their state parks, and so implemented a new online reservation system a year ago.

The numbers are in: campgrounds in North Carolina have increased in use by 20% since the new reservation system started. Scheduling reservations — either online or by phone — has changed a large part of the camping experience. If a campground is full, the website lets you search for nearby parks, which has helped spread visitors between parks and let North Carolina accommodate more people on holidays and busy weekends.

North Carolina increased the use of its state parks merely by using a scheduling and reservation system. Imagine the ramifications if business followed suit. The best scheduling works unobtrusively, quickly, and comprehensively. To plan a meeting you need a reservation system that works for all parties involved and doesn’t take any time to learn. Reservations helped ease congestion while increasing patronage of campgrounds, and it can be used virtually the same way for offices with limited rooms or meeting spaces. Scheduling to plan a meeting is tough, but if you can change the room and update details on the fly then the difficulties are minimized.

Camping is the antithesis of business in most ways, but the best scheduling methods are wide-ranging in their application. When you plan a meeting or a weekend off the beaten trail, a reservation system to help with scheduling is essential.

Image courtesy codymcarlson

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Medical Appointment Software On Campus

Posted on December 2, 2010 by asuresoftware

Slowly but surely, the medical industry is transforming. Think of the last time you went to a doctor’s office: that paper file the doctor consults that contains your medical history and general information is severely limited. A misprinted or misplaced file could have terrible repercussions for you and your doctor. That’s why electronic medical records have started to gain significant traction all over the country. They allow for a backup to exist, they can be transferred and reviewed much more easily than paper files, and they can be updated from different sources despite different locations.

The modernization of medicinal bureaucracy isn’t limited to digital files, though. During your last visit to a doctor, undoubtedly you spent some time in the waiting room, surrounded by other patients waiting for their time. Medical offices are usually well populated, regardless of the time of day. Medical scheduling software has started to be implemented on a large scale, and as Truman State University can attest, it really makes a positive difference in the process of scheduling appointments.

Recently Truman State’s Health Center initiated such an online scheduling system, and to say the students took to it would be an understatement: several students found and used the system to make appointments even before instructions were posted for the procedure. Medical appointment software has made a big difference to students as they’re able to schedule at their convenience and book dates without a using their phones, at any time of day. “It’s much easier to confirm an appointment online than to go through multiple appointment times that are available and pick out the one that works best for the student,” says Brenda Higgins, director of the health center. Medical appointment software reduces man hours on both ends of the process, and the benefits of implementing medical scheduling software don’t end there.

Like college campuses, hospitals and doctor’s offices need a lot of rooms to work independenly to work best. A hospital has hundreds of rooms that are continually being filled with new patients. Keeping track of them all, the patient paperwork and the insurance paperwork has usually been done with separate computer systems and tons of paperwork. Most surgery departments use a large whiteboard for scheduling and assignments.

Medical scheduling software doesn’t just eliminate the hassle of setting an appointment, it’s a multi-faceted tool for administrators to help with their own scheduling needs. They can create a calendar for departments that’s viewable anywhere in the hospital and that updates instantly when needed. They can install LCD screen on the outside of offices or rooms that contain patient information, as well as the duration of the room’s usage and other needs. By using their buildings to the fullest extent and reducing the time spent on scheduling, medical scheduling software lets hospitals spend time and money where it’s best used: on patients.

Medical appointment software certainly eliminates one headache. With the right medical scheduling software, hospitals and doctor’s offices can overhaul their entire administrative procedure in favor of one with more ease of use and less hassle.

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