The Pencil'em.com Blog » BETA

Pencil’em Mobile – New “Settings” Screen

Greg — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:15:08 +0000

Hello All! We’ve got great news that all Pencil’em “Mobile” users should know about. We’ve added a “Settings” screen that will enable you to customize how “your” Pencil’em Mobile works. On this new “Settings” screen (which you can find in the main navigation bar), look for the “Start Page” setting. This new feature will enable you to select which page Pencil’em Mobile loads whenever you login. In the past, the “Schedule” screen was loaded by default when you logged in and if you wanted to then see your daily schedule or Week-at-a-glance you would have to click into those screens. Now, you can set the “Start Page” to which ever screen you use most often, saving yourself many clicks a day! This new feature simply lets you have immediate access to the information you use most! See the image below for more details about how to access the settings page:

The new settings page.

Also of note, we’ve moved the “Logout” button into the main header, opposite the logo, to make room for the Settings button. We think these new changes make Pencil’em Mobile even more flexible and efficient. As always, we appreciate your comments!

Pencil’em Mobile – Editing & Personal Appointments

Greg — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:08:50 +0000

At Pencil’em, we are constantly trying to improve our software, allowing you to use it like the appointment book with which you are familiar! (and so much more!) In this process, we talk to our users, gather feedback, and implement new features that we know will make things easier! Because of this feedback, we have recently added Mobile editing of appointments, as well as creation of “personal” appointments. Both of these feature are available in the desktop version of Pencil’em, and are now available on the mobile platform.

Editing Client Appointments

Editing appointments is extremely simple in Pencil’em Mobile. Simply click on the “View Schedule” screen, where you will see a list of appointments for the current day. You will now see a pencil icon next to the red x to the right hand side of each appointment. Click this pencil icon and the “Edit Appointment” screen will open. The details of the current appointment will be filled out for you, allowing you to change the neccessary details. As you edit the current appointment, Pencil’em will always check to make sure that no conflicts have resulted with the new date, time or service. See below for screenshots:

Pencil'em Mobile - Editing Appointments

Mobile Personal Appointments

We’ve now added the ability to create your personal appointments from the Pencil’em Mobile. From the “Schedule” screen, simply click on the “Personal Appt.” link found in the secondary navigation bar. Fill out the form for the personal appointment and click “Schedule”. All booking conflict rules apply, so you will see a booking conflict screen if the personal appointment conflicts with any other appointment. Also, your personal appointments will show up in a red font on your “View Schedule” screen, as well as the “Week-at-a-glance” screen. More details below:

Create personal appointments in Pencil'em Mobile!

Week-at-a-glance finds it’s way to Pencil’em Mobile

Greg — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:41:10 +0000

Today we added the “Week-at-a-glance” feature to our Mobile Platform, Pencil’em Mobile. This lets you see one full week of appointments on one screen. To access this feature, simply click “View Schedule” and you will notice there is now a secondary navigation bar with the “Week-at-a-glance” button. Click this button and the week at a glance will load, starting on today, and show you seven days out. You can change the start day by selecting a different date from the form at the top of the week-at-a-glance and clicking “Go”. See image below for more details:

Mobile "Week-at-a-glance"

Service to be added to confirmation / reminder emails

Greg — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:08:55 +0000

Hello Pencil’em Pros! I wanted to take a moment and let you know about a change that will soon be in place. We will be adding the service name to the confirmation / reminder emails. So, along with the Date and Time of your clients next appointment, they will see the service you’ll be performing. The new emails will look something like this:

New reminder / confirmation email screen shot

We will be implamenting this feature on Wed. Aug. 5th. We wanted to give you a few days notice in case you need to make any adjustments to your service names. If you have any questions regarding this new feature please leave them in the comments so we can address them publicly, or email support@pencilem.com.

EDIT: We will be delaying the implamentation of this feature by a few days to run a few more tests. We expect to have this feature in place by mid next week.

Personal Time BETA – Book your personal appointments

Greg — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:21:18 +0000

In an effort to make Pencil’em more like a paper appointment book, we’ve added a new BETA feature that gives you the ability to book your own personal appointments in addition to client appointments. This is a big upgrade as now you can manage your days much easier, and block out times when you don’t want to be scheduled. You can use this feature to schedule your Dr. Appointments, unavailable time, trips to the grocery store, or picking up the dry cleaning (or anything else you can think of). Right now, this is done on a day to day basis, but we are working on a recurring version of personal appointments. How does it work you ask? Let me explain…

To book a personal appointment, simply select the “” option from the “Select Client” drop down menu (see below):

New Personal Time Option

When you select the “Personal Time” option, the form will change slightly to accommodate creating a personal appointment. The new form will look like this:

New Personal Time Form

Fill out the form, taking notice of the required fields, and click “Create Personal Time”. Your personal appointment will show up in your daily, weekly, and monthly view (using the “Personal Label” field as the focus of the appointment.). Notice, on the daily view, your personal appointments have a grey background (to denote an unavailable time) and have the “Personal Icon” next to the time. You can add or view notes just as you do with normal appointments. See full screen shot below:

Personal Appointment Detail

Deleting Personal Appointments

To delete a personal appointment simply hover your mouse over the appointment and a red “Delete” button will appear next to the appointment title. You will need to click the Delete Button twice, once to start the delete, and once to confirm that you wish to delete the appointment. Click the Delete button once, and the button text will change to read “Are you sure?”. Click this button again and the personal appointment will be deleted. If you accidently click the Delete button, you can click the “or Cancel” link found next to the “Are you sure” button to cancel the delete. See below:

Delete a personal appointment

Personal appointments function in the exact same way as your regular client appointments, so booking conflicts will appear as you would expect them to. These appointments will also show up in your Weekly and Monthly view calendars. Lastly, as this is a BETA feature, there may be some changes or modifications as we test the new feature in the production enviornment.

All new features we create are a direct result of your input and feedback. We truly appreciate your business and want to see Pencil’em work for you in the most efficient way possible. Comments are always appreciated and considered as we move forward with further developement! Stay tuned for more!!!

New BETA feature – “Week at a glance”

Greg — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:23:19 +0000

So you might be wondering what “BETA” means….BETA in software lingo, means we have rolled out a new feature, but it’s not 100% complete. The base functions are ready for public consumption, but we plan to work on this feature over the next few weeks. Go ahead and use the new feature, but know that some things may change before the BETA label is removed.

Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about “Week at a glance”. The week at a glance feature was created to help you easily visualize holes in your schedule and see a graphical representation of any given week. You will find the week dates across the top of the graph, with the times of day down the left hand side. Your appointments appear as blocks of time (based on the service length) within each day’s column. You will see the name of the client at the start of the appointment time as well. You can find the new Week at a glance view by clicking the “Week at a glance” tab from the main scheduling screen.

Week at a glance tab

As of right now, each time you click this tab, the calendar will refresh itself, and it will always start on the current day. You can change which day the week view starts on by clicking in the “Select Start Date” box and selecting a new start date from the popup calendar. You can also jump forward or backward a week by clicking the “Previous Week” and “Next Week” buttons found on the upper right hand side of the screen (see below):

Changing which day the calendar starts on.

Lastly, to help you see what time an appointment starts simply hover your mouse over the name of the client, and that row will highlight, showing you what time the appointment starts. Notice the highlighted row turns a light red, and the start time of the appointment is highlighted on the far left hand side of the screen (see below):

Row Highlighting

If you have any questions about this new feature let us know if the comments! We look forward to hearing your feedback!