Key concepts
Most of Diarybook comes down to a few ideas: clients see users at appointments, and
reminder settings decide how clients are reminded. Everything else refines those four.
People
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| client | The person an appointment is for, and who receives reminders. An appointment needs at least one client. See Adding and Editing Clients. |
| user | Someone with a sign-in to the Diarybook account. Users are managed in the Users area. See Users and Permissions. |
| Can Take Appointments | A permission on the user record. Only users with it can be chosen as the person the client is to see. Turning it on also turns on Can Use Schedules. These docs call such a user a service provider. |
| department | An optional grouping of users and appointment types, used for reporting and for sharing access to colleagues’ appointments. See Departments. |
Appointments
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| appointment | A booking of one or more clients with one or more users, at a date, time and duration. See Adding an Appointment. |
| appointment type | What the appointment is for. Picking a type fills in its duration and, if the type has them, its waiting room, reminder setting and location. See Appointment Types. |
| confirmation status | Whether the client has said they are coming: No Status, Confirmed, Unable To Attend (UTA), Cancelled By Client, Cancelled By User or Tentative. Client replies can set it automatically. |
| attendance status | What happened on the day, for example Finished, DNA or Was Contacted. See Attendance and DNA. |
| DNA | Did Not Attend: an attendance status recording that the client didn’t come to the appointment. |
Messaging
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| reminder setting | A named set of rules for when and how a client is reminded: which channels (SMS, email, voice, letter), on what schedule, and with what text. Each appointment uses one. See How Reminders Work. |
| sender ID | The name an SMS appears to come from, used when clients can’t reply. It must be approved before it can be used. See Sender IDs. |
| merge field | A placeholder such as ^^time^^ in message text, replaced with the appointment’s details when the message is sent. See Merge Fields. |
| clinic code | For accounts synced with another system: the code on each incoming appointment that decides its user, appointment type and reminder setting. Set up under Settings → Automatic Syncing. See Integration Overview. |
Places, time and capacity
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| location | A physical site. Choosing a location on an appointment narrows the appointment types and resources on offer, and its details can go into reminders. See Locations. |
| resource | A room, piece of equipment or person booked alongside an appointment so nobody double-books it. See Resources. |
| waiting room | Where a client waits on the day. It can also limit how many appointments share the room. See Waiting Rooms. |
| work hours | The hours a user is willing to take appointments in. Each user sets their own. See Work Hours. |
| schedule | A record of when one or more users are unavailable, such as leave or a weekly meeting. See Schedules. |
| waiting list | A list of clients waiting to be seen, with priority and breach dates. See Waiting Lists. |
| account policy | An account-wide rule that only the account owner can change, for example making waiting rooms mandatory on appointments. See Policies. |