Creating Calendar Views

The following steps describe how to create a Calendar view:

1. Open a new view, enter a Name, and select Calendar from the View Type drop-down list.
   
   • Notice that the tab layout is updated automatically: a new Calendar tab appears in the dialog and the Fields, Sorting, Format, Hierarchy, Paging, and Advanced (SQL) tabs are removed.
   • Note that not all of the tabs shown below may be available on your system, depending on how your administrator configured the Calendar View type's properties.
   • If you want to use an existing template as the starting point for your view, click the Load Template... button. See Loading a View Template for details.
   • Note that the Show Default Preview Pane option is only applicable to list views.

   

2. Click the Calendar tab and set the calendar Mode.
   • See About the Calendar View Modes for the list of available calendar modes.
     
     
3. Choose the First Visible Date to display on the calendar.
   
   
   
   • If you select Automatic, the system automatically displays the first date in the view's recordset. Therefore, Aptify recommends that you use this selection in conjunction with a date-based Filter so that the view displays the dates in which you are interested.
   1. • If you do not specify a filter, then the view will display the earliest date referenced in the service's records.
        
        
   • If you want to select the first date visible on the calendar, then select Manual and enter a date in the Date field.
     
     
     
     
4. If you selected Day View or Work Week View as the mode, select the Time Slot Interval that you want to appear on the Calendar view. The intervals range from one minute to one hour and are designated by horizontal lines on the view. The default is 60 minutes.

   

   The Time Slot Interval option determines the units in which the calendar is displayed. A smaller interval is more granular but means a larger calendar to sort through.

5. If you selected Day View as the mode, you can specify the # Visible Days. If you leave this at its default setting (1), then the view displays one day.The Time Slot Interval option determines the units in which the calendar is displayed. A smaller interval is more granular but means a larger calendar to sort through.
6. Click the Data tab to configure the data that will appear in the view.
7. Select the field in the service that corresponds to the item's start time from the Start Date Field drop-down list.
8. Select the Duration mode. This determines the length of the items displayed on the calendar. The options are:
   • Duration Field: Select this option if the service has a field that specifies the length of the appointment or meeting.
   • End Date Field: Select this option if the service has a field that specifies a concluding time for the appointment or meeting.
   • Standard Duration: Select this option if the service has neither a duration field or an end date field.
     
     
9. Specify the duration of the calendar items:
   • If you selected Duration Field as the mode, select the field in the service that corresponds to an item's duration from the Duration Field drop-down list.
   • If you selected End Date Field as the mode, select the field in the service that corresponds to an item's end time from the End Date Field drop-down list.
   • If you selected Standard Duration, each calendar item will use the same duration. Specify the number of hours in the Std. Duration (Hours) field.
     
     
10. Select the field in the service that you want to display as the title for the calendar item from the Title Field drop-down list.
    
    
    
11. Select the Grouping tab.
12. Specify the Grouping Style. This option groups calendar items by another field in the service.
    
    • None: no grouping occurs; this setting is the default.
    • Group Shown Inside Date: the date appears as the heading at the top of the view, and groups display in columns for each date. For example, if grouping by person, the date appears first and each person's calendar appears under the date.
      
    • Date Shown Inside Group: the selected Grouping Field appears as the heading at the top of the view, and visible dates appear in columns for each group. For example, if grouping by person, the persons are listed across the top and all of the visible dates appear under each person.
      
13. If you selected Group Shown Inside Date or Date Shown Inside Group, in the Grouping Field drop-down list, select the field in the service that you want to group the calendar dates by.
14. Click the Display tab to modify the calendar's color scheme. Click the ellipsis (...) button to open the color select dialog for a particular field.
    • This tab is not available or applicable if you selected the Week View or Month View calendar mode. For the Multi-Month View calendar mode, only the Back Color field is available or applicable.
      
      
      
      

    Note that the Idle Time field is not used in the 5.0 calendar style. However, this field are still maintained to provide backwards compatibility with Aptify 4.x systems.

     

    • To change the color of the time bar on the view, specify a Back Color.
    • A thin, vertical bar appears to the right of the time. This specifies calendar availability. When a calendar item occupies a particular time, the system fills in this bar with a blue area representing the item's duration.By default, the bar is white for all idle time. To specify a different color for the bar when idle, select a color for the Idle Time field.
    • To specify a background color for standard working hours (8 am to 5 PM), select a color for the Working Hours field.
    • To specify a background color for standard non-working hours (5 PM to 8 am), select a color for the Non-Working Hours field.
    • Select the Show Appointment Shadow option to display a dark shadow below each calendar item.
    • Select the Current Time Indicator option to display a bar at the current time (see the arrow in figure below).
      
      
      
      
15. Click the Filters tab to specify filter criteria for the view. See Defining View Filters for instructions on creating filter statements.
16. Click the Auto Refresh tab to configure how often the view should automatically refresh. See Enabling a View to Automatically Refresh for details.
17. If you want this view to run automatically on a pre-determined schedule (for example, to send out a report periodically to a defined recipient list), click the Scheduling tab and configure the available options. See Scheduling a View to Run Automatically for details.
18. Click OK to load the view.