Planning tools in Smartabase include the related entity calendar, enter scheduled data, enter appointment and preview schedule. These tools can be used together or separately by athletes and professional staff to plan interactions between groups or individuals and related entities.
Related entities are entities that athletes sometimes need to interact with. These are entities that do not need to have data entered against them and therefore don’t exist within Smartabase in the same way as an athlete or coach does. Related entities can be people, places or equipment. For example, doctors, training venues and vehicles can be created within Smartabase by a builder as a related entity. The result is that plans can be made which involve these entities and the individual athletes or multiple athletes, whilst maintaining the confidentiality of individual athlete data.
The related entity calendar is a planning tool that displays a calendar for each entity created by the site's builder. You can use the related entity calendar to view which events have been planned for a coach, doctor, venue or therapist, for example. You can plan events for an entity by selecting any free timeslot on the related entity calendar and choosing the relevant appointment or scheduling form, picking an athlete, then filling out the form.
Appointment and scheduling have specific meanings within Smartabase's planning environment:
- An appointment is an interaction between one athlete and one related entity (e.g. an appointment between an athlete and a medical practitioner).
- Scheduling is used to plan interactions between users and related entities that can incorporate multiple athletes at once (e.g. a training session for multiple athletes at a training venue).
Related entity calendar
This simplified example of a related entity calendar shows the coach related entity type has been selected, allowing us to specify that we'd like to view the calendar of Coach Smith. For the time period selected, we can see that Coach Smith is scheduled to be at team training several times this week as well as a team meeting. These scheduled events are also saved against the athletes in the team and will appear on each athlete's calendar.
Steps to enter an event using the related entity calendar
- Log in to Smartabase to view your home page.
- Select the related entity calendar tool.
- Choose which type of entity you want to schedule an event with (e.g. coach, venue, doctor).
- Choose the entity (e.g. Coach Smith, training field 3, or Doctor Jones).
- Select the date you want to book an event for.
- Choose and click an empty timeslot on the entity’s calendar.
- In the pop-up box that appears, choose Scheduled Event or Appointment as the Form Type.
- Click Select.
- Choose which booking form you need to fill out.
- Fill out the booking form, remembering to use the multi-athlete selector field to add all athletes involved in the event if applicable.
- Select Save to complete the booking and return to the related entity calendar.
Scheduled data
Scheduling forms are special event forms containing related entities that allow you to schedule events for multiple athletes with one related entity at the same time. Scheduling forms typically include a multi-athlete selector field, so that regardless of which athlete the form is initially entered against, a single record can be created for as many athletes as needed at once.
Scheduled data can be added through the related entity calendar or the Enter Scheduled Data tool. Scheduling forms are not available for use from the sidebar or enter data tool.
Steps to schedule an event using the Enter Scheduled Data tool
- Log in to Smartabase to view your home page.
- Select the Enter Scheduled Data tool.
- Select the appropriate scheduling form from those that are visible.
- Select the primary related entity.
- Select any secondary related entities.
- Select the start date from the calendar drop-down.
- Click an available time slot to schedule an event for that time.
- Fill out the appropriate scheduling form fields, including adding all other users you want to schedule the event for if you are a professional user.
- Click Save and Close.
- Return to your home page.
Appointments
Appointment forms are the counterpart planning tool to scheduling forms. Appointment forms are special event forms that allow you to create an appointment record for a single athlete.
An example of when an appointment would be entered is when a player (e.g. Jamie Anderson) needs to have a consultation with a psychiatrist and it isn’t appropriate for other athletes to be aware of this appointment. Doctor Daniels, the psychologist, exists within Smartabase as a related entity. Booking an appointment with Doctor Daniels for Jamie Anderson means that Doctor Daniels isn’t available for booking by another athlete at that time and anyone else looking at Doctor Daniels’ calendar in the related entity calendar would simply see that she is unavailable at that time.
Appointments can be added through the related entity calendar or the Enter Appointment tool. Appointment forms are not available for use from the sidebar or enter data tool. It is not possible to re-open an already-saved appointment from the Enter Appointment tool; however, previously-created appointments can be opened and edited from the related entity calendar.
Steps to schedule an appointment using the Enter Appointment tool
- Log in to Smartabase to view your home page.
- Select the Enter Appointment tool.
- Select the appropriate appointment form from those that are visible.
- Select the appropriate related entity.
- Select the start date from the calendar drop-down.
- Click an available time slot to make an appointment for that time.
- Fill out the appropriate appointment form fields.
- Click Save and Close or Book Appointment, depending on which button is available to you.
Steps to cancel or reschedule an appointment
- Log in to Smartabase to view your home page.
- Navigate to the Calendar tool.
- Open the appointment event form you want to cancel.
- Update the appointment status (if available) to Cancelled or Rescheduled.
- Click Save & Close.
The exact process for cancelling an appointment will depend on how the appointment form has been built, but generally there should be a status field in the form allowing you to update the appointment’s status to Cancelled, Rescheduled or similar.
Preview schedule
The Preview Schedule tool is a planning tool which has mostly been replaced by the functionality of the related entity calendar. The Preview Schedule tool highlights any conflicts between draft events planned for related entities; these should be resolved before the events are published and released to athletes’ and entities’ calendars. An example of conflict could include scheduled events which require a coach to be at two venues at once. Once conflicts are resolved (by deleting or moving events), the draft events can be published, which means that they become viewable on the relevant users’ calendars.
The main advantage of using the Preview Schedule tool over the related entity calendar is that ICS files can be downloaded from the Preview Schedule tool for each entity, according to which events fall within the window of time you are viewing.
Steps to preview an entity's schedule
- Select the Preview Schedule tool.
- Choose the start and end date for the scheduled events you want to preview.
- Confirm that no conflicts exist within this window or resolve highlighted conflicts.
- Select Preview iCals to download ICS files for any entities.
- Select Publish or Publish with iCals.
- Confirm that you want to publish the events which are scheduled between the start and end dates you have selected.
- Return to the home page.
View current appointments
The View Current Appointments tool is another planning tool which has largely been made obsolete by the related entity calendar. The View Current Appointments tool shows which appointment events have been planned for related entities. Similarly to the Preview Schedule tool, the View Current Appointments tool would highlight any conflicts between events for related entities. For example, Doctor Daniels has an appointment booked with Jamie Anderson on a particular date and time. If another player tried to book an appointment at the same time they would be unable to see any details relating to Jamie's appointment, only that the time slot with Doctor Daniels is unavailable.