A comparison of the Schedule and Calendar views on the Dispatch board
Because of recurring calls, AngelTrack's dispatch schedule works very differently than its calendar:
- The schedule shows all booked calls, but does not include future recurrences of any recurring calls.
- The calendar shows all booked calls including projected future recurrences of all recurring calls.
In other words, if a dialysis patient is scheduled for transport every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the Schedule will show only the next appointment (let's say Monday); Wednesday's appointment does not appear on the Schedule until Monday's transports have finished. Whereas the Calendar shows the appointment every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday indefinitely into the future: the appointment is projected into the future based on its recurrence setting.
The Schedule
The schedule shows everything currently booked. Recurring dispatches are obviously included, but their projected recurrences are not. So, the Schedule gives an accurate view for today or tomorrow, but it is not useful for estimating workload on future days, since future recurrences are not included.
The Schedule is built this way in order to make it easy to locate scheduled items that a caller may inquire about. It contains several filters to help you find the dispatch you are looking for, notably including the patient's last name. It also has a facility filter, to display only those dispatches that originate or terminate at a specific facility.
Using the Schedule you can pre-assign dispatches to an active shift, or to a scheduled shift, or to an affiliate, without changing the activation times. For further reading, refer to the Affiliates guide.
Single-day view
The schedule has a special single-day view, that shows you all calls expected to occur on any given date, including projected recurrences of recurring calls. To use this view, select the "Show all trips and recurrences that will activate on" option from the "Schedule" tab of the dispatch board.
The Calendar
The calendar allow you to review future workloads, with all recurring dispatches projected forward onto the selected date according to the recurrence schedules. The calendar therefore shows the true workload, which cannot be visualized using the Schedule.
In the calendar's graphical display, each upcoming dispatch is shown as a bar. Each bar begins at the dispatch's activation time, on the understanding that activation time is when a crew unit will be assigned. The length of the bar is AngelTrack's estimate of how long the call will require to complete.
The color of the bars indicates the type of service requested and whether the call has been preassigned to a shift or affiliate, using AngelTrack's standard colors:
| Service | Call is Not Yet Assigned | Call Has Been Assigned |
|---|---|---|
| Car | Dark Turquoise | Light Turquoise |
| Wheelchair | Dark Brown | Light Brown |
| Gurney | Dark Green | Light Green |
| BLS | Dark Blue | Light Blue |
| ALS | Dark Red | Light Red |
| MICU | Magenta | Light Pink |
| Labs | Dark Orange | Light Orange |
| Telemedicine | Dark Green | Light Green |
| Fire | Dark Red | Light Red |
| Extrication | Dark Blue | Light Blue |
| Rescue | Dark Orange | Light Orange |
| Hazmat | Magenta | Light Pink |
| Inspection | Dark Green | Light Green |
| Good intent | Dark Purple | Light Purple |
If you have multiple stations or multiple service areas, you can use the Zone selector in the upper-right corner of the page to view the workload on a zone by zone basis, in order to get a sense for the number of vehicles the day will require.