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What is the General Data Protection Regulation?

The GDPR is a regulation approved and adopted by the European Union Parliament in April 2016.  Focused on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union, and the export of personal data outside the EU. 

The regulation should take place after a two years transition period, meaning that it started to be in force in May 2018. It applies to personal data meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier.

This includes a wide range of personal identifiers to constitute personal data, for example: name, phone number, identification number, location data, online identifiers and any additional information.

5 reasons why OpusTime is a superior choice if you have concerns about your information:

1. OpusTime users have complete control of their information. 
2. User data is shared with people authorized by OpusTime users only.
   
3. OpusTime users can export all their data at any time without restrictions.
4. OpusTime does not offer service to its customer’s clients.
5. Customer´s data is hosted in their regions.

No buts, no questions, no doubts, no uncertainties, undeniably true,  OpusTime is the way to go. You can read more about GDPR here

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One of the many task business owners are always looking for is ways to cut expenses and increase profit. In order to take advantage of all the benefits online booking has to offer, one must drive to build a small business that runs as efficiently and productively as possible. But not all entrepreneurs might think of getting an online booking software for their service’s website. In this blog post we will try to better acquaintance you to why exactly we think it is an awesome idea. Plunge in with us.

Saves You Time

A good online booking system saves you and your customers time. First, it rid your staff’s time spent on answering and making phone calls to create a booking. Instead, they can use this time to focus their attention into something more productive. Now for your customers, on the other hand, having an online booking service lets them skip the tedious and boring process of making a call, wait for the receptionist to answer and schedule the appointment, and/or keep themselves on the busy line until an operator has the decency to pick up the call. The better alternative is to go to your website, check for appointment availabilities and choose a suitable free time slot to put in the required information. That’s it, easy, hassle free and fast.

Online Booking is Available 24/7

If your small business is capable of taking bookings only during working hours, many of your customers will simply not feel convenient to do so at that time. That is why it is imperative to count with an online appointment booking system which will aid your business immensely. It is available to all customers at all times. You will stop losing customers who opt for another business that can provide flexible booking time. In addition, you will attract new customers with your easier ( digital era ) approach and convenience. This will obviously lead to increase in sales and in revenues.

Scheduling going social

Opustime has all you would expect from a Scheduler and more. Complete with totally billing and record keeping, making client management seem like a breese. Eliminate no shows, easy to manage waiting list, book multiple appointments, drag and drop rescheduling, client recalls with instant SMS templates, simple and powerful user interface, boosting your retention and increasing your referrals and awesome accessibility gives your precise information for you to analyze it in such a way that you can adjust your strategy. The online booking system will give you is a resource you should definitely use and use wisely.

In summary

There you have it, our list of 3 reasons why we love online booking. The implementation of OpusTime online booking system, will take you to a higher level of managing your business, be more organized, attracts more customers, increase profit letting you maintain a full schedule with other added value benefits. Take this into account and launch OpusTime booking solution in order to drive your sales and make your small business grow. Read more about our complete feature set.

In the era of great technological advances, many generations were born and raised having the phone as an essential part of their lives, particularly SMS. But now phones are not used to make phone calls anymore.  According to PEW RESEARCH CENTER, millennials outweighed and surpassed Gen Xers as being the most dominant generation in modern time’s workforce, adding an estimated 53.5 million people. With this in mind we need to ask ourselves how these millennials choose to communicate.

A study showed the telephone apps on smartphones—that is, using your phone to make actual phone calls—are only the fifth-most-used app among the general public. Why is this the case?

The answer is simple. This generation grew up with the gradual introduction of instant messaging, texting, email, and other forms of written communication. Due to their immediate response they offer the choice to think over your words, they are precise, cozy and quick form of communication. Answering a phone call means to interrupt someone’s daily routine, while SMS  and emails can be read or answered at any time without interrupting your daily endeavours.

With all being said here are the 7 reasons SMS surpasses phone calls:

1. They are instant, mobile, economical and accessible.
2. Smartphone users take 2 to 5 second to send text any time.
3. Answers can be thought out instead of been used as a reaction.
4. Posses mass-messaging capabilities for spreading information
5. It gives both parties the flexibility to answer at their own time.
6. 97% of users read SMS.
7. The most used method of communication among 45 to 60 years old age group.

When using Phone Calls to communicate:

1. The average call takes 2 minutes approximately.   
2. The person needs to stop what he is doing to answer the call.
3. Phone conversations are spontaneous.
4. People answer text far more than phone calls.
5. Phone calls may not be answered.
6. Phone calls cost more money than SMS.
7. You can’t call more than one person at a time.

With Opustime setting a SMS system is easy, reliable and friendly, giving you the edge in communicating with your customers, send notes, reminders, birthdays notifications and much more.. So don’t hesitate any longer and start your free trial @opustime.com

We have been working hard, based on your multiple comments, to improve the flow of appointment management with this update. We also added a new Changelog page which shows all improvements and enhancements that we have brought to OpusTime since the beginning of the year.

This marks an effort to maintain transparency and to continually let you know what we have been working on.

The most important piece of a business is its reliable staff. You can’t make a business grow single-handedly. Entrepreneurs that have built flourishing businesses have done so with great reliable employees by their side. Business owners view the hiring of new employees as an investment expecting, of course, to obtain a good ROI over time. Hiring reliable people with good work ethics and commitment is one of the many challenges all business owners and managers face nowadays.

It all starts with the saying “lead by example”. In order to hire a reliable team, managers and business owners need to begin to create a reliable company and a reliable workplace.

Build a sense of belonging, security and pertinence so that all staff member feel part of a family. A happy employee is a productive one. An unhappy employee is not.

7 sure signs that your employee is not happy (therefore not reliable)

1.   Late for work, frequent absences and repetitively leaving early.
A problem with punctuality means that the employee has priority issues with regards to the workplace. In the service Industry, it is not always easy to manage appointments and take care of customer needs on the phone. But when the problem arises from absenteeism or punctuality issues, it’s time to take action!

2.   Lack of respect for colleagues, upper management and customers.
Life as a business owner can be challenging. There is no greater challenge than that of trying to reach your goals and provide a good service to customers when your staff is not a diehard fan or believer in your core mission and field of work.
After a while, the attitude at work is a key indicator of that lack of adherence to the vision of the workplace.

3.   Resistance to responsibility.
There are many aspects of your workplace. Some responsibilities and tasks may seem tedious or boring at times, but the devil is always in the details. A motivated employee will perform at even the most tedious and monotonous of tasks. It’s all part of doing what we do best and providing a great experience for your clients and patients.

4.   Lack of Commitment
Is the candidate you are about to hire serious at working in your company for a long time? Or is he/she just passing through, always looking for a better job opportunity? A look at past jobs and time spent at each would provide a clear understanding of the matter.

5.   Dishonesty, bad moral values and absence of team play.
Does the individual possess values aligned with yours and the company? Are they responsible and honest about their work? Do you find them trustworthy of working for your company? Are they altruistic and a team player?

6.   Lack of respect for policies and procedures
Every business has a culture or a way that people behave and interact with each other. Culture is based on certain values, expectations, policies and procedures that influence the behaviour of a leader and employees. Workers who don’t reflect a company’s culture tend to be disruptive and difficult.

7.   Agree with job offer compensation package.
As an entrepreneur, be sure the individual you hire agrees to a market-based compensation package and is satisfied with what you offered. Perhaps, an unsatisfied employee may feel unappreciated and thereby under perform.

In conclusion

Good employees are crucial and also difficult to train, keep and acquire. That is why more and more service-oriented business owners are integrating solutions like OpusTime. Feel free to browse our features

Our easy to use online appointment services, and our complete communications automation and record keeping tools, can help you survive while you search that next precious gem to add to your team.

Opus Time creates a systematic approach that reduces the impact of employee losses and absenteeism.

Welcome to the first major update of 2018. As usual, we have listened to your suggestions and comments and we are happy to release these new features for your continued success using OpusTime. Your comments are music to our ears.

1. Pinning and Unpinning of notes.

A new icon allows you to manually pin your notes so that it appears at the top of your notes timeline. A Pinned note will, therefore, be seen first. Pin and unpin the notes by clicking the icon on the following illustration.

2. New Patient Reference Number System

In your account preferences, you can now activate a new automatic Reference number assignment feature. Checking the following box will activate the feature for all of your following new patients.

The structure of the reference number is according to the following. If a new patient is created in January of 2018, the reference number will be automatically set to 1801XXXX where XXXX is the next available number in the series.

You can also assign a number automatically to a pre existing file using this new button in the patient file edit page.

3. New Professional owner

We added a new field to the patient file that allows you to manually assign a patient to a specific professional.

This will then be used in some reports to filter patient informations by professionals ex: Patient birthday report will now display the professional ‘owner’ so that you may send wishes on behalf of the specific professional. Access this field in edit mode or when you add a new patient.

In this update, using the export feature of the birthday and referral reports currently display this information.

4. Improvements of report filters

A number of reports have been improved base on your suggestions in order to provide more flexibility. In some cases, we added new filters options as listed in the following description.

Daily Payment report can now be filtered by professionals. The changes are also reflected in the export feature.

4. Improvements of report filters

A number of reports have been improved base on your suggestions in order to provide more flexibility. In some cases, we added new filters options as listed in the following description.

Daily Payment report

This report can now be filtered by professionals. The changes are also reflected in the export feature.

Revenue Report

This report has been separated into 2 distinct reports. One is aimed at business revenues and one aimed at professional revenues. Both now include a filter that allows you to separate services or products income. The export feature has also been improved to include taxes and totals.

5. Patient future appointment pdf now properly displays your business logo.

When you print future appointments for a patient, the pdf now displays your logo.

6. Important Security Update

We have revised the total security and encryption of OpusTime. Previously, some pages could be manually unencrypted in some specific circumstances and we have taken necessary steps to ensure that this can no longer happen.

7. Low SMS credit warning message

These messages will be sent twice a week. Previously, they were sent daily.

8. Referral program improvement.

When you try to share your referral link by email, the format of the email has been revised to be more professional.

1. Appointment type buttons after reloading the page.
   
   Description: When we click any appointment type and reload the page, the “Update, cancel and delete” buttons are now displayed.
2. Double click on scrollbar update, cancel and delete buttons appear.
   
   
   Description: A bug which caused 2 buttons to appear when users double clicked on scrollbars of the following page has been corrected.
   1.            Billable services
   2.            Payment methods
   3.          Follow up types
   4.            Letter templates
   5.            SMS templates
   6.            Referral types
   7.            Discount types
      
      The pages no longer display the inappropriate cancel and delete buttons when accidentally double-clicking the scroll bars.
3. Business location update, cancel and delete buttons are now visible.
   
   Description: When users click on any business location, the update, cancel and delete buttons are visible. A bug was causing those buttons to disappear after users tried to edit a business location and then chose the cancel option.
4. Create new user professional and discount type.
   
   Description: When users create a new user professional and discount type, We get the save and cancel button but when users click on cancel button and After that, we again click any existing professional/ existing discount type and again click on cancel button, After that if we again create a new professional/discount type we didn’t get the save and cancel button.
5. Edit the default business and appointment type.
   
   Description: When professional add invoice from appointment calendar as well as from creating a new invoice where he changes business and appointment type, after that he pays the payment of that respected invoice.
6. Edit the invoice and payment
   
   Description: A bug was corrected which caused some cases of editing invoices and changing the business location of the invoice. Previously, some rare cases were redirected to the patient file and the work was not saved. This has been corrected.
7. Payment module’s Email icon.
   
   Description: When users did not enter an email in the email or invoice email to fields, the email icon was still being displayed in some cases after entering a payment. The button will no longer appear if there are no emails recorded in the patient file.
8. Appointment summaries add invoice
   
   Description: When users cancel the appointment and click on add invoice which is present on appointment summary page, the appointment field drop-down selection was blank and will now function adequately.
9. Appointment future pdf did not show the set logo
   
   Description: When users click on a print icon (future Appointment) which is present on appointment summary page In future appointment pdf, Logo is now displayed.
10. Invoice without patient
    
    Description: Creating an invoice for a non-existing patient will now display an error message. Previously, the system would go into a loop.
11. Account Statement looping issue
    
    Description: a few rare patient files would not display account statements correctly. This was extremely rare and no longer occurs.
12. Dashboard menus issue
    
    Description: When professionals login to their account there was sometimes only a dashboard icon on the menus until they clicked on that icon. That is no longer the case.
13. 500 internal error in payment.
    
    Description: When users create an invoice and do the payment sequence. In new payment page, a 500 internal error message was displayed. This is repaired.
14. Logo image issue.
    
    Description: The logo placeholder was not displayed during the new user signup process.
15. Cancellation mail subject
    
    Description: There was previously no default mail subject for cancellation emails that were being sent to patients.
16. Daily payment report UI issue.
    
    Description: The daily payment report, the apply and clear buttons were not displayed as they were in other reports.
17. UI issue in Appointment type color – pick a color
    
    Description: When users want to change the appointment type color the ok and cancel button are now aligned properly.
18. UI issue send SMS
    
    Description: a user interface issue was causing texts not to be aligned properly and the drop-down arrow overlapped over the text.
19. Auto-generated reference number while editing of patient files
    
    Description: When any professional has not updated the check box of Auto generate reference number and tries to update a patient file reference number, there previously was an error message.
20.  Patient file page does not open properly
    
    Description: When users open any patient file, pages did not open properly. Some content was not displayed.
21. Professional owner field shows wrong text.
    
    Description: When users did not set any professional in professional owner field and we a non-professional text was displayed in the patient file page.
22.  UI issue in referral program
    
    Description: the layout of the referral program page has been improved. Content is now aligned properly.
23.  Translation issue in Appointment type color
    
    Description: In Spanish and French, Appointment type color -> pick a color. There we get the ok and cancel button. “Ok” is not translated to French or Spanish.
24. Revenue report print button
    
    Description: When users selected any filters in revenue report and then clicked on the print button, the pdf was no generated accordingly.
25.  Daily payment report professional filter show non-professional users.
    
    Description: When users change any professional to non-professional. In daily payment report, In the professional filter, the non-professional user was also displayed. This has been corrected.
26.  The print button is not working on some reports.
    
    Description: The print button is working on all reports now.
27. Revenue report pdf did not display outstanding amount
    
    Description: when a payment was applied to multiple invoices and one or more of the invoices had taxable items, the revenue report was not calculating outstanding amounts correctly.
28. Tax amount display wrong in revenue report.
    
    Description: We create one invoice with 5% tax and record a partial payment, when we again create one more invoice with 10% tax and use a subsequent payment to pay part of both invoices, the revenue report pdf was displaying a wrong tax amount.
29. Account statement outstanding amount displays too many decimals digits.
    
    Description: When users select an invoice and payment in decimal format, the account statement outstanding amount displayed more than two digits after the decimal.
30. UI issue in patient file page
    
    Description: When users click on the right side arrow on the present in the patient file, In French and Spanish, the content is now displayed properly.
31. Invoice delete button is missing
    
    Description: Delete button was missing when professionals completed the add invoice sequence from the appointment panel and then paid the invoice to complete the invoice and payment flow.
32. Subscription error message send to register email id with remaining days
    
    Description: A subscription email message contained an erroneous amount of remaining days of trial usage when it was sent to users.
33. Professional owner field translation issue
    
    Description: Deactivated users were not being identified as such on the French version of OpusTime.
34. Time size slot issues in Account settings
    
    Description: When changing the time size slot in account settings users were sometimes getting a 500 server internal error while clicking on the save button.
35. Text missing birthday report
    
    Description: The birthday report was displaying incorrect text on the printed and on screen versions.
36. New data import active tab
    
    Description: The data import process has been improved to convey more ease of use and clarity.
    
37. View log updation issueDescription: When professional book any appointment and edit that same appointment and view the appointment log, the activity log was not being recorded.
38. “False” text is written in patient file.
    
    Description Any patient with an appointment booked displayed the word ‘false’ in the next appointment area of the patient file.
39. Exporte reports phone number field is not in correct format
    
    Description: The phone number column field was not in the correct format in excel export file.
40.  Patient report is not giving proper data
    
    Description: When professional select date in calendar and click on export button as  there was no data in the excel file.
41. “Invoice To” field need to be updated
    
    Description: When professional trying to update the invoice to the field in the existing invoice (Edit invoice page) the invoice was not being updated adequately.
42.  “Invoice To” field update the current invoice to- of the patient
    
    Description: When if professional updates the invoice to field for the patient and open the existing invoice as INVOICE TO field is updated with new INVOICE TO data.
43. Appointment field is blank in Invoices
    
    Description: On app.opustime.com the appointment field in the invoice was not previously displayed.
44. Login page issue
    
    Description: When professional type app.opustime.com for the first time, the page was redirected to http://app.opustime.ca/#!/login page without entering any domain.
45. Revenue tabs are not visible
    
    Description: Revenue options (Business and Professional) options had out of focus and unclickable buttons.
46. Export excel file column space issue
    
    Description: In business, revenue report export excel file has a column like service, payment type and so on, in which the considered names don’t have spaced in the names.
47. Theme color is not updated
    
    Description: When professionals change the theme color from chambray dark to cerulean light as account theme color is changed but the remaining application pages were not always being updated.
    
48. Invoice and payment value are in float
    
    Description: When professional add a payment through the invoice sequence, too many decimals were displayed on the appointment file transaction page.
    
49. Birthday report Print PDF issue
    
    Description: Patient with no mobile phone recorded in the patient details were not being displayed adequately in the birth day report pdf.
50. Wallet icon is now a support icon
    
    Description: A wallet icon was being used as a support icon.
51. Auto generated Reference Number issue
    
    Description: When professional enabled the check-box of Auto generate Reference Number in account settings the generated number was not displayed in the patient file.
52. Auto generate reference number default/alert message
    
    Description: When professionals try to add a new patient as there is default arrange number and then click on save button there was an alert message that said: “reference number already exists”
53. Auto generate reference number is disabled
    
    Description: When professional disabled Auto generates reference number check box in account detail and creates a new patient with an existing reference number as a new patient is created.
54. Reference Number issue on online booking engine
    
    Description: When booking the appointment on online booking engine as there is alert message that says: “reference number already exists”
    
    Eg: After 1802006, 1802009 is already assigned then 007, 008 and adding new patient it by default gives 180200
55. Data Importing
    
    Description: Data to be imported in OpusTime and Import data in OpusTime Business account is now validated before importing.
    
    As usual, we want to express our deeply felt gratitude for your amazing support and comments. The entire team is dedicated to making OpusTime the best software to manage your business and we will keep working hard to continually improve our services so that you may continue to experience symphony at work with OpsuTime!

We are pleased to announce the release of yet another awesome OpusTime update. Our rapidly growing community has made multiple comments and we have been listening to your suggestions. Here is what we have been working on in the last month. Enjoy your revamped reports and a few surprises listed below!

Stay tuned for our next update which has some amazing new surprises as well!

Every single report has been carefully reviewed by our team and we have brought the following enhancements based on your comments and suggestions.

Totals have been added to relevant reports such as the Daily Payment Report. The onscreen version, as well as the print versions, now include relevant totals.

Exported versions now include the information requested in the filters. The CSV format has also been improved to work better with most spreadsheet software.

Translation of the exported and printed reports is now according to user preferences.

Filters have been reviewed by our team and they are faster than ever and more precise. Each and every report has been updated.

 The date selector has been improved to account better for your time zone. Some users were having to use yesterday’s date to get the report to display today’s information. This is no longer the case.

Deleted information such as products, invoices or payments no longer appears in the reports. Totals will, therefore, be reflected accurately.

Missing buttons have been added to the expense reports to allow for printing and exporting of the report.

Services billed to multiple professionals are now displayed correctly on the revenue report.

The patient/ client section now indicates archived patients/ clients which now appear in grey as you visualize the list. Please note that archived patients/ clients cannot be booked from the appointment book.

When you use the sticky notes section, you can now reorder your sticky notes with a simple drag and drop. Have fun optimizing your note templates with this great new feature!

We have improved the mechanics of sending an email from a letter template. When you click the send email button, you create a letter and send it by email in one step. Before that, you needed to create a letter first then email it. Now, you can email in one swift step using your templates.

The team has been hard at work correcting bugs and improving OpusTime. Thank you again for reporting those issues. We always schedule the work in order of priority. This push includes the following bug corrections.

SMS and Letter Templates Merge Fields have been reviewed and we have made sure that every single one of them works adequately.

Appointment Count is now displayed more adequately on the appointment graph and the appointment list of the dashboard.

Appointment Cancellation Link mechanics has been reviewed and improved. Some level of confusion was causing patients to fail to cancel the appointment. This has been improved.

Deleted Products  now disappear forever! There were some weird fringe cases where deleted products reappeared in the product list. This is no longer the case.

Several issues with text translation across the OpusTime platform have been addressed.

The list of all the improvements is 6 pages long and we wanted to spare your time and simply let you know that a considerable effort has been spent on the multiple languages of the OpusTime platform. Please continue to let us know about those language issues as well so that we continue to improve our services.

We have just released a symphony of enhancements that should improve your experience with OpusTime. Thank you for all of your multiple suggestions and comments, they are music to our ears. Please take a moment to review this. We hope you enjoy this release and we look forward to hearing from you.

1. Invoice Duplicate Management
   
   Once an invoice has been printed or emailed once, an new dialog box will offer you a choice to print or send a duplicate invoice. The mention DUPLICATE will be added to the invoice in all languages of OpusTime.

2. Important File Notes

When you create a note template, A new check box allows you to make sure that using this template will create a note that stays on top of your previous notes. This is useful to keep an eye on important information, diagnosis, etc. ONce you check this box and use the template, the note created will always be at the top of your list of previous notes.

3. Revenue report by professional.

An issue with the revenue report was inserting occasional income data when a payment was applied to multiple professionals. This has been resolved.

4. Search by phone number has been added to the patient section.

5. When a phone number is not set as a mobile number, the send SMS button will no longer be displayed.

6. Invoice email content is now accurately mentioning the location from which the invoice is sent.

7. Invoices paid with multiple payment types are now reflected accurately in the reports. When recording a payment using multiple payment types, the revenue report was not calculating totals accurately. This has been resolved.

8. Verify LOW SMS warning emails. You will now receive warning emails when your SMS credits are running low.

9. The exported of revenue report contains more information and has been made more ‘spreadsheet ready’

10. Patient history report is opening as expected.

A bug that was causing the patient history not to work as expected was fixed.

11. Security roles have been renamed adequately. We have revised the terminology for security roles to make them more intuitive.

12. Send mass SMS to patients without a future appointment works more adequately.

13. Notes templates now retain the state. We have improved the way notes templates are loading. You can now browse file attachments and previous notes without losing your work in a note template.

14. Saving a new note from a template will now redirect you to your previous notes so that you can revise your work. Previously, saving a note was simply closing the notes module.

15. The calendar panel of the appointment book no longer skips a month.

16. Patient File note template settings have been improved to create accurate results when they are in use.

17. When a contact with no last name is set as the referral source in the patient file, the word null no longer displays (ex Paul null)

18. Referral report and daily payment report pdf data now print more adequately.

19. Send Mass SMS module filters have been improved in speed and accuracy.

UNREPORTED ISSUES AND IMPROVEMENTS

Our lean testing team is relentlessly working to find issues and improve your experience. Here is a list of enhancements in this release.

1. Invoices created only with a product are now linked adequately to the payment. An issue in the case of a product only sale was discovered and fixed to more accurately display the payment.

2. Account statement creator has been revised so that it is easier to understand.

3. When users hover over a few settings buttons, the hand icon was not appearing on some buttons.

4. When a user adds payment and select business field drop down should not showing blank field. It is now impossible to save an invoice unrelated to a business location.

5. The navigation icons of the online booking module have been revised to improve clarity.

6. When 2 professionals create 2 invoices using different business for a single patient and record a single payment for both invoices, it is accounted for adequately in the report module.