Does your office close for half a day before major holidays? And how do you set up your Schedule calendar to reflect this?

When you need to close the office for holidays, instead of scheduling fake appointments for every operatory in the Schedule, the best thing to do is to close the office on the selected day in the Schedule. Closing that day will ensure that the hours will not be counted as “available time” when scheduling patient appointments and your weekly and monthly production totals won’t be adversely affected.

Here are three methods you can use to close the office for holidays (or other events):

Yearly Holidays

Closing the office for a holiday that occurs on the same date every year, such as Christmas or Independence Day, is pretty straightforward.

1. In the Schedule module, click the Setup button, and then select Practice Schedule.
   

   

2. Navigate to the date you want to close in the Calendar (such as December 25th).
3. Open the Options menu and select Set Yearly Holiday on selected day.
   

   

4. To save your settings, click Close.

Closing on a Selected Date

However, for holidays that don’t fall on the same date every year (such as Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, or Labor Day) you’ll need to close the office on those days manually.

1. In the Schedule module, click the Setup button, and then select Practice Schedule.
2. Select the date you want to close.
3. Open the Options menu and click Close Office on selected dates.
4. Click Close to save your settings.

Note: Closing on a selected date does not set the date as a Practice Holiday (with the pink indication on the calendar) but as Practice Closed (indicated in light gray).

Partial Day Closures

There are times when you may want to close your office for a specific hours on a selected date. For example, you want to close after noon the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

1. In the Schedule module, click the Setup button, and then select Practice Schedule.
2. In the calendar, select a date and double-click it.
3. Edit the Start Time and End Time that the practice will be open.
4. Select Update Operatory Schedules, and click OK.
   

   

5. Click Close to save your settings.

Additional Information

• When closing the office for a holiday, review those days in the Schedule module and make sure there aren’t any appointments already scheduled, which you’ll need to move.
• You want want to set a time – maybe at the end of each year – to manually close your office for the upcoming year’s holidays that don’t occur on the same date.
• Select Update Operatory Schedules to override any operatory settings that were previously saved in Easy Dental; otherwise the Start and End times for your closed dates may not take effect as intended.
• Read the various topics listed under Setting Up the Schedule in Easy Dental help for more information.