How do you keep track of appointments?

I’m just curious how most of you guys keep track of appointments? Do you have a paper calendar? Use excel? Outlook? Google calendar?

Cheers,

Outlook for me Chris

Added: I also have a phone/PDA when I’m on the road that syncs with my desktop when I get home.

I use a desktop calendar from office max.

I also keep a journal/calendar in my car so I can check if someone calls and I am away from my office.

I use palm desktop, even if I didn’t have a palm device, I would still use it.

tom

I use a regular day planner, but also put appointments on my Ipaq that has my inspection software on it. That way I have 2 copies.

Google calendar for the office, and Day Minder for on the road.

I especially like the Google calendar, because it can be shared with other Google calendar users all over. They don’t have to have access to your comp.

I have used ACT, for well over 10 years, great program and flexible as well.

Old school-date book. Sometimes I take an appointment on a small notebook I keep in my pocket, if I’m in an attic. Answer your phone. Don’t rely on people leaving a message.
Stu

Appointment Book, Calender and Outlook

Calendar.

Day Planner

Used to use a Treo but dropped it too many times. Used to use Outlook, but was not very disciplined. So now I strictly use a day planner that stays in the office and in the truck with me.

That’s why I’m purchasing a “man purse” :neutral:

A cheap book style calender from the dollar store that sits on my desk next to the phone and I run schedule sheets for each appointment with all the client information. Those are on a clipboard next to the cheap calender. At the end of the year (after taxes are done) the calender get closed up, tossed into the file box with all that years report files and goes into storage, hopefully never to be seen again.

I currently use Outlook - comp at home and ppc in the field. Recently purchased ACT and am hoping that I can get it to make some of my processes more streamline and reduce some paperwork with it.

Microsoft Access.

Are you developing a schedule / accounts program?

Yep, I like the old fashion pen and paper method also…never fails me, and simple.

memory
Horizon had a scheduler however HIP has not yet added that function though it is easy to add dates to new inspections and I use the cover page as a preview.
This go"s out as part of my confirmation letter.

I’m working on it. Just need to get through the other 297 suggestions you guys have made. :mrgreen:

Not any time in the near future… I was mostly just curious for the sake of curiosity. An upcoming NACHI.TV show discusses scheduling and it got me to wondering how many of our members are using a tech solution for calendaring and how many are using a paper solution.

For those who are interested, I personally use Outlook, though I’m in the process of switching to Lightning which is an implementation of Sunbird that integrates with Thunderbird. I also use another Thunderbird add-on called ReminderFox that reminds me when appointments are coming up, when bills are due, etc. The combination is working pretty well for me so far, although I’m finding that neither Sunbird nor ReminderFox’s pop-up reminders are nearly as good as Outlook’s. In the end I’ll either switch to iCal (I’m going to move to a Mac within the next 2 months) which would be nice because it syncs nicely with my iPhone, or I’m going to switch to Google Calendar and write my own reminder software.

Cheers,

I use Google Calendar which integrates nicely with our email accounts. I’ve thought of extending their api and making something with it too. We’ll see, people have come up with some cool add on’s already.