Appointment Templates
The standard appointment card in Dime.Scheduler has the obvious fields - start, end, resourceResourceAn entity that can carry out work - a person, vehicle, tool, or room - that you schedule on the planning board., description - and that is enough for a lot of scheduling work. It is not enough the moment a customer needs the technician to record a serial number, a meter reading, a "did the customer sign off" checkbox. Appointment templatesAppointment templateA set of extra fields added to the appointment card, scoped to source types, so planners can capture data beyond the defaults. are how you add those fields without writing code.
A template adds custom tabs and fields to the appointment card; whatever the user fills in flows back to the back-officeBack officeThe ERP or business system Dime.Scheduler plans for - most often Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It owns the master data and remains authoritative over what it receives. application alongside the standard appointment data. You can define multiple templates and bind each one to a different kind of taskTaskA unit of work that belongs to a job. It appears in the open task list until it is scheduled to a resource., so the card adapts to the work at hand instead of becoming a wall of irrelevant fields.
How templates, sections, and fields fit together
The model has three layers:
- A field is the smallest unit - a code, a display name, a data type, an optional default value.
- A section groups fields into a single tab on the appointment card.
- A template groups sections, and is what gets assigned to a task.
The same field can appear in more than one section, and the same section can appear in more than one template - that reuse is what keeps your data model consistent across the business.
.
+-- Appointment Template 1
| +-- Section 1
| +-- Text field 1
| +-- Number field 1
| +-- Section 2
| +-- Text field 2
| +-- Date field 1
| +-- Boolean field 1
+-- Appointment Template 2
| +-- Section 3
| +-- Text field 1
| +-- Boolean field 1
| +-- Section 4
| +-- Text field 3
| +-- Date/Time field 1
The page
The whole setup happens on a single page (Settings → Appointment Templates) made up of three panels side by side, one per layer: Templates, Sections and Fields. Drag the divider between two panels to give one of them more room.
Each panel is a tree rather than a flat list. Expand a template to see the sections assigned to it, expand a section to see its fields, and expand a Select field to see the options the user can pick from. There are no separate assignment grids any more: the relationships live inline, under the parent they belong to.
The workflow is bottom-up: define the fields first, group them into sections, then assemble sections into templates.
Defining fields
The Fields panel is where you create the actual data points the user will fill in. Click the plus button in the panel header and a small form opens at the top of the panel.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Code | The name with which the field is stored. This code is also sent to the back-office application as the identifier of the field, which is why it cannot be changed once the field exists. |
| Display Name | The label or caption of the field on the appointment card. |
| Type | The kind of data the user should enter. The options are:
|
| Default | A value that is filled in before the user touches the field. Only Text and Number fields take a default; for the other types the box is disabled. |
| Required | Tick it to make the field mandatory on the appointment card. |
Both Code and Display Name must be filled in before the form lets you save. To change a field later, click the pencil icon on its row: an edit form opens underneath it with the display name, default value and required flag. The code and type are shown on the row but stay as they are.
Options for Select fields
A Select field is only useful once it has something to select from. Expand the field with the chevron in front of it, then click Add in the options list. Each option has a Code, the value stored and sent to the back office, and a Name, the label the user sees. An option code cannot contain a comma; the form refuses to save one that does. Options can be renamed later with the pencil icon, but their codes are fixed for the same reason field codes are.
The panel shows a Default flag on each option, but this page does not let you change it.
Defining sections and templates
Sections and templates are simpler: both just need a Code and a Name, entered in a dialog that opens from the plus button in the panel header. Save stays disabled until both are filled in. A section's code is only used for managing sections. A template's code matters more: it is what the back-office application sends along with a task to say which template that task should use.
The Templates panel has one extra control per row, a Default check box. If a task arrives from the back office without a template code, the template marked as default is applied; a task that does carry a template code uses that template instead. Ticking the box asks you to confirm, because there can only be one default and ticking a template silently moves the default away from whichever one had it. To move the default, tick the template that should have it rather than trying to clear the current one.
Editing works the same way on both panels: click the pencil icon (or double-click a section row) to change the name in place, then confirm with the check mark or Enter. The code is shown as a badge on the row and cannot be edited after creation.
Wiring fields into sections, sections into templates
Assignment is a two-step gesture, and it reads from right to left on the screen:
- Click the parent row to select it: a template in the Templates panel, or a section in the Sections panel. The selected row is highlighted.
- In the panel to its right, click the Assign arrow on the child you want to add - a section for a template, a field for a section. The child is appended to the end of the parent's list.
If nothing is selected on the left, the page tells you to select a template or section first. Assigning something that is already in the list is refused with This item is already assigned, since a section cannot appear twice on the same card.
Expand the parent to work with what has been assigned:
- Each child shows its sequence number. Use the up and down arrows to reorder; the order is what the user sees on the card, so put the fields a technician fills in first at the top.
- The trash icon on a child unlinks it from the parent after an inline confirmation. This does not delete the field or section itself, which may still be in use elsewhere.
Deleting
The trash icon on a template, section or field row asks for confirmation in place before anything happens. For templates there is one extra safeguard: if tasks still reference the template, the confirmation says so (This template is referenced by tasks. Are you sure you want to delete it?) so you can check with the back office before taking the card away from live work.