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Setting up your practice

Before your team can get to work, you set up the foundation of your practice. As practice manager, you do this via Settings (the last item in the menu on the left). You will find six groups of settings there; for the basic setup you work in the General group, from top to bottom.

Follow the steps in this order: each step builds on the previous one. For example, you need departments and positions in place before you set up workstations and schedules.

1. Check your practice data and locations​

Go to Settings → Locations and check the details of your practice and location(s). If you work from a single practice, one location is enough. If you have several branches, record them all here — later you choose per workstation and per schedule which location it belongs to.

2. Set up departments​

Under Settings → Departments, you record your practice's departments, for example the front desk or a treatment department.

To add a department:

  1. Click the add button.
  2. Give the department a recognisable name (for example "Front office" or "Treatment department").
  3. Save. The department appears in the list and can be used right away for employees and organisational charts.

You can always edit later: open the department in the list, adjust the name and save again.

3. Set up positions​

Under Settings → Positions, you set up positions, such as dentist, dental hygienist or front office employee. A position describes the work someone does — not what they can see or do in DentallManager. Access is controlled with roles, see Roles and permissions.

You will use positions in two important places later:

  • on each employee's file;
  • in the Blueprints of your workstations (step 4): there you specify per day which position is needed at that workstation.

So add at least every position you want to be able to schedule.

4. Set up workstations​

Under Settings → Workstations, you record the workstations you schedule against, for example Behandelkamer 1 (Treatment Room 1) through Behandelkamer 6 (Treatment Room 6), the front desk or sterilisation.

Adding or editing a workstation​

  1. Click Add New for a new workstation, or click the pencil icon under Actions in the list to edit an existing one.
  2. Fill out the form:
    • Name (required) — for example "Treatment Room 3" or "Front desk left".
    • Description — free text, useful when workstations look alike ("next to the storage room").
    • Location (required) — the branch where this workstation is located.
    • Column — determines in which column of the schedule overview the workstation appears (left or right).
  3. Save. With the Disable and Hide toggles in the list you can temporarily switch a workstation off or remove it from view without deleting anything.

Blueprints: defining the staffing per day​

In the same edit screen you will find the Blueprints section. Here you define per weekday how this workstation must be staffed — the blueprint your schedules are built on. For example: "on Mondays the front desk needs a front office employee from 08:00 to 21:00".

To set up a blueprint:

  1. Open the Blueprints section and tick the weekday (Mon, Tue, Wed…).
  2. At Frequency, choose how often this pattern applies, for example Every week.
  3. Fill in the start and end time of this workstation for this day, for example 08:00 to 21:00.
  4. At Pause, add the break blocks, for example 12:00 to 12:30. Use Add break to add more.
  5. Inside the time block, choose the position that must staff this workstation, for example a front office employee. Use Add position to add more positions or time blocks on the same day; use Add associated positions to link extra positions to the same block.
  6. Repeat for the other days — or click Copy on a completed day to apply the same blueprint to other days.
  7. Need several patterns on one day (for example separate morning and evening staffing)? Click Add Blueprint next to the day.

Save the workstation. The blueprints determine what you need per day when scheduling; see Scheduling & Leave — overview for how to build schedules on top of them.

5. Expertise and qualifications​

Under Settings → Expertise and Qualification, you record specific knowledge and qualifications, so you can register them per employee — think of implantology or radiography certification. This shows you who is deployable for what, both when scheduling and in the team overview.

6. Add users and roles​

Add your team via Settings → Users and assign roles. A role determines what someone can see and do in DentallManager; a position (step 3) describes the work. Read more at Roles and permissions and Managing users.

7. Set up the base schedule​

Once practice data, departments, positions and workstations (with blueprints) are ready, you create the first schedules via Settings → Create new schedule, or first read the Scheduling & Leave — overview.

Next step​

Done with the basics? Continue with Onboarding your practice to bring your team on board.

Need help? Contact the free helpdesk via info@dentallmanager.nl.