Clinics
Purpose: Helps with scheduling and recording information about clinics. Clinics have events (recurring or non-recurring), and those events have appointment slots. Clinic event appointment slots can be filled in advance by scheduling intakes or cases into those slots, or filled in 'at the site' for walk-ins, or both. Users (staff and pro bono) can be assigned to specific clinic events and to specific appointment slots.
Cost: No cost, but this module may need to be enabled by LegalServer on older sites. Search the Admin page for 'clinic' to determine if it is already enabled on your site.
If it is not enabled, file a ticket from your site (Help menu > Support Ticket). Note: Enabling the module also requires setting up several processes, forms, and profiles. The no cost option includes doing that on one site, either your demo or live site. You can then create those on the other site, or have us invoice you $300 to do both sites. Specify in your ticket that you want the objects created on demo or live, or if you want us to bill you and do both.
Training on setup and use of the module is typically charged at the standard hourly rate.
Compared to Outreach Records: Before the Clinics module was developed, sites could only record 'overall' information about clinics, such as the estimated or actual number of attendees. There were no scheduling options or any means to create recurring clinic events. A new outreach record was typically created each time a clinic was offered. Any detail about a clinic was typically put into outreach notes. This option still exists, and may be a better fit for agencies that do not need the scheduling features and additional detail of the Clinics module.
In this Article:
Terms
Three records are used to store information about clinics.
Clinic
This represents a physical or virtual location to hold clinic events. It can be configured with several fields that serve as defaults for its clinic events.
Clinic Event
This represents a date and time when applicants may come to the clinic. Clinic events can be standalone or recurring.
Clinic Event Appointment Slot
This is an individual time slot associated with a clinic event. It has fields for the attorney or advocate assigned to it (if any), the matter linked to it (if any), and a "status" (the current state of the appointment slot).
Scheduling into a Clinic Event Appointment Slot
There are 4 ways to fill a clinic event appointment slot:
- From the Upcoming Clinic Events list on the main Clinics page, click the 'Schedule' link next to a clinic event, then the 'Schedule' link next to the desired appointment slot. This will start the designated clinic intake process and link the intake to the selected slot.
- From a specific Clinic Event page, click the 'Add Client' link next to the desired appointment slot. This will start the designated clinic intake process and link the intake to the selected slot.
- At the end of standard intake, select "Accept and Schedule Clinic Appointment" or "Set Pending and Schedule Clinic Appointment". Each of these options must be enabled by site administrators in the Disposition block. If either option is available and one is selected, a list of upcoming clinics events is displayed along with Schedule links after clicking Continue at the end of the intake. Clicking one of the Schedule links will display the appointment slots for that clinic event along with Schedule links to fill a slot.
- From a case profile, click the "Schedule Clinic Event" link in the Scheduling group of links. This will display a list of upcoming clinics events along with Schedule links. Clicking one of the Schedule links will display the appointment slots for that clinic event along with Schedule links to fill a slot.
Administrative Setup
This section provides an overview for site administrators of the various pieces used in the module.
Processes
Clinics and Clinic Events have dynamic creation and auxiliary processes that can be managed in Admin > Processes, Forms, and Profiles. Clinics and Clinic Events are separate modules, so the appropriate module must be selected on the process management page. In addition to the dynamic processes, clinic events have a single, static process, "Assign User to Clinic Event", that does not appear on the process management page.
User Profiles
When the Clinics module is enabled, a Clinics field is added to static user profiles (and forms) and is available to be added to dynamic user profiles (and forms). This is a multiselect list of active clinics on the static form. The field on a dynamic form displays active and inactive clinics (Ref: LS-81153 - fixed as of 2023-06-23). Making clinic selections on user profiles is not required, but eases the process of assigning users to clinic events.
Site administrators may wish to add the "Comments" field to user profiles. The text in this field can display in a list of users added to a clinic event.
Documents, Notes, and Tasks on Clinics
Clinics (but not Clinic Events) can have documents, notes, and tasks. Site administrators can use the related blocks to create auxiliary forms and processes to allow any of these features.
Documents - Add Document block and Document List block (for display)
Notes - Add Note block and Notes block (for display)
Tasks - Add Task/Deadline block and Task list view element (for display). For reporting, the top level Clinic table has a "Tasks (One Row per Task)" subtable.
Email to Clinic
Email sent to a clinic will become a note, and any attachments uploaded as files. A clinic's email address is "clinic-ID@sitename.legalserver.org". For example, if the General clinic at ABC Legal is ID number 22, the email address would be " clinic-22@abc.legalserver.org.
Clinic Intake Process(es)
Each clinic can be linked to a specific intake process. All clinics can use the same intake process or multiple intake processes can be created.
A separate clinic intake process is not required if an agency does not plan to schedule from clinic events (the first two options described above). However, if scheduling will be done from clinic event pages, a separate intake process is necessary and must contain at least one special block, as noted below.
Clinic intake processes and forms are dynamic, and maintained on the Admin > Processes, Forms, and Profiles page. Note, however, that clinic intake processes and forms appear in the Case/Matter module, not the Clinic module or Clinic Event module.
The first form of a clinic intake process must contain the Associate With Appointment block. That block links the newly created incomplete intake with the clinic event appointment slot. That block also prevents two matters from being linked to the same appointment slot by providing a validation warning and a select box of other appointments for the same clinic event.
There is also an In-Place Client Search block that is frequently used on clinic intake processes in lieu of a conflict search.
The last form of the clinic intake process should contain the Redirect to Clinic Event block. This block takes the person completing the intake back to the clinic event instead of a case profile page.
Clinic intake processes should be marked as Active = No so they do not appear in the list of available intakes on the Home or Cases page. This step is not strictly required, however, the Associate With Appointment block will place a potentially confusing message on the first page of a clinic intake if the intake is started from the Home or Cases page instead of a clinic event page.
Clinic and Clinic Event Profiles
Both Clinic and Clinic Event profiles are dynamic, though the clinic event appointment profile is not. Clinic profiles can be configured with the standard array of dynamic fields and blocks. The Custom Link Box sidebar element allows a site to set the auxiliary process links that should appear. The Events sidebar element can display an "Add Clinic Event" link on the clinic profile.
Clinic Event Appointment Profile
This profile displays information about a filled clinic event appointment slot. This profile is static, so administrators cannot change it. The sidebar, however, can contain links related to the matter (see General Settings below).
The clinic appointment status lookup on the profile contains special functionality. If a lookup value is configured with 'clear_reject,' and that lookup is selected, the user will be taken to the rejection screen for the associated case. If the lookup value is configured with 'clear_reschedule,' the user will be taken to the reschedule process (the same as if clicking Schedule Clinic Appointment from the case profile). The original appointment is not cleared unless the user completes the rejection process or reschedules the appointment.
Problem Notes
The Problem Notes that appear on a clinic event appointment profile are a singular system note type. This means there is only one note per case/matter. These notes are typically used to add additional information about the legal problem for the case. In addition to appearing on the appointment profile, problem notes can be displayed:
- As a column in the search results produced by the In-Place Client Search block
- On one or more of the forms of a clinic's intake process
- As a column on the appointment list on a clinic event profile page
General Notes
The General Notes that appear on a clinic event appointment profile are a non-singular system note type. This means there can be multiple notes per case/matter. These notes are typically used to record additional information when the status of an appointment changes. General Notes can be displayed as a column on the appointment list on a clinic event profile page.
General Settings
The Admin > Clinic page contains some general settings for clinics.
- Display Clinic Event Appointments in the Calendar: If set to Yes, users linked to appointment slots will see them on their LegalServer calendar.
- Create Case Assignments for Clinic Appointments: If set to Yes, an assignment on a matter can be automatically created when a user is assigned to a filled clinic event appointment slot, or the user is changed on a filled slot. On the assign users to slots pages, a Type dropdown will appear next the user dropdown. In order to use this feature at least one assignment type must be marked as available for use in clinics. See Admin > Lookups > Assignment Types.
- Close appropriate Case Assignment when Clinic Appointment ends: Generally, assignments which are created for the purpose of a clinic appointment will stay open until they are manually closed. This configuration forces those assignments to be closed whenever the appointment slot gets a different user, a different matter, or is deleted.
- Auxiliary Processes to Show in the Clinic Appointment Profile: This is a multi-select list of processes (links) to show when someone is viewing a clinic event appointment profile. These links are designed to allow specific information about the case linked to the appointment slot to be edited without needing to go to the case profile. None of the links are required to be selected.
- The Admin > Calendar Settings page has a "Schedule Reservation Minutes" setting. The default is 5. This is how long an appointment slot will be held when someone starts to fill a slot from a scheduling page. If they don't confirm filling the slot within that time, the slot will change from "Reserved" back to available.
Blocks
As noted above, there are two blocks that are typically used with intake processes for clinics.
Associate with Appointment
This block associates a clinic appointment with an intake when the user clicks a "Schedule" or "Add Client" link to begin an intake from a clinic page. This block may be somewhat confusing if used on a standard matter intake because it will display "No appointment set, so this will not associate with a clinic" in a yellow instruction box if the intake is not started from a clinic page.
Redirect to Clinic Event
This block is typically placed at the end of an intake that is associated with clinic events. It provides a Continue button, and will attempt to redirect a user to a clinic event instead of the main profile page for the case.
Clinic Appointment Status Lookup
Site administrators should review this lookup (Admin > Lookups page). As noted above, status changes to a filled clinic event appointment slot can have consequences other than simply changing the value of the status field.
Typical values for the lookup are:
- Cancelled (a System value; administrators can make limited changes; email support@legalserver.org if you want the options for this value changed)
- Confirmed
- No Show
- Reschedule
- Walk In
Each lookup value can optionally have one or more of these options selected:
- Clears and Rejects Case When Selected
- Clears and Reschedules Case When Selected
- Clears Case Appointment When Selected
- Default Reject Reason