Figure 1. The client selection screen when first seen.
Accurate and speedy client selection methods are the key to efficient booking systems. This system has minimised the number of keystrokes/mouse actions required to select existing clients and enter new clients.
Figure 1. The client selection screen when first seen.
The quickest way to select a client is by student number only, but a combination of the name fields and gender is all that is needed to select possible students into the list.
Phone and mobile are on the same screen as these are useful to enter or verify at booking time so that the system has a recent contact number in case the booking need to be changed.
On entry to this screen, the cursor will be in the Given Name textbox. If the user types a name, a space, another name, another space, an "F" or "M", and then presses the "Enter" key, the system will split these three items between the Given Name, Family Name and Gender fields, leaving the cursor at the end of the Family Name. Press the "Enter" key again, and the "Find" button is actioned, the system searches for this name combination, and all possible names will be listed on a table for selection. All combinations of names that are equal or longer than these names (like a wild card selection) are returned to a table.
A clientelle listing for a staff member is produced by typing that staff member's ID into the "All clients who have seen:" text field and then pressing the "Find" button.
Figure 2. A quick way to select Donald Duck
Figure 2 is a sample screen showing how Donald Duck was selected into the table by typing just the first three letters of each name and pressing the "Find" button. Because the system checks for the names as given as well as for the names reversed, it was able to find "Donald Duck" from "Duc Don". "Don Duck would have produced the same result.
If the correct client is found then a click on the client's table entry will allow other screens to act on that name when tab selected. These other screens can also be entered by clicking on the last few columns of the table.