The Drake Scheduler is a program that is fully integrated into the Drake Tax software to assist in setting daily schedules for one or more preparers in the office, generate single or batch appointments, and organizers as well as sending email reminders to customers. The Drake Scheduler features are summarized below.

Watch the video Drake Scheduler for a demonstration

Desktop Icon

A desktop icon allows you to access the Scheduler from outside the tax software. Access is secured using the same preparer log in and password information used to access the tax software.

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Views

You can view the appointments of a selected preparer in a daily, weekly or monthly format by selecting the format and selecting the preparer.

Move Appointments

You can drag and drop an appointment from one time slot to another. Appointments can be moved only within a preparer's display area, and at the new time slot they start on the hour. To move an appointment between preparers, open the appointment, clear the existing selection and select another preparer.

Change the appointment duration by dragging and dropping the upper or lower boundary.

Position your cursor over the top or bottom boundary of an appointment to display a double arrow. Drag and drop the boundary to change the appointment duration in hour increments.

Create Appointment

To create an appointment for a client, open the Scheduler (either from Desktop icon or icon in Drake Tax) and click New Appt.

On the appointment screen, enter the date and time of the appointment. Select the preparer with whom the appointment is scheduled.

Next, enter the ID number of the client. If this client is already in your tax software for the year, you will receive a pop-up asking if you would like to auto-fill the rest of the information. Otherwise, enter the name, address, and other fields manually.

When you are done creating the appointment, click Save at the top.

Edit Appointment

To edit an existing appointment, first locate that appointment. This can be done by selecting the Search icon at the top of the screen, and entering the client’s name or date of appointment.

Another way to find a client appointment is by browsing the calendar. Available options include daily, weekly, or monthly views.

Once the appointment is located and selected, you have the option to edit it. Be sure to select Save when you are done making changes.

Block Single Day

Schedule an “out of office” appointment for a preparer to block out that time. If you want to show “out of office” for more than a day, add additional appointments for each day, or set up a recurring appointment.

1. Open the Scheduler.

2. Double click the start time on the date intended to open the Appointment Detail screen.

3. Select the preparer in the left panel.

4. Enter Out of office (or something like that) in either name field.

5. Enter the Start time and the End time.

6. To schedule a recurring appointment, click the Recurrence button and complete the Appointment Recurrence dialog box.

7. Click Save and click Yes at the prompt to exit the Appointment Detail screen.

Colors

When creating new appointments, or editing appointments that have been previously setup, you can customize the Scheduler with custom colors that will assist you with quickly identifying appointments on the Scheduler without opening up the appointment detail. Open the appointment detail for a client, then on the right-side, click on the color drop list.

After selecting a color, edit the color label. Once a label has been renamed, the name change will apply to all appointments that have that color associated with it.

Appointments in the grid view will display the preparer's username on the appointment as well.

Reminders

Drake Reminders is a background program that advises the logged-in preparer of an impending Scheduler appointment. It is enabled by selecting the option and setting the minutes value on the Setup > Appointments tab in the Scheduler.

You can turn it off

• on the Appointments tab in the Scheduler, and it remains off until you again select the option. Turn it off by clearing the check mark from the option box.

• temporarily, from the system tray, and it remains off until the next time you log in to Drake. Right-click the Drake Reminders icon in the system tray and select Turn Off Reminders.

The next time you log in to Drake Tax, the reminders program is started and you see the "Drake Reminders Now Running" notification.