Unscheduled Items

Overview

Your unscheduled items can appear in a column to the right of the main calendar. These items can be scheduled by dragging and dropping them into the calendar, at the desired time slot. The unscheduled list is filterable, allowing you to view unscheduled items for a particular customer, a specific status, or other criteria.

The term "Unscheduled" can have different meanings for each DayBack customer. Your items appears in the right-hand column if a field mapped in the "Unscheduled" field setting is marked true. These could be items that don't yet have a date, items with a requested date but no specific time, or contracted items that need fulfillment. Often, these items are created by a Salesforce flow and then appear in DayBack to be scheduled. How you define this behavior is completely up to you.

• To-Do List: The sidebar can function as a to-do list within DayBack.
• Scratch Pad: Use the unscheduled column as a scratch pad, placing items there while you navigate between different days and weeks to find a suitable time slot.

Introduction to Unscheduled

What Are Unscheduled Items?

Unscheduled items are tasks or appointments that need to be added to your schedule, but you haven't decided on their exact placement yet. They will appear in the right-hand sidebar until you drag them into a spot on your calendar. Here's what this looks like:

Example Usage

Here are a few ways people use unscheduled items:

1. Scheduling Service Appointments: When a project is approved, you can create several service appointments through a flow. These appointments remain unscheduled until you drag them into the calendar. The unscheduled list reminds you which events still need scheduling and allows you to filter the list by customer if it gets too long.
2. Creating Items Directly in the Unscheduled List: You can create items directly in the unscheduled list by dragging the plus button into the sidebar. This lets you capture the details of an appointment before finding the perfect slot for it.
3. Rescheduling and Scratch Pad: If you need to make room on your schedule, you can move an already scheduled event to "unscheduled" until you find a new place for it. This makes the right-hand sidebar a scratch pad for your calendar.
4. To-Do List: Use the unscheduled list as your to-do list. Drag items into the calendar when you're ready to schedule a time to work on them. With the drag-to-duplicate feature, you can add an item to your schedule multiple times.

By utilizing these features, you can manage your schedule more effectively and ensure that no tasks are overlooked.

Turning On the Unscheduled Sidebar

To enable unscheduled items in your DayBack, you'll do three things.

1. Enable Unscheduled Items in Admin Settings

• Visit the admin settings.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the Views section.
• Set "Enable Unscheduled" to Yes.

2. Activate Unscheduled for Specific Calendars
   • Go to the "Calendar Info" tab for each calendar.
   • Turn on the switch for unscheduled items for each calendar you want to include.

3. Map a Field to "Unscheduled"
   • Salesforce and FileMaker:
     • Map a field to "unscheduled" in at least one of your calendars.
     • In Salesforce, create a checkbox field.
     • In FileMaker, create a number field.
     • Go to the field-mapping tab for each calendar and map the "Unscheduled" field.
     • In FileMaker, make a small edit to one of DayBack's scripts. You only need to do this once per file, not once per calendar (instructions are available here).
   • MS365 and Google Calendar:
     • No action is needed as this is handled automatically.

Turn on Unscheduled for Only Some Users

You can enable the "unscheduled" feature for only specific users, in addition to enabling it for specific calendars. To make the unscheduled list available to a subset of users, use this app action: Disable the Unscheduled List for Specific Users.

What Makes an Item Unscheduled? Field Mapping

The unscheduled list is very flexible: an item appears in the list if the field mapped to "Unscheduled" is set to "true."

Field Mapping in Different Sources

• Salesforce and FileMaker: You'll see a field for "unscheduled" on the field-mapping tab for each calendar. In Salesforce, create a new custom field of the type "checkbox" to use for unscheduled items. In FileMaker, we recommend using a new number field. You can also map "unscheduled" to a formula field for more control.
• MS365 and Google Calendar: No field mapping is needed as this is handled automatically under the hood.

Preserving Attributes

Because "unscheduled" is just a flag indicating whether an item is unscheduled, your items may still have dates, times, and resources associated with them. These attributes are preserved when you drag an unscheduled item into the calendar, unless your placement of the event overrides them. For example:

1. Weight-Loss Check-Ins: You have two 20-minute check-ins to schedule for a client. When you drag an appointment into the calendar, it retains its 20-minute duration.
2. On-Site Training: A two-day on-site training event assigned to a trainer, Marty, needs scheduling. When you drag it to a date in month view, it appears as a two-day event for Marty. If you drag it to another trainer's row in the Schedule tab, it retains the two-day duration but is reassigned to the new trainer.

Renaming "Unscheduled"

Because the list is so flexible, you might use it for things that aren't strictly "unscheduled." For instance, you could list all HOT items in your schedule, where "HOT" could be a status or a combination of status and opportunity value. To rename "Unscheduled":

1. Visit admin settings.
2. Locate the three entries that contain the word "unscheduled" towards the bottom of the list.
3. Replace the word "unscheduled" with your preferred term.

Handling Dates

The unscheduled list does not consider dates, which can be an advantage. For instance, if using the list for "hot deals," you'll see all your hot deals regardless of the calendar date you're viewing. If you map your unscheduled field to a formula field, include a temporal status element. For example, "opportunities greater than $500k where the status is not closed."

Unscheduled vs. Unassigned

These are two different concepts in DayBack.

Unscheduled Items – As described in "What Makes an Item Unscheduled," an unscheduled item is flagged as unscheduled. It may already have a date and time, and it may already have a resource. It can be of any status.

Unassigned Items – An "unassigned" item is different. This item is not unscheduled –– it appears in the calendar on a specific date and possibly at a specific time. However, it does not yet have a "resource," so it shows up in DayBack's "none" column until it is dragged to a specific resource.

Using a Formula Field or a Status for Unscheduled

You may want to map the "unscheduled" field in DayBack to a formula field in Salesforce or a calculation field in FileMaker. This allows an event's status to determine its unscheduled state.

1. Configure the Formula Field:
   • Ensure your formula field returns the type "checkbox."
   • Example: To mark an item as unscheduled when its status is "ToDo":
     • my_status__c == "ToDo"
   • With this setup, changing an item's status in DayBack will move items into and out of the unscheduled list. Changing the item's status in Salesforce will have the same effect.
2. Select the Formula Field in your Field Mapping:
   • In the field mapping, choose the new formula field.
   • Click "More" beneath the field and mark the unscheduled field as "Read Only." This prevents DayBack from trying to write to your formula field or calculation, which would cause Salesforce or FileMaker to throw an error when you try to change the status or duplicate the item in DayBack.
3. Custom Action for Dragging Items:
   • When you drag an item from the unscheduled list to the calendar, you'll need a custom action to change the item's status as part of that drag.
   • Example: Here's an example action you can use as a starting point. It sets the status of events dragged from the unscheduled list to "Pending."

Here's what that looks like in action:

Filtering And Sorting the Unscheduled List

Your unscheduled list may get quite long, so you can filter it using the search box at the top of the list. This filter supports the same grammar as the calendar filter in the left-hand sidebar, including comparison operators and the ability to filter on specific fields. You'll find notes on this grammar and examples here: Text Filter Options.

Important Points to Note:

• Independent Filtering: The unscheduled list does not respect the calendar filters in the left-hand sidebar, just as it doesn't respect the calendar's date ranges. The list will show you all unscheduled events unless you specifically filter it using the unscheduled item search box.
• Sorting Options: When you enable the "unscheduled" feature in DayBack, you'll see options to sort items by creation date or by start date. More filtering and sorting options are planned, so please get in touch if your use case requires specific features.
• Permissions: The list respects your calendar source's permissions. If users are not permitted to see a specific Salesforce record, they won't see it in the "unscheduled" list either.

Move an Item into Unscheduled

Drag Items from the Calendar to Unscheduled

Make free time on your calendar by dragging items into the unscheduled sidebar. Then, navigate to new dates, times, or resources until you find a better spot for the item. Note that you'll only be able to drag items in calendars where you've mapped a field to "unscheduled."

Buttons

You can add buttons to your event to send the event to the unscheduled list. Creating buttons in DayBack is simple, and you can find instructions here: Custom Button Actions. The code for a button named "Make Unscheduled" would look like this:

You can also use this code in any of the Event Action triggers, like On Event Click or On Field Change.

Checkboxes

You can expose the field you're using for "unscheduled" in the custom fields drawer in DayBack. If you format this field as a checkbox, you can send an item to the unscheduled list by clicking that checkbox and then clicking save.

MS365 Calendars

As with Google Calendar, you don't need to do anything in field mapping to enable "unscheduled," though you do have to turn on unscheduled for each calendar as described above. In MS365, the flag for an item being unscheduled is stored in categories as "DayBack Unscheduled." This means you can make an item unscheduled in MS365 itself by applying that category to an event.

Changing the Display of Unscheduled Items

Overview

You can change the way events appear when they're in the unscheduled list, and change the way the event popover looks as well.

Default Display Behavior

By default, unscheduled events have the same popover as they do in the calendar. The first line of text is displayed in white, with the rest of the text (up to eight additional lines) in light gray. Any CSS or HTML you add to the event display will be respected. A small dot to the left of the item indicates the event's status color.

Customizing the Display

You can customize how unscheduled events are displayed using CSS. If you're new to editing DayBack's CSS, you can start here: Editing DayBack's Appearance.

Unscheduled items and their popovers are wrapped in specific CSS classes. The list itself is wrapped in a class named .unscheduled . You can use this class to style items in the list or to change which fields show up when an item is unscheduled.

Example 1: Displaying Location for Unscheduled Items

For example, you may want to show the location of an event when it's in the unscheduled list but you don't need to see that once it's in the calendar. You'd give that field a class name like .loc and then use this CSS to show it in unscheduled and hide it in the calendar (make sure the unscheduled part comes after the calendar part):

.calendar .loc {
    display: none;
}
.unscheduled .loc {
    display: block;
}

Example 2: Removing a Custom Button in Unscheduled Popovers

The popover is also wrapped in the .unscheduled class, allowing different behaviors or appearances when an item is unscheduled.

Say you have a custom button in your popover called "Ship Order" and you want to remove it for unscheduled items, you can assign the button a class name, such as shipOrderButton , and then use the following CSS to hide it:

.unscheduled .shipOrderButton {
    display: none;
}

You can remove fields from the popover in the same way. To hide the date and time fields for unscheduled events, you can use the dateTime class and the following CSS:

.unscheduled .dateTime {
    display: none;
}

Customizing Tooltips

The same unscheduled class can be used to style tooltips differently for unscheduled events, allowing you to apply specific styles or remove elements as needed.

Custom Actions and Behaviors for Unscheduled Items

You can read and write any event's property using custom actions. This includes an event's unscheduled property, accessible as event.unscheduled . This property is also supported in the dbk.addEvent() and dbk.addEvents() helper functions. Learn more about these functions here.

Miscellaneous Items

• The unscheduled list is not shown in Public Bookmarks.
• Tooltips have been updated to look better in the unscheduled list. If you added tooltips to your DayBack before April 4th, 2023, consider using the new syntax that includes the edit and editEvent objects. Details are available here.
• In FileMaker, sorting unscheduled events by creation date (not start date) will work, but DayBack will first sort these by FileMaker table and then by creation date.