Setting up

Processes: visits with several steps

For owners and managers who set up visits that do not end at one desk, and for desk staff who want to know what the Send to… sheet and the Complete button will do.

What a process is#

Most visits are one stop: a customer joins a line, a desk calls them, serves them, and they leave. Some visits are not like that. A patient pays at Billing, has an X-ray, then goes back to the doctor who sent them. A car goes from estimate approval to the workshop to a quality check. A process is how you write that path down once, so that every desk follows it without anybody having to remember it.

A process describes what happens around a service: where someone goes before it, after it, at the same time, or where a choice decides which way they go. You attach a process to a service (or to a whole line), and from then on the desks see it in two places:

• Send to… on the desk's screen shows the path the process makes, ready to send, before anyone presses a button.
• Complete becomes Complete → Cut (or wherever comes next), so finishing one step starts the next one.

A service with no process is just itself: the customer is served and done. You never need a process for an ordinary one-stop visit.

Who can build processes#

Processes is in the Set up group of the sidebar. The owner can open and change any process. A manager can see every process, and can change one when every line it sends people to, and everything it is attached to, is one of their own lines. When a process reaches lines that are not theirs, a manager sees it marked View only, can open it with View, and reads: "You can look at this process but not change it: it sends people to lines that are not yours." Desk staff do not see the Processes page, but they use what it builds every time they press Send to… or Complete.

The five blocks#

A process is a list of cards read from top to bottom. Each card is one of five blocks. There are no arrows to draw: cards that sit side by side mean "one or the other" or "both at once", and everything rejoins at the end, so a process always reads as one straight path.

A process can hold up to 15 cards in all, and cards inside At the same time and Choose one can nest up to four levels deep. The editor shows the count as you go, for example "6 of 15 steps".

The examples you start with#

The first time anyone opens Processes, Line Me Up copies in ready-made examples for your kind of business, in your business's language. From then on they are yours: change them, attach them, copy them or remove them. Where an example names a line — "Billing", say — and you have a line with that name, it is filled in for you. Where you do not, the card says Pick the line for Billing until you choose one.

The page lists every process as a card. Each card shows its path in one line, what it is used by (or "Not used by any service yet"), and anything still missing, such as Pick the line for Billing. The heading counts them, for example "3, 1 in use".

Build a new process#

1. Open Processes in the sidebar.
2. Press New process. The editor opens below the list, on the same page — there is no pop-up window.
3. Type a Name (up to 60 characters), for example "X-ray with review".
4. Under What happens, press Start with… and pick the first card: Go to a line, At the same time, Choose one, Back to whoever sent them or The service itself.
5. Fill the card in. For Go to, choose the Line, and if you want one particular service there, choose it under Service on it (optional); leave it on Anything on this line otherwise.
6. Press Then… under the last card to add the next one. Repeat until the path is complete.
7. Attach it to its services — see the next section.
8. Press Save.

Then… only offers the moves that make sense at that point. After Back to whoever sent them it offers nothing, because nothing can follow it. Once The service itself is in the process it is not offered again. Past the fourth level, At the same time and Choose one are no longer offered. At 15 cards, the button is replaced by "That is the most one process can hold — 15 steps."

Arrange and remove cards#

Every card has Move up, Move down and Remove buttons. Back to whoever sent them has no move buttons — it always stays last. A long process can be folded: At the same time and Choose one have a Hide button that shrinks them to a line such as "4 steps inside", and Open to unfold them again.

Build "at the same time"#

1. Add an At the same time card. It starts with Part 1 and Part 2.
2. In each part, press Start with… and add that part's cards.
3. Need a third or fourth part? Press Add another part. To drop one when you have more than two, press Remove on that part.

The person is placed in every part's line together, and what comes after the card waits until all of the parts are done. While they are being served at one desk, no other desk calls them.

Build "choose one"#

1. Add a Choose one card. It starts with Option 1 and Option 2.
2. Under Who chooses, pick one of:
   • The person sending them — the desk using Send to… picks the option on the sheet.
   • The desk that finishes the step before — the desk picks it when it completes the card just above.
   • Decided automatically — Line Me Up picks it from a fact about the visit.
3. Give each option its own name (up to 30 characters), such as "Normal" and "Fracture".
4. Tick Default — taken when nobody chooses on the option to use when nobody makes a choice — for example when the day closes.
5. Add each option's cards with Start with… inside it.
6. For a third or fourth option, press Add an option.

When you choose Decided automatically, a second field, Decided by, asks which fact decides it, and the options become one per answer — "If Urgent: Yes", "If Urgent: No". The facts are:

• Urgent — Yes or No.
• Age — Under 12, 12 to 59, or 60 and over.
• First visit today here — Yes or No.
• Scheme or insurance — Yes or No. Clinics only.

The desk records these facts when it adds someone with Add visit. The Add visit sheet asks only the facts that one of your processes actually uses, and each starts on Not asked. If a fact was never recorded — because nobody answered it, or the customer joined from their own phone — the default option is taken.

Attach a process to services or lines#

A process does nothing until it is attached. You can attach it to individual services, or to a whole line so that every service on that line uses it. A service's own process always wins over its line's.

From the Processes page:

1. Open the process.
2. Under Attached to, press Change. A panel opens at the side.
3. Services are grouped by the line they are on. Tick the services that should follow this process, or tick every service on this line beside a line's name to attach the whole line. Use Find a service to search a long menu.
4. Press Done, then Save.

Afterwards the editor says what uses it: "Used by", then how many services and lines. A service that follows the process only because its line does is marked "via the line".

You can also choose a process from the other side, while editing a service or a line:

• On Services, open a service and use What happens around it. What its line does means the service simply follows its line.
• On Lines, open a line and use Its services follow. Nothing — they are served and done means no process.

Try a process before it goes live#

Try it walks one person's path through the process, so you can see where they would go without creating a single token. It uses the same rules the desks use, so what you see is what a desk would get.

1. Open the process and press Try it.
2. Under For the service, pick a service. If the process is not attached yet, you can pick any service, and the page says "Not attached to anything yet — this shows what would happen if it were."
3. Answer each choice it meets on the way — "The person sending them chooses", "The desk before chooses", or a fact such as "Urgent?" — by tapping an option.
4. Read Their path: each stop numbered in order, and stops that happen together marked "(same time)".

Change an answer and the path redraws. Try it saves nothing and changes nothing for customers; press Try it again to close it.

Save, and what happens to visits already on the way#

When you press Save, Line Me Up checks the whole process. If anything is wrong, nothing is saved, the editor says "Fix what is marked below, then save again.", and each problem is written beside the card it is about. The ones you are most likely to see:

• Give it a name. — the Name is empty.
• Choose a line — a Go to card has no line yet.
• Pick the line for Billing — an example's line still needs choosing, and the process is attached.
• Add a step here — a part of At the same time is empty.
• Each option needs its own name — two options of a Choose one have the same name.
• A step names a service that is not on its line any more — someone moved or removed that service; pick another, or the line itself.

Every save is a new version. A customer whose visit is already under way keeps the path it started with; only visits sent on after the save follow the new one.

If two people edit the same process, the second save is refused rather than quietly overwriting the first: "Somebody changed this process — open it again to see what changed".

Copy or remove a process#

To make a variation of one you have:

1. On its card, press Make one like this.
2. A new process opens with the same cards, named "… (copy)" and attached to nothing. Rename it, change it, attach it and press Save.

To remove one:

1. Open the process.
2. Press Remove this process at the foot of the editor.
3. The page asks "Remove … ? The services that use it go back to being just themselves." Press Remove to confirm, or Keep it.

Services attached directly fall back to their line's process, if the line has one, and otherwise to being served and done. Visits already on the way are not affected.

At the desk: send someone on with a process#

The desk is where a process comes to life. While you are serving someone on your desk's screen, press Send to… and a panel opens titled "Send Asha to…" — the person's name, or their token when the desk has no name for them.

1. Tick the services the person needs next. They are grouped by line, each line showing how many are waiting and roughly how long the wait is. A service they already have coming up is greyed out as "Already in their visit".
2. If a process attached to a ticked service has a choice for the sender, a row "Choose for X-ray" appears — tap the option you want.
3. Read Their path. It numbers every stop in order; stops on the same line are merged into one (one Billing token "for: X-ray, MRI"), and stops that happen together share a number and say "At the same time". Untick any stop this person should skip.
4. The last stop is usually Back to you (in a clinic, Review). Untick it if they should not come back to you.
5. Optionally write a Note for the next desk — it is shown on their card there.
6. Press Complete and send. Your visit with them is completed, and a message such as "A-014 sent to Billing" appears with Undo for a few seconds.

Only the stops that can be called now become tokens. A later stop — the X-ray after Billing, say — is created the moment the stops before it are done, and it takes its place in that line as of when the person was sent, so paying first does not send them to the back of the X-ray line.

At the desk: Complete follows the process#

When the service you are doing has cards after The service itself, your large Complete button tells you where the person goes next:

• Complete → Cut when the process continues one way. Press it to complete them and start the next step in one go. Beside it, Just complete finishes the visit here without the next step.
• When the next card is a Choose one decided by your desk, the large button shows the default option and where it leads (such as "Normal → …"), and the other option sits beside it. With more options, they are under Other outcomes….

If a desk choice comes later in the path, every option stays planned until that desk decides; the options not taken then show as "Not needed".

Drop a test they are no longer having#

When a step is "for" several services — a Billing token for an X-ray and an MRI — the desk can drop one: open Not doing one… (or Other outcomes…), press Not doing MRI, then press it again where it now reads "Tap again to drop MRI". That service's later steps are cancelled too. If every test is dropped, the way back still opens, so the person can return to whoever sent them.

Results that take time: Report ready#

When someone is due back at the desk that sent them after your step, the button beside Complete reads Report ready: Now. Open it to pick In 30 min, In 1 h, In 2 h or Later today before you complete. The way back is not called until that time has passed, so the doctor is not handed a patient whose report is not ready.

Back to whoever sent them#

A person coming back is reserved for the desk that sent them — and for the person working it — and for nobody else. On that desk's screen they appear under Next up as "Back to you: A-014". The ⋮ button beside a return offers:

• Call now — call this return straight away, while your desk is free.
• Move up and Move down — change the order of your own returns.

Anyone marked priority waiting at that desk is still called first; a return is never called ahead of them.

Choose when returns are called#

1. Open Settings and choose Customers.
2. Under Coming back to their desk, set When somebody comes back to Call them before anyone new (the usual choice), or to "After every 3 new people" — any number from 1 to 10 — if returns are crowding out new arrivals.
3. If you spaced them out, set Longest they wait once back (minutes), between 5 and 120. After that long, a return is called next at their desk anyway.
4. Press Save changes.

When the person who sent them has left#

If the sender ends their shift, their returns are held for them for 15 minutes. After that the Live board shows a strip, "Waiting for somebody who is not at their desk", with one sentence per person — for example "A-014 is waiting to go back to Dr Rao, whose shift has ended", or "…who is on a break, back ~3:30 pm" when they paused. For each one, choose:

• Give to another desk — pick a desk that is on shift.
• Keep — keep them for the same person until the day closes.
• Cancel — press, then press again to confirm.

Nothing is released by the clock on its own — a person always decides.

What customers and desks see of a visit with several steps#

The customer's ticket. When a visit has more than one step, the customer's ticket page shows a card above the token, headed What to do now, with one plain sentence — "Go to Billing first.", "Wait to be called at X-ray.", "Go to Room 3 now — it's your turn." — and under it every step in order, each marked Done, Now, Waiting, Go first, Later, or the way back: Go back (a clinic's patients see Review). A step that a desk's choice has not decided yet is not shown. The page updates itself as each step finishes.

The desk. On the Waitlist and in the Visits report, a visit's details include a Whole visit section: every step with its token, desk, who served, the times, "Sent by … from …", what a later step "Waits for", and whom a return is "Kept for". A step on a line you cannot see reads "Another line" with no details.

At the end of the day. Steps still waiting when the day closes are closed with it. The customer sees "Closed with the day" on those steps and "Today's visit has closed. Please book again." (a clinic says "Please book a review.").

Good to know#

• A process runs when a desk sends someone on, and when a desk completes a step. A customer who joins a service from their phone goes straight to that service's line; the cards before The service itself apply when a desk uses Send to…. The cards after it apply on Complete either way.
• Back to whoever sent them needs a sender. If the person joined by themselves, that card is skipped and their visit ends after the last step.
• The same service is not sent twice while it is still to come. Once done, it can be sent again — a repeat X-ray, for example.
• Facts are only as good as the desk's answers. An automatic choice on a fact nobody recorded always takes the default, so make the default the safe, common path.

When something does not look right#

• Complete does not show the next step. Check the service is attached — on its card, "Used by" should list it, or its line. A service's own process beats its line's, so a different process on the service will take over.
• A process cannot be picked on Services or Lines. It is greyed out because it is unfinished; the reason is written beside it. Open it on Processes and fix that card.
• You can see a process but cannot change it. It sends people to, or is attached on, a line that is not yours. Ask the owner, or a manager of those lines.
• "This process is not here any more." Someone removed it while you had it open. Press All processes to go back to the list.