Types of Events

Abacus uses the following types of events: Appointments, Reminders, Things To Do, and Calls To Make.

Appointments

Appointments are timed events that occur on a specific date and time.

Reminders

In calendars, any event that has a blank time is considered a reminder. Prior versions of Abacus also referred to these as timeless events, which include holidays, ticklers, etc.

Events can also use the Type field for categories, including using "R" for Reminders. But this flag does not instigate any special behavior in Law, it just gives you the ability to query reports and calendars based on the values you enter into the Type field.

Auto-reminders are the event records created automatically by Law when you enter numbers into the Reminders fields in the Event window. For example, if you add a DEPO on May 3rd and enter a "2" in the first Reminder field, Law will create an auto-reminder event record for May 1st whose note will refer to the DEPO. Auto-reminders will appear in the Linked Events list for their main event. Also, if you move or delete an event that has auto-reminders, they will be regenerated or deleted automatically.

If the main event has a time of TO-DO, the reminders will also be TO-DO events (or Things To Do) so they will roll forward if not marked Done.

To use auto-reminders as follow-up reminders, put a negative number in the Reminder field. This will create the reminder record AFTER the main event.

Law supplies two auto-reminder fields for extremely quick reminder creation, but it is not a limit on the number of reminders you can have. To create more, you can clone an existing reminder, or add a new one altogether.

You can also edit or create a rule to automatically create as many reminders as you like for any event. For example, you could create a rule called DEPO with four reminders. Every time you calendar a DEPO, Law will offer to create the four reminders for you. You can also assign a form to one of the reminders to automate creation of any necessary documents ahead of time.

Things To Do

In calendars, any event whose time is set to "TO-DO" will be considered a Thing To Do. These TO-DO events will move forward to tomorrow if they are not marked "Done" (put "D" in the Status field).

Usually, deadlines are entered as TO-DO events. This makes it very easy to distinguish between the "timed" Appointments/Appearances and the Things To Do. Some offices print a calendar for one person that only shows timed events and print a separate calendar for another person with only the TO-DO events.

When a TO-DO event is moved forward, the Status field keeps an "N" for "Not done," and adds after the "N" the original month and day of the event so you know its originally scheduled date even after it has rolled forward several days.

Calls To Make

Calls To Make are either appointments or things to do that remind you to make a telephone call.