How Dom Portal customized Zoho Creator to streamline healthcare scheduling and workforce management

Overview

Dom Portal needed a more flexible way to manage healthcare staff schedules, service-user bookings, visits, and absences. Its existing Zoho Creator setup stored the required operational data across multiple forms, but the native calendar functionality could not provide the multi-view scheduling, cross-form data handling, real-time updates, and absence management required by its operations.

YAALI Bizappln Solutions designed and implemented a customized scheduling interface within Zoho Creator using HTML, CSS, and backend scripting. The solution brought interconnected scheduling data into a single operational interface and added real-time booking updates, automated absence handling, and total-hours tracking.

Key Takeaways

• • Four operational scheduling views are consolidated into one interface.

  • Scheduling data aggregated from multiple Zoho Creator forms.

  • Real-time creation, viewing, and updating of bookings.

  • Automated handling of staff and service-user absences.

  • Automatic booking cancellation and reassignment.

  • Real-time tracking of staff working hours and client service hours.

  • Filterable interface that reduces the need to navigate between multiple reports.

Executive Summary

Dom Portal is a UK-based technology provider focused on the care sector. The company was founded by a team with more than 20 years of combined experience in technology and direct care delivery across domiciliary care and care homes.

The company developed the Dom Portal platform after experiencing the operational inefficiencies created by using multiple disconnected systems for care planning, staff rostering, medication management, and finance while operating its own care services.

Dom Portal provides an integrated platform for domiciliary care providers, residential care homes, and supported living services. Its platform supports care planning, rostering, medication, and workforce operations, with a focus on person-centric home care and its "Care Circle" approach to connecting service users with families, community services, and institutions such as the NHS.

Location: United Kingdom
Industry: Healthcare Services, Digital Care Management
Company Type: Privately Held Organization
Combined founding-team experience: 20+ years

Problem Statement and Key Challenges

Dom Portal manages scheduling operations involving service users, care staff, visits, and manual rostering. As the scheduling process became more complex, the existing setup needed a more comprehensive operational interface to provide visibility and control across these interconnected activities.

The native Zoho Creator calendar report could not fully support the way Dom Portal needed to manage its scheduling data. In particular, the workflow required multiple lookups and information from several interconnected forms, while the native calendar functionality supported only a single-select lookup and data from one form.

Key Challenges:

Fragmented scheduling information

Staff, service-user, visit, and booking information was stored across different forms without a dynamic multi-view scheduling dashboard.

Limited scheduling views

Dom Portal required four distinct operational perspectives to manage schedules for both clients and workers effectively.

Manual absence management

Managing staff and service-user absences required manual intervention, creating additional administrative effort and the possibility of inconsistent scheduling information.

Limited real-time control

Changes to bookings and schedules needed to be reflected immediately across the relevant scheduling records.

Work-hour visibility

Dom Portal needed a clear way to calculate and track total hours worked by staff and total service hours for service users.

These limitations affected scheduling transparency, workforce planning accuracy, and administrative efficiency, making a customized solution necessary.

Evaluation of the Problem

YAALI evaluated how Dom Portal's existing scheduling data was structured and how administrators were using it to manage staff, service users, visits, and bookings.

The assessment found that the underlying information was available within Zoho Creator, but it was distributed across multiple forms and could not be presented through the dynamic, multi-view interface required by the operational workflow.

The evaluation also identified that absence management required manual intervention. Changes caused by staff or service-user absences were not dynamically reflected across related scheduling records, increasing administrative effort and the potential for inconsistencies.

YAALI therefore determined that replacing the existing data structure was unnecessary. Instead, the appropriate approach was to extend Zoho Creator with a purpose-built scheduling interface that could work with the existing forms while providing the additional functionality required by Dom Portal.

The solution needed to:

• • Bring data from multiple interconnected forms into one interface.

  • Support multiple lookup relationships.

  • Provide four operational scheduling views.

  • Allow administrators to create and update bookings directly.

  • Synchronize changes with the underlying forms in real time.

  • Automate staff and service-user absence handling.

  • Calculate total staff and service-user hours.

Because these requirements went beyond the capabilities of the native calendar report, YAALI proposed a customized interface using HTML, CSS, and backend scripting within Zoho Creator.

Proposed Solution(s)

YAALI proposed a custom-built scheduling interface within Zoho Creator to replace the standard calendar report and provide Dom Portal with a scheduling environment designed around its healthcare operations.

Custom Multi-View Scheduling Interface

The solution aggregates information from:

• • Service User Details Form

  • Staff Details Form

  • Visit Form

  • Manual Rostering/Booking Form

This information is presented through four operational views.

Client This Week provides a weekly view of staff assigned to a specific client and allows allocations to be modified directly within the interface.

Client Scheduled Week displays default staff assignments from visit records, with changes automatically reflected in the source form.

Worker This Week displays service users assigned to a selected staff member.

Worker Scheduled Week shows default client allocations for a worker, including changes resulting from absences or schedule updates.

Automated Absence Management

Two dedicated workflows were implemented:

• • Service User Absence: Cancels relevant bookings and updates associated schedules.

  • Staff Absence: Removes unavailable staff from assigned bookings and automatically adjusts allocations.

Backend scripting handles the associated booking adjustments, reducing the need for manual corrections and maintaining consistency across scheduling views.

Real-Time Booking Management

Administrators can create, view, and update bookings directly from the custom dashboard. Changes are immediately synchronized with the underlying Zoho Creator forms.

Total Hours Tracking

The solution calculates staff working hours and client service hours in real time, providing visibility that supports workforce planning and resource allocation.

User-Centric Interface

The interface was designed around day-to-day scheduling activities, with filterable views, direct editing, and real-time updates. This allows staff to manage schedules without navigating through multiple reports.

Implementation

YAALI implemented the solution as a centralized legal intake workflow in Zoho Creator, connecting the required Zoho applications and Stripe around Bentham Locke P.C.'s onboarding process.

1. Custom Scheduling Dashboard

A custom interface was developed using HTML and CSS to consolidate scheduling information from multiple Zoho Creator forms. The interface was structured around four operational views for clients and workers.

Backend Scheduling Logic

Backend scripting was implemented to support booking creation, updates, absence-driven changes, and synchronization with the underlying forms. This allowed the custom interface to provide functionality beyond the native calendar report.

Absence Automation

Dedicated workflows were introduced for both staff and service-user absences. Related bookings and allocations are automatically adjusted based on the absence scenario.

4. Real-Time Synchronization

The implementation ensures that booking changes made through the scheduling interface are immediately reflected in the associated Zoho Creator forms.

5. Hours Calculation

Real-time calculations were introduced to track staff working hours and client service hours, supporting workforce planning and resource allocation.

6. Streamlined User Interface (UI)

The front-end was designed to simplify daily scheduling activities through clear layouts, filters, direct editing, and dynamic updates, while back-end automation handled the underlying scheduling logic.

Implementation Complexity/Challenges: The project required customization beyond the native Zoho Creator calendar functionality because the scheduling workflow involved multiple interconnected forms, multiple lookup relationships, real-time updates, and automated absence scenarios.

Results

The customized Zoho Creator solution gave Dom Portal a more centralized and responsive way to manage healthcare scheduling and workforce allocatio

Improved Scheduling Visibility

The four-view scheduling interface consolidated information relating to clients, workers, visits, and bookings, providing greater visibility across scheduling operations.

More Efficient Absence Management

Automated absence workflows handle booking cancellations and staff allocation changes, reducing the need for manual scheduling corrections when staff or service users become unavailable.

Improved Data Accuracy

Real-time synchronization ensures that changes made through the scheduling interface are immediately reflected in the underlying records, reducing the risk of inconsistencies between scheduling views and source data.

Better Workforce Planning

Real-time calculation of staff working hours and client service hours provides greater visibility into resource utilization and supports workforce planning and allocation.

Simplified Scheduling Operations

Filterable views and direct editing allow staff to manage schedules from a single interface rather than navigating between multiple reports.

Scalable Solution

The custom-built architecture gives Dom Portal flexibility to extend the scheduling functionality as its operational requirements evolve.

Business Impact

The solution addressed the operational limitations that were affecting scheduling transparency, workforce planning, and administrative efficiency. By combining a customized Zoho Creator interface with automated scheduling logic, Dom Portal gained greater visibility and control over its healthcare scheduling operations.