Program library

The program library holds your clinic's ready-made programs and behaviors. Behavior analysts import them into a learner's plan instead of building each program from scratch (see Import from the library).

Anyone who can author ABA plans or manage the ABA library can browse the library. Changing the clinic's collections needs permission to manage the ABA library; anyone who can author ABA plans can keep their own personal libraries. See Roles and permissions.

Collections and folders#

Your library is made of one or more named collections, such as Early learner programs or Behavior library. Each has a description and says what it holds: programs, behaviors, or both. Inside a collection, items are filed in folders for domains and subdomains (for example Communication / Requesting), nested up to five levels.

Click Collections to add, rename or delete a collection and to manage the folders of the one you pick. A collection can be deleted only when it is empty. Deleting a folder moves its subfolders and items up to the folder it sat in.

A clinic starts with one collection, Clinic library. An item saved without a collection goes to the first one.

Personal libraries#

Behavior analysts can keep libraries of their own. In Collections, click New Collection: it is personal unless you manage the clinic library and leave Personal library off. Only you edit a personal library. To let others read and import from it, open its actions and click Share, then turn on Everyone in the clinic or pick Named colleagues. A shared library is read-only to them; turn sharing off to revoke it. The Library column shows whether a collection is the clinic's, yours or shared by a colleague.

Starter library#

NeatPractice includes a small starter library of programs and behaviors written for NeatPractice, ready to tailor. Click Starter Library, check the entries you want and click Add to Library. Each one becomes a copy in your first clinic collection with its targets, prompt levels and mastery rules; edit it like any other item. Entries already added show Added; adding one again makes another copy.

Likes and imports#

The library lists how many times each item was imported into a learner's plan (Imports) and how many people like it. Click the heart on an item to like it, or click it again to take your like back.

What an item holds#

Each item is either a Program (a skill to teach) or a Behavior (a behavior to reduce) and carries everything a program does:

• Its name, type, collection, folder and every program field, from the operational definition to the generalization criteria, including its list of teaching procedures.
• For a behavior, its topography, functions, function hypothesis, onset, offset, examples and non-examples, and its evidenced by options for session notes.
• Its measure and data settings.
• Its targets, and the steps of each task analysis target.
• Its prompt levels and mastery rules, copied from a prompt hierarchy and criteria template or set by hand. They travel with the item into every program imported from it.
• Up to 20 tags of up to 40 characters each, such as early learner or toileting.
• Whether it is active.

Browse the library#

Items are sorted by name and show the folder they are filed in. Pick a Collection and a Folder to narrow the list (a folder includes its subfolders), search by name, filter by kind, type, measure, tag or active, and open an item to see all of it. Move to Folder on an item's menu files it elsewhere in its collection.

Add or edit an item#

Create an item, or open one and edit it, in the item dialog. Edits change future imports only: programs already imported from the item keep their own copy. Removing an item leaves every program imported from it untouched.

The item's fields sit on several tabs. When a field on another tab keeps the item from saving, that tab shows a red dot, so you can find the field without opening each tab.

Import from a CSV file#

Bring many items in at once from a spreadsheet saved as CSV or XLSX. The import works like the other Setup imports: NeatPractice checks the whole file first and shows how many items it would add and skip, lists any problem by row number, and adds everything at once or nothing.

• The first row names the columns. Names ignore capital letters, spaces and dashes. Columns the import does not use are ignored and counted.
• Only name is required. A file holds up to 1,000 rows.
• An item whose collection, folder, kind and name the library already holds is skipped, never changed. Two rows with the same collection, folder, kind and name are refused.
• Missing folders are created as the file is imported.
• A cell with several values separates them with semicolons, such as red; blue; green.

Values such as discrete trial with a space instead of an underscore work too. Other measurement data settings, such as trials per session or the interval recording method, are not in the file; set them on the item after the import.

A sample row for a fictional program:

name,kind,folder,tags,measurement,targets,prompt_hierarchy,criteria_template
Match identical colors,program,Visual performance / Matching,early learner,discrete_trial,red; blue; green,Most to least,Standard skill mastery

Import learner programs#

To bring learners' current programs over from a spreadsheet or another system, open the page's menu and click Import Learner Programs. Each row is one target of a program for one learner; a program with no targets takes one row with an empty target. Up to 2,000 rows fit in one file.

• A row finds its learner by chart_number, then external_id (the id from your previous system), then by last_name, first_name and date_of_birth. Only learners whose plans you may write are matched, and the learner needs an open ABA episode. To bring a whole caseload over in the background, with undo, use ABA data import.
• A program the learner's plan does not hold yet becomes a draft, with the default prompt hierarchy for skill programs. A program of the same name already in the plan only gains the targets it lacks; nothing in it changes.
• NeatPractice checks the whole file first and lists any problem by row number. Fix them and choose the file again.

Files from another system#

Both imports, library items and learner programs, take a CSV file or an XLSX workbook (the first sheet is read). When the file comes from another system's export, its columns rarely use our names, so map them:

1. Choose the file, then turn on The file comes from another system.
2. Beside each column NeatPractice reads, pick the header the export uses for it, such as Client ID for chart_number. Leave Same name as ours where the file already uses our name.
3. Check the preview. Every row is checked with your mapping, and any problem is listed by row number.

To reuse a mapping, type a Mapping name and click Save Mapping. Next time, pick it under Saved mapping and the columns fill in. Saving under the name of the mapping you picked updates it; a new name saves a new one. The trash button deletes the picked mapping. Saved mappings belong to the whole clinic, one list per import, and saving or deleting one needs ABA plan: Author. NeatPractice has no built-in formats for other vendors' exports: map your own export once and save it.