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We are currently working on adding more import options into COv4. In the meantime, we are able to import this data on your behalf if you decide to purchase the software.
Hi – thanks for your post.
[1] Yes this is certainly possible. Usually the best way is to have us create a custom report for you which generates the percentages/figures which are specific to your clinic. There is a one-off charge for a custom report design (see https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/co-pricing
[2] Yes you could create this report yourself if you are very familiar with SQL and also our database schema but generally it’s much better to allow us to do this for you.
I still don’t know if outlook synchronisation is a manual task or an automated task
You have to manually initiate the synchronisation process. There are no plans to introduce automatic synchronisation which would be technologically problematic.
You should add the appropriate custom fields to either the Appointment Editor or the Sessions Editor (depending on whether you record session information) and then we’ll be able to design a custom report for you to display the calcluated information.
Please can you email us (support@pioneersoftware.co.uk) with details of what fields you have added (and where) and how to perform the calculation. We will also need you to send us a backup of your database so that we can key the report to your data.
For instructions on uploading a database backup, please see this FAQ :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/faq-301-how-do-i-upload-my-database-to-your-ftp-server
There will be a charge for doing the custom report for you (see https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/co-pricing but the good news is that you get a 50% discount as you’re on the Support Plan.
Look forward to hearing from you soon!
Regards,
That’s a good suggestion. We’ve put the question to the company who provide the Diary component used in ClinicOffice. Hopefully they will implement the request in due course and then it will be added in an upcoming ClinicOffice v4 update.
Hi Simon,
In build 1048 (to be released later this week) the Diary module will remember and recall your previous font settings when printing the Diary.
We’re aware of some limitations in the Diary Printing functionality, principly the problem is that the diary component always forces the diary to print to a SINGLE page which is why it sometimes changes the intervals in an attempt to make it fit.
Can I print a 12 hour day with 15 min slots on a sheet of A4.
We’re working with the developers of the Diary component to see if they can improve this functionality, however it’s unlikely your going to acheive this in a satisfactory manner.
An A4 sheet of paper is 29.7cm – let’s say 27cm of that is the printable are. Allowing 3cm for the column headers and the ‘ALL DAY’ appointment slots at the top leaves 24cm. You’re asking for 12 hours with 4 slots per hour = 48 slots 0.5cm per slot. I’m sure you can see why this is likely to be unfeasible.
Hi Simon,
it now crashes the updated computers that we have
I can’t find any error reports – did you email any of the error reports through to us? Please let us know exactly what error message you receive.
the un-updated computer still loads it fine
That’s curious because once a database is updated to a newer version, you won’t be able to log on with an older version (as the database structure will have changed) so you shouldn’t be able to mix versions.
Probably the best thing is to please contact our helpdesk and we’ll connect in remotely to see if we can assist.
OK – we’ll add that in to the next update. Please note that you now only have one wish left from the ClinicOffice genie! 😉 (just kidding!)
Hi Jon,
I see that it is possible to synchronise the diary and contacts with Outlook which uses .csv files… Would it be possible to extend this feature
ClinicOffice doesn’t use CSV files to communicate with Outlook, it communicates directly via the Outlook API. This means there’s no way that our code can be ‘extended’ to work with Windows Calendar or Contacts, rather it would require a complete rewrite of the synchronization module.
Did you know that you can buy Outlook 2007 for around £30? If your Nokia will sync with Outlook then this will allow you to use ClinicOffice with your phone.
Click here for the latest Outlook 2007 prices.
Hi Grahame,
I need to select a practitioner here
Which practitioner do you want to ‘select’? You can just type the name of the practitioner into the letter template. Alternatively, please let us know where you want to get the practitioner name from in the database?
Kind Regards,
Click VIEW | TYPES AND CATEGORIES, then choose Appointment Status. You can then select which statuses trigger the Send Message to notify the practitioners.
The print preview will show you where the image will appear on the printed page so you simply need to adjust the position for each letter template. If you want absolute image positioning at the bottom of the page then you could use the REPORT DESIGNER rather than the Word Processor to design the letters.
Hi Jon – just to let you know we’ll be looking into the Italian settings problem after the next update which should be in a weeks time or so.
Hi John,
Yes you can change the sounds manually by looking in the ‘sounds‘ sub-folder of your ClinicOffice installation directory. By default this will be :-
C:Program FilesPioneer SoftwareClinicOffice v4soundsThe sounds are wave (.WAV) files. Simply replace the ‘message.wav‘ file with a different wave file of your own choosing.
Images can’t be added in the headers/footers section of the word-processor but you can add images at the top or bottom of the page which has the same effect.
For a small network Windows XP Pro will probably be fine unless you require the advanced features of Windows Server like Exchange and Terminal Services etc.
Regarding ClinicOffice specific advice, if you have 5 or more users then we recomend the SERVER edition of ClinicOffice.
This may be a possibility. However, if you colour code all of your appointment types, then it’s immediately office to all users if they have accidentally entered an appointment without a type.
I’m not sure what you mean “Invoice two or more treatments”.
Do you mean entering a quantity of ‘2’ in the invoice line? Or do you mean adding a second line to the invoice for another treatment? Or do you mean creating more than one invoice for an appointment?
In any case, the likely answer is no because ClinicOffice doesn’t have any way of knowing which of your items or services should be flagged as a possible duplication in the way you suggest. Also, under some circumstances it is normal to raise an invoice for multiple treatments, or to raise multiple invoices against a single appointment.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your post. This question is answered under the Frequently Asked Questions link on our pricing page (just under the price-list). I’ve copied and pasted it here for your convenience :-
For the Startup or Professional Editions, simply purchase one license per computer on which the software will be installed. The ‘Initial License’ is for your first computer and then you pay the reduced ‘Additional License’ cost for any other computers at the same clinic.
The Server Edition is slightly different as licensing is based on concurrent users e.g. if you buy the Server Edition with 5 licenses, you can install the Server Edition on as many computers as you wish, but only 5 people will be able to use the software simultaneously.
Hope this helps to answer your question!
Hi John,
Yes if you look at the Appointment Editor you will see at the bottom of the screen that ClinicOffice logs the date/time that a record was created and also when it was last updated.
Also, if you go the Diary screen and then click Switch to Grid View (top right) then you can customize the grid view to include the Created On date field.
Please let us know if this is sufficient for your requirements?
(If you require a custom report to specifically analyze the differences between appointment start dates and creation dates then we are happy to do that for you but there will be a small charge for designing the custom report – please contact our helpdesk for more information).
We’ve been offering an online backup service ourselves as part of the ClinicOffice Support Plan for a while now and we’re pleased to say it’s working excellently! It’s already saved one clinic from disaster (they had a hard disk failure).
Best of all, apart from a one-off setup fee of £20, there are NO EXTRA MONTHLY CHARGES as the cost of up to 1Gb online storage is included in the Support Plan!
Hi, you can find the minimum and recommended specifcations on our website here :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/co-specsI am looking for maximum performance in the database
The factors which will make the biggest difference are :-
[1] Purchasing the COv4 Server Edition (rather than COv4 Professional)
COv4 Server uses the PostgreSQL Client/Server database engine and performs significantly faster than the file-based engine used in the Professional Edition – especially once you start dealing with 10,000s of records.[2] Installing a wired Gigabit (1000mbit) network (as opposed to 100mbit or wireless)
This will massively improves the performance for the networked computers. You could purchase a dozen super-fast Intel Core i7 PCs, but data can still only be transferred between them at the maximum speed of your network.[3] Ensure your server has at least 2Gb memory (more would better)
As for the actual spec of the server : it really doesn’t need to be a super-ninja PC. A decent Code2Duo Dual Core (i.e. E8400 or above) with 4Gb RAM will be fine. Quad Core improves multi-tasking performance but the benchmark differences between Dual Core and Quad Core aren’t as big as one might think.Fast Raptor hard-disks are very good and may shave a millisecond or two off the server machine performance when executing large queries on a large dataset, but once again, bear in mind that data can only be transferred to the client machines as fast as your network permits.
I hope this is helpful – please let us know if you need any more information!
We have some plans to enhance the Quick Transaction screen so that you can enter multiple payments.
At present however, you can do this by entering just the first payment on the Quick Transaction screen and save it (leaving a balance due on the invoice) and then you can right-click the appointment again right away and click Enter Payment to enter the second payment.
Have you setup Access Groups?
[1] Simply set up an Access Group for “Receptionists” and assign the receptionists to that group
[2] Simply set up an Access Group for “Practitioners” and assign the practitioners to that group
[3] Simply tick the Supervisor box to make them a supervisorPlease refer to page 130 of your User Guide which covers this topic in detail.
is there any way that ClinicOffice can be aware which practitioner is in a given room at a given time
I imagine that should be possible as it currently works the other way around i.e. in Staff View, ClinicOffice uses the staff members Working Hours to see which room (if any) the practitioner is currently working in.
We’ll add it to the wish-list, but at present you would need to manually select the staff, which to be fair only takes about 1 second!
Hi John – it really depends which templates you’re working with (there are dozens!). I notice you’re on our support plan, so please can you contact our helpdesk and we’ll connect in remotely to see how we can help you.
the report i downloaded has an extension of .record
That’s because you have opened the report as a ZIP file and extracted the .RECORD file out of it. Please download the file again and follow the instructions from my previous post.
How do i add in the invoicing insurance company a field that i have added into the patients medical info eg. date of injury.
That depends. Have you added it as a custom field? Also, which report are you trying to add it to? If you’re trying to add custom fields to the form designer then this is something that it would probably best if we helped with via remote support. Have you taken out any support with us? More information on our Support Plan can be found here :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/cospIf you have support, then please contact our help-desk and we’ll be happy to do this for you.
Most likely, Windows has changed the file extension from “.COv4_Report” to “.zip” for you. COv4_Report files are actually ZIP files so Windows sometimes tries to ‘help’ you by renaming the file extension to .ZIP and then opening it as an archive.
To remedy this, when you click the file to download it, choose “SAVE AS…” and make sure the file has the correct extension (COv4_Report).
If you have already downloaded the report and it has been saved as a ZIP file, then you need to rename the file extension. You may need to un-hide extensions first though :-
[1] Open My Computer
[2] Click Tools | Folder Options
[3] Click the View tab
[4] Untick the box called “Hide extensions for known types”
[5] Click OKYou should now be able to rename the file to xxx.COv4_Report file, instead of xxx.zip.
Whichever you way you do it, once you have renamed the report file with the correct COv4_Report extension, you will be able to import it into ClinicOffice without problem.
At present you can’t add fields to the Contact Editor. It is something we’re considering as a possibility though and it is on the wish-list. We’ll give it a bump up the list!
>> 1. Field dependencies… can this be done? …couldn’t find a
>> field type that could change its value based on another field
>> i.e. be dependant on another field.Currently this is not possible without us customising the system for you (which we are happy to do). However we’re looking at adding end-user scripting functionality to COv4 which will allow you to extend functionality based on events. For example, there will be a “BeforePatientSaved” event which will allow you to enter some code yourself (or we can help you) to populate one field with the value of another.
>> 2. Different billings…
Billing is not tied to Cases. Invoices are raised independently of how many cases are currently open. Invoices can be generated from appointments and default costs can be entered for different Appointment Types. You are free to open/close Clinical Cases as you wish. Some customers only open one case per patient, others open a new case per “treatment episode”, other (esp multi-disciplinary clinics) open different cases based on the type of treatment being given. The system is deliberately flexible to allow all of the above.
>> 3. is there a way to copy a client file…
There is a COPY PATIENT on the patient editor.
Kind Regards,
Is there anyway to link this program to your website for online bookings.
We’re currently working on a web-based version of COv4 which will allow this. It will either be a stand-alone product or (more likely) an add-on for the Server Edition of COv4.
There’s no specific time-frame as yet but it should be available this year.
Hi Nazehm,
How do i add my own heading with my own info to the invoice and payment receipt?
How do i add my provider number and ABN to all invoices and receipts?Go to the REPORTS & TEMPLATES part of the program, locate the Invoice report, right-click it and click DESIGN. The report designer allows you to fully customise the templates.
Can i link payments through the hicaps machine?
HICAPS (and other payment methods) is something we are looking into, but at present there is no link.
Hope this helps!
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your suggestion. I’ve added your request to our wishlist.
That kind of functionality is readily available in MS Outlook (and most other PIM software). It’s not really our intention to reproduce everything that Outlook does as COv4 works best ‘along-side’ those kind of programs, but it is certainly worth us considering.
Hi Jason,
[1] Yes – that can easily be done from the Reports & Templates area of the program by running off an Invoice print. You simply set the criteria for the print run (i.e. Patient Category is ‘Private’ and Outstanding Amount > £0) and it will print them all out in one go.
[2] Yes and yes. ClinicOffice v4 is written using the .NET framework which means the application gets re-compiled at run-time for the processor you are using (i.e. 32-bit or 64-bit) so that it makes full use of the hardware available.
[3] Because COv4 uses the .NET framework and is coded to Microsoft’s developer standards, it will immediately be 100% compatible with Windows 7. You can easily transfer a license between computers (or operating systems) – just give us a call when you want to transfer the license (or re-license the same computer) and we’ll be happy to help out.
[4] Yes, the TRIAL version is actually the full version but with some limitations. When you purchase the full version we simply give you a code which unlocks the full functionality and then you can continue with the same database.
[5] Yes it’s very easy. We have a simple utility which converts the file-based data (from the PRO edition) and scales it up to a PGSQL client/server database engine which the SERVER edition uses.
Thanks for your enquiries – look forward to hearing from you soon!
Hi – thanks for your enquiry. To answer your questions one at a time…
[1] You could simply look at the Invoice screen, group it by Practitioner and then collapse the detail. This would provide you with a simple summary showing the amounts invoiced for each person, how much is paid and how much is outstanding. The same could also accomplished via the Invoice List report.
If you wanted a different format, then we could easily design a custom report for you for a small cost.
[2] Every record in ClinicOffice is time/date stamped to show who created it and when, and who last updated it and when. Clincal Notes can also be date/time stamped. There isn’t a dedicated audit trail which shows EVERYTHING that has been done, but a full audit trail is under consideration to be implemented in the SERVER edition.
[3] Yes – that would would be a custom report which we would design for you. If you understand SQL and familiarize yourself with our report designer then you can do it yourself, but it’s usually far more time-efficient to allow our technicians to do it for you.
[4] There is no field in the Staff Editor which allows for customised percentage calculations. Once again that could be easily accomplished via a custom report.
Hope this helps to answer your questions – please let us know if we can help further.
You can add a CUSTOM FIELD for this purpose.
Simply enter DESIGN MODE on the Patient Editor, click ADD FIELD and add a TEXT field called “Hospital Number”. You can then move this field to a prominent location on the Patient Editor.
if the sever version is the fastest option there must be some reason why your just not using it…. is it a cost implication?
The SERVER version is a more complex setup process, has a much larger installation footprint and is overkill for smaller clinics.
Actually, we’re in the process of changing the database engine for the STARTUP & PROFESSIONAL editions. It will use the newest ElevateDB engine rather than the older DBISAM (see http://www.elevatesoft.com).
This should improve database performance for the STARTUP & PRO versions.
To add this template to the PRINT button on the Patient Editor, please do the following :-
– Go to Reports/Templates
– Right click the report in question
– Click Edit Source
– Select the Source Data tab
– In the Options box at the bottom, add a new line and copy and paste the following :-frmEditorPatient=id|id– Click OK
You may need to log off and then log back on again and you should now see the template is included on the PRINT button drop-down.
Hi Maarten,
I’ve added your request to our wishlist. We do have plans to add some new features to the Outlook Sync so that you can include more information in the outward synchronisation (i.e. from COv4 -> Outlook) so that should
This will either be in update 1043 or 1044. Hope this helps!
Hi – thanks for your suggestions.
In the staff list (at the bottom right of the diary screen) you can right-click on the staff member’s name and then click Edit this Staff Member. This goes straight to the staff record from the diary screen.
I’ve added your request to the wishlist about double-clicking the staff portrait to open their record. Having the notes field popup is much more of a custom request which probably wouldn’t be suitable to the 100s of other COv4 users, so we could offer to put that feature in as a bespoke customization for your clinic, but there would have to be a charge for that. Please let us know if that would be of interest?
I hope this information is useful.
No – you must have Microsoft Outlook installed. The whole synchronization process is built around communication between ClinicOffice and MS Outlook.
It appears that “Windows Agenda” is a calendar for Windows Mobile devices – is that correct? If you are able to synchronize between MS Outlook and Windows Agenda, then yes you can use this feature to sync as follows :-
ClinicOffice v4 -> MS Outlook -> Windows Agenda.Hi Grahame – thanks for your post.
I’m afraid that at present there is no single operation that will do this. The best thing we can suggest is to bring up all the staff diaries for a single day, block out the day with a big “Bank Holiday” appointment and then copy/paste it to the other staff members.
I have added this request to our wishlist so a better alternative will implemented in an upcoming update.
It sounds like you have extracted the contents of the .COv4_Report file and are trying to import that.
COv4_Report files are actually ZIP files so it’s possible that Windows is trying to ‘help’ you by renaming the file extension to .ZIP and then opening it as an archive. Please make sure you save the file as a xxxx.COv4_Report file (not ZIP) and then import that file direct to ClinicOffice.
Hi – thanks for your post.
We are just about to release a new Outlook Synchronization add-on module which will allow 2-way synchronization of the appointment diary between Outlook and ClinicOffice.
This means that you can enter appointments in either Outlook (or your PDA) or in ClinicOffice, or in both, and then synchronize the diaries.
Probably sometime next week (beginning 19th Jan 2009) the trial edition will be updated with this feature so you can download the trial again it and see it for yourself!
Hi John,
I’ve taken a look at the import routine and currently the GP field is only imported based on their name. However it would actually be a simple change for us to allow you to specify the numeric GP ID field instead when importing the Patient list which would then link the GP -> Patients based on ID instead.
I notice from our records that you haven’t yet purchased ClinicOffice. If you decide to proceed please mention this forum post to our staff when you place your order and we’ll be happy make this adjustment for you.
@John wrote:
Can you please comment on my other point about searching for GP names in the Patient entry form. Is it necessary for all the contacts to be searched, when GPs are identified separately as a category within your contacts database?
GPs are listed under the Contacts database and the ‘GP’ field in the Patient Editor is a contact-lookup field so when you perform the lookup, ClinicOffice will list all matching Contact records (including non-GPs).
If you feel that this would present a severe problem to you, then we could look at the possibility of allowing users to filter the lookups on contact sub-categories too.
