[Support]

Thanks for the suggestion Tony. Unfortunately, we’re somewhat restricted by the forum system that we use (phpBB) for this site, but it might be possible.

[Support]

Nope not at all.

[Support]

I’m afraid this is not going to be possible.

WordPress is written in the PHP scripting language while ClinicOffice is a .NET compiled WinForms application. If you hired a PHP development company (and paid them £1000s), they may be able to get a PHP script running on a remote website to access your local database (which is hard enough), but they wouldn’t be able to reproduce the proprietary .NET classes and objects used in ClinicOffice.

The only way this could be done would be if you used some other 3rd party software program which is compatible with WordPress to track your stock levels, and then approached us to do some bespoke development to get ClinicOffice to talk to that 3rd party program. Even this approach would be *a lot* of work and therefore would most likely be more than you want to spend.

[Support]

[Problem Resolved]
Their username had been entered in UPPERCASE, and they were typing it in lowercase.

[Support]

Another suggestion would be to take a backup of your database (TOOLS | BACKUP) and then restore a backup from a couple of days ago when you are sure that you could log on. This will identify whether the problem is a technical issue with your database.

Failing that, it will probably be best to follow the advice in this post and upload your database for our technicians to look at :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/faq-301-how-do-i-upload-my-database-to-your-ftp-server

[Support]

Hi Tony – thanks for your comments…

>> For iPads this is really about following the guidelines from Apple:-
>> No use of Flash
That’s not going to happen. As a Microsoft development company, the UI guidelines we follow are from Microsoft. We specifically don’t target any platform other than Windows. The only reason ClinicOffice even works on any Apple hardware at all, is because Apple now supports MS Windows (both natively and via Remote Desktop).

(As a side point it’s pretty widely recognised that Apple’s glaring omission of Flash support is absurd given how ubiquitous the Flash platform is across all IT business sectors. The argument that “HTML5 will replace Flash” will likely prove to be only partially true at best and Flash will be around for a very a long time.)

>> Enable touch sceen navigation to move around the screen including zoom.
This has absoutely nothing to do with the software – this is purely to do with your hardware, your operating system and/or the Remote Desktop implementation you use – none of which we have any control over.

>> Ease of use on individual screens (bigger touch buttons) for
>> Working screens with everything you need in one place (rather than
>> Windows model with large complex screens with all the options avaialble as drop downs)
In the fullness of time, we will most likely introduce a simplified UI with larger buttons for easier touchscreen functionality.

>> Apple talk about optimising each screen for its primary task
>> so that is satisfying and enjoyable to use
This is a highly-subjective and grossly generic design goal. What does a “satisfying” screen look like? How does one make a screen “enjoyable” to use? How many focus groups of what size do you need to reach a consensus? What percentage should find a given screen “satisfying and enjoyable” before that screen is acceptable?

After several decades of software development, we’ve got a pretty good idea of how to develop a good UI and our feedback from users is that the ClinicOffice UI is already intuitive and easy to use. In fact, it’s the UI which tends win people over to choosing ClinicOffice in the first place. Is there something specific which you are finding problematic?

>> Help documents as searchable ebooks
We already have a searchable help forum, searchable PDFs and a printed user guide – why do we need to introduce eBooks? 99% of PCs will have a PDF reader installed – how many have an eBook reader installed? I don’t understand – sorry.

I wonder if there has been some confusion on this topic? As mentioned earler, please bear in mind that we do not develop software for Apple hardware. To re-write ClinicOffice for Apple MAC (or Apple’s iOS) would require us (a) to employ new programmers (b) to completely re-write 100,000s lines of code (c) to train (or employ) support staff for Apple devices. The cost of this would be exorbitant and in all honesty, the current demand for ClinicOffice-related development (in Windows) is so high that we’re already working at full capacity.

@Roelof:
>> I would like to add the ability to quick make some notes with a stylus.
>> NO keyboard BETWEEN me and my patient
Once again – this is a feature of your hardware and operating system. If your device has a stylus and handwriting recognition, then what you write will be translated into text and automatically inserted into ClinicOffice. There is nothing that we can do to about this.

I hope this helps to clarify our position. The short answer is that once we’ve finished the Online Diary Module (nearly done) and then ClinicOffice v5 (a couple of months away from completion), then a simplified UI for touch-screen devices which will enhance the user experience on any touch-screen device (including the iPad) is on the cards. However, our roots, experience and expertise are in Windows development and that is very unlikely to change in the future.

Hope this helps!

[Support]

Thanks for your question.

Firstly, please check that you are logging on to the correct database. Most commonly this problem occurs because a user has inadvertently selected the “Sample Database” (or a different database) on the logon screen and is entering their logon details to the wrong database.

If that’s not the case, then are you 100% SURE that you’re entering the details exactly correctly? For example :-

– In COv4 onwards usernames are all lowercase by default whereas previously they were UPPERCASE (“JSMITH” or “JSmith” is not the same as “jsmith”)

– Have you incorrectly put a white-space character between an initial and surname? (e.g. “j smith” instead of “jsmith”)

– Have you accidentally put a space before or at the end of the username? (“jsmith ” is not the same as “jsmith”)

If none of the above suggestions work then you could try running a database check by clicking TOOLS | CHECK & REPAIR just in case there is a physical problem with the database (although it is incredibly rare) and then try to logon again.

Hope this helps!

[Support]

Hi Tony – thanks for your post.

There’s nothing to stop you using an iPad (or any other tablet or mobile device). You can read the patient notes, look at their appointment history, view visual notes, image attachments etc. etc.

>> So enhancement request is for the next version of Clinic Office
>> to have a tablet or “lite” option optimised to do this.

What exactly are the ‘optimisations’ that you require?

[Support]

Hi – thanks for your post.

That sounds very weird. :-k Firstly, to get your data over to your new computer, I’d recommend COPYING over the entire database folder (rather than doing a backup and restore). From your logon screen on the new computer, you can then click “Add Existing Database” and select the folder you copied across.

As regards the cause of the strange message, please try temporarily disabling your AntiVirus software to see if that is the cause of the problem.

[Support]

Hi Manic,

Following your email request, here are some instructions on how to update ALL the Item Codes in your database so that the new Item Code would equal the “Description” followed by the original Item Code in brackets.

e.g. A record with Item Code “1001” and a Description of “Cream” would be updated so that the new Item Code would be “Cream (1001)”. The Description will not be altered.

To effect this change, please follow these instructions :-

[1] Make sure you are logged on to ClinicOffice as an administrator
[2] Click TOOLS | BACKUP DATABASE and make a backup of your database first (just in case! :shock:)
[3] Click TOOLS | Advanced DB Operation
[4] Enter the following SQL code :-

update item set itemcode=description || ' (' || itemcode || ')'

[5] Click the EXECUTE button. Please be sure to only click the EXECUTE button ONCE otherwise it will insert multiple descriptions into the item codes.
[6] You should now LOG OFF your database and log back on to have a look at the changes.

Please let us know how you get on with this.

[Support]

Hi – yes all these reports are possible, although I’m not sure whether you really need to have custom reports done for these purposes.

For example, you could go to your patient database, display ALL records and then sort the grid by lastname, firstname and then D.O.B (or any order that you wish) and then scan down the list to spot the duplicates which could then be merged together.

Similarly you could likewise by adding your custom field in to the grid view on the Patient Database (along with their next and previous appointment dates) to help analyse that data.

I notice that you’re on our Support Plan, so if you need any help with the above then please feel free to give our helpdesk a call. If you really do want us to produce some custom reports, then we’re happy to do that but we will obviously have to make a charge – although you’ll get a 50% discount due to being on the Support Plan!

Hope this helps!

[Support]

I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean. Please can you explain in more detail what you’re referring to?

[Support]

Hi Robin – we did look into this once before but it proved difficult for technical reasons. However, I’ve moved the post to our wishlist and we’ll take another look to see if something can be done – thanks for your suggestion!

[Support]

We’ve looked into this in more detail, and it may be that the default text for sending an adhoc appointment reminder has become invalid (although I have no idea how that could have happened).

Please try the following :-

[1] Click TOOLS | Advanced DB Operation
[2] Copy and paste the following into the Advanced DB Operation box :-

delete from setting where section='AppReminder' and name='DefaultSettings'

[3] Click the EXECUTE button
[4] Log off the database and log back on (this clears any cached data)

This will remove the invalid data and should allow you to send the appointment reminders again.

[Support]

Thanks for the suggestion. I can confirm that it is on our wishlist and will be implemented in due course. In the meantime, did you know that you can achieve the same thing using the built-in Windows screensaver?

 

[Support]

We will see if we can introduce this feature in ClinicOffice v5 (coming soon!).

[Support]

Thank you for the suggestion. Perhaps other clients can let us know if they would like this feature by replying to this post?

[Support]

The reason that ALT-S closes a record editor window is because it’s the shortcut for the “SAVE and CLOSE” button.

There is no SAVE and CLOSE on a Print Preview screen as there’s nothing to save. ALT-F4 however is a standard Windows shortcut to close a dialog window down and it works on the Print Preview screen.

[Support]

You can already add text to a Visual Note using the TEXT tool. I guess what you’re talking about is having a predefined list of text items to add?

However, in our experience, adding lots of text to a visual note will soon obscure it making it difficult to read especially when the visual note gets resized down for the Clinical History.

Instead, we recommend creating your own visual note and making a KEY on it i.e. a box in one corner which shows visually that a “RED CROSS = such-and-such” and a “BLUE CIRCLE = something else”.

Many customers use this methodology and it works well for them.

[Support]

I have just tested this and the TAB key accepts the current selection AND moves to the next control so I don’t really understand what you mean I’m afraid.

Please bear in mind that these are standard Windows Controls so the behaviour and functionality will be the same in all Microsoft Windows applications.

[Support]

Hi – we’re unable to reproduce this problem, however we did find that DELETED staff members weren’t being excluded from the list. This has been fixed for the next update.

Please can you check whether you have a duplicate “Helena Morewood” in the Recycle Bin – in which case that will the reason she appears twice.

[Support]

If you mean: “does ClinicOffice have an internal PDF renderer” then you’re correct. However you can still store PDF documents along with Session Notes and a simple double-click will open them with your default reader.

[Support]

Hi,

– Please click DIARY OPTIONS (at the top right of the diary)
– Click Appointment Captions
– Click “Set the font for Appointment Captions”

Hope this helps!

[Support]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your post. Yes it is possible to access to the PostgreSQL database backend which we use for ClinicOffice, however the database contains server-side code (functions, procedures and triggers) as well as our full data structure, both of which are proprietary so we don’t tend to give out full access without a prior agreement in place.

The reporting facilities in ClinicOffice are SQL based, are very advanced and can export direct to Excel, so usually this is sufficient for most customers.

I hope this helps to answer your question.

[Support]

Hi Phil,

This indicates that there is a problem with one of your contact rules. Have you tried doing what the message suggests?

i.e. Go to the Contact Centre and open each of your Contact Rules in turn. You will find that one of them is invalid. You will either need to correct the invalid rule and re-save it, or otherwise delete the invalid rule and re-create it.

Please let us know if this resolves the problem for you.

Many thanks.

[Support]

Hi Malcolm – thanks for your post.

This is what the Active Patient feature is for – it allows you to continue working with a patient. Please see your the following post (or your User Guide) for more information :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/faq-311-what-is-the-active-patient-feature

[Support]

Hi Tony,

To set all the current records “CONSENT” field to TRUE, please follow these steps :-

[1] Make sure you are logged on to ClinicOffice as an administrator
[2] Click TOOLS | Advanced DB Operation
[3] Enter the following SQL code :-

update per set consent=true where ispatient=true
[4] Click the EXECUTE button

Obviously, this will only affect the records that are already in the database, it won’t affect those which are created in the future.

As regards setting the CONSENT field to TRUE by default, this can be achieved via the scripting module which I notice you have already purchased.

[Support]

Hi Tony – thanks for your post. This type of enquiry (which is very specific to your needs) is probably best handled via email rather than in a public forum, so you should be receiving an email reply very shortly.

Many thanks!

[Support]

>> I assume our tax-institute is interested in my real turnover in 2010
I’m afraid I don’t know how your taxation system works in The Netherlands, but “turnover” can usually be calculated from the INVOICE LIST report or the PAYMENT LIST report depending on whether you’re using ACCRUAL based accounting or CASH based accounting respectively.

>> Don’t all the payment have a time-stamp to it?
>> One could lookup the time-stamp of these payments and see what payments
>> came in at 2010 and minus this from the result of the invoices written in 2010.
So what if a single payment for £100 comes in January 2012. £50 is for a previous treatment in December 2011 and the other £50 is for a treatment that was just done (in January 2012). Where does that £100 appear? On 2011 or 2012?

I think it might just be that you’re over-complicating things. If you use ACCRUAL (i.e. invoice-based) accounting, then simply use the Invoice List report. If you use CASH (i.e. payment-based) accounting, then use the Payment List report.

More information can be found here :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Cash_Method_and_Accrual_Method_of_accounting

[Support]

>> Print report of all the invoices in 2010
>> but “exclude” all the bills that have been payed in 2010 ?

It’s the same issue – how do you know when an invoice was paid? For example :-
– An invoice for £100 is raised in November 2010
– A payment came in for £50 in December 2010 and was applied to that invoice
– A second payment came in for £200 in January 2011 and part of it was applied to that invoice to pay it off fully

When was the invoice paid? 2010 or 2011? The answer is both. I’m afraid that what you’re asking for is far from simple. If you need to know the exact standing of your accounts at a certain point in time, then you either need to print off a report AT THAT TIME, or you will need to revert back to a backup of the database from that time to generate the report.

[Support]

>> I have to go back in time (31.dec 2010) and print out a list of open- unpaid invoices.

I’m not too sure I understand what you mean, but you can print the “Invoice List” report for invoices dated between 1/1/2011 and 31/12/2011 and that will show you all invoices raised in that period and whether they are paid or unpaid.

However, the invoice balances on this report will include all up-to-date data including payments made more recently. It is not possible for ClinicOffice to “go back in time” and print a report based on a dataset which no longer exists. Reports can only be based on the data that is currently in your database now – not how it was at a certain point in the past. Ideally, if you needed to know what invoices were still outstanding at a certain point in the past (i.e. at the end of 2011) then you needed to print the report at that time.

Alternatively, you could restore a backup of your database which was taken at the start January to a temporary location and then print out the report from that dataset.

Hope this helps!

[Support]

Please try the following :-

[1] Run your grouped report and make sure all groups are collapsed (so that you just see the summary)
[2] Click PRINT PREVIEW
[3] On the Print Preview screen, click OPTIONS, click the BEHAVIOUR tab then under “Expand” untick “All Groups”
[4] Click OK

Please let us know if that has the desired effect?

[Support]

Hi Roelof,

That specification will be fine as it more than meets the requirements set out here :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/co-specs

Many thanks!

[Support]

Hi Jose,

I’m afraid that due to the complexity of what you’re asking for, and the fact that it is highly specific to your database (which we haven’t seen) we don’t really understand what you’re asking for. Please can you do the following :-

[1] Create a complete mock-up of the report that you require (in Word, Excel or something similar) to show us exactly what you’re trying to achieve. This should include the fields that you want and where these fields come from (PATIENT, CASE or SESSION) records.

[2] Take a backup of your database and upload it to our server. Instructions to do this can be found here :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/faq-301-how-do-i-upload-my-database-to-your-ftp-server

Once we have both of the above, we’ll take a look and see if something bespoke can be done to meet your needs, however there will most likely have to be a charge as it sounds like there will be quite a lot of work involved.

Many thanks.

[Support]

Hi Jo,

>> The custom fields that appear at the patient record list and templates/patient
>> list only show the custom list from patient records
The code that William provided correctly pulls out CUSTOM PATIENT fields and CUSTOM CASE FIELDS.

>> There are 3 where i have custom fields
>> 1) patient record
>> 2) patient case
>> 3) patient session.
SESSIONS and CASES are two completely different things and the custom fields for those records are stored in different tables. You only mentioned custom CASE fields before (not SESSIONS) so William didn’t provide you with the code to include SESSIONS.

However, it’s simply not possible to present this data on one tabular report. To understand why, you first need to understand the relationship between the records.

A patient can have ANY NUMBER of CASES and a CASE can contain ANY NUMBER of SESSIONS. This is represented in ClinicOffice by a TREE structure e.g.

Patient
|- Case 1
| |- Session A
| |- Session B
| |- Session C
|- Case 2
| |- Session D
| |- Session E
| |- Session F

Here there are SIX different SESSION records, 2 different CASE records and 1 PATIENT record, a total of 9 different records (although it can potentially be unlimited). How can this be displayed on one line in a tabular list report? Which CASE would you display next to the Patient’s name and which SESSION would display? You would have to display a separate line for every SESSION and every CASE which means each patient would appear multiple times. This would then make totals at the bottom of the report meaningless.

Please can you explain in detail exactly what it is you’re trying to achieve? If possible, please also provide us with a complete mockup of the report that you want and then our technicians can take a look to see if it’s something that we can do for you.

Many thanks!

[Support]

Hi – thanks for your post. Please follow these steps :-

[1] Click TOOLS | Backup Database to take a backup of your database before you start 🙂

[2] Click TOOLS | Check for Program Updates and make sure that your installation is the latest version

[3] Click TOOLS | Advanced DB Operation and then copy and paste the following code into the box :-

delete from inv;

delete from invline;

delete from refund;

delete from pay;

delete from credit;

delete from creditline;

delete from alloc;

delete from po;

delete from poline;

delete from charge;

*** IMPORTANT *** Make sure that you UNTICK the “Can Adjust SQL” box

[4] Click the EXECUTE button

The above steps will remove all financial data from your database.

[Support]

Hi Steve – I was going to post a couple of further suggestions :-

Please make sure that in the Staff Editor you have configured your working hours for BOTH clinics (see the Staff Editor | Working Hours screen). It might be that you’ve only defined your working hours for one clinic.

Bear in mind that ClinicOffice will by default show you ALL appointments from ALL clinics, however it will gray-out appointments which are not at the Active Clinic. If you wish to hide appointments that happen at other clinics, then click “Diary Options” (at the top right on the diary screen) and untick the “Show appointments from all clinics” option.

Please can you explain what the actual problem was and how you resolved it? That will help other users in case they have the same problem – thanks.

[Support]

>> I can switch between them but nothing happens on the main screen
When you say “the main screen” – which screen are you referring to? What are you expecting to happen? Changing the active clinic will only have an immediate impact on certain screens like the DIARY screen for example.

>> If I tick myself I get the diary for the original clinic.
I’m sorry – I don’t understand. Ticking a staff member in the diary doesn’t affect the active clinic in anyway. If you look at the “ACTIVE CLINIC” indicator (at the bottom of the screen) you will notice that ticking or unticking staff members does not change the active clinic. It simply changes the number of columns visible in the diary to show that person’s appointments for the selected date(s).

>> If I un tick it and tick the “no staff” box. The second clinic comes up ie the
>> times and days of opening on the diary are of the second clinic?
Again, I’m afraid I don’t understand. Ticking the “no staff” staff member merely shows an additional column in the diary which contains appointments that are not assigned to any particular staff member. This allows you to create appointments without a staff member, and then later assign them to your practitioners by dragging and dropping them into a different column in the diary. There is no way that ticking or unticking staff members in the diary will suddenly change the Active Clinic as inidicated at the bottom of the screen.

I wonder if you don’t actually mean that the Active Clinic changes, perhaps you’re referring to the “working hours” (indicated by colouring on the diary) being different for the “NO STAFF” column compared to your diary?

If that’s what you mean, then please bear in mind that working hours are defined for each staff member (in the Staff Editor – Working Hours screen). Thus when you look at the NO STAFF column (for whom there are obviously no working hours defined) the Diary displays the default working hours for the CLINIC not for a staff record. This has nothing to do the Active Clinic having been changed.

To change the default clinic working hours for a clinic, click “VIEW | CLINICOFFICE SETTINGS | CLINIC SETTINGS” and configure the appropriate hours for your clinics in there. The “NO STAFF” column will show those hours depending on which clinic is selected.

I hope this helps to clarify!

[Support]

>> But then my default email program should be running on your server right?
No. It’s not possible to tell your local installation of Windows “my default email program is running on a different computer, so when I launch a ‘mailto:’ link, you need to establish a connection to a remote computer and then open the email on there”.

Please take our word for it Roelof – it’s simply not possible!

[Support]

Hi – sorry for the delay in replying. This is not currently possible – the default view is the Day View.

[Support]

Yes that’s correct. In addition to the “Insurance Company” field, there’s also an “Alternate Invoice Recipient” field on the Patient Editor which allows you to select another party to whom invoices can be sent for that patient.

[Support]

Hi Tony,

ClinicOffice already validates the form of email addresses to make sure they are in a correct format. If you try entering an invalid email address you should see that you are prevented from doing so. Is this what you mean?

[Support]

I’ve already put it on there for you.

[Support]

>> [1] Could you give an example why it couldn’t act as a default email program,
>> since it runs on a remote computer?
When you click a “mailto:” link on your computer, your local Windows installation looks for the default email client installed on YOUR computer. It can’t use an email program which is running on a completely different computer. It’s simply not possible.

>> [2] How will I be able to print my invoices and letters on my local printer?
When you connect to a Terminal Services (TS) session (which is basically what our “RemoteApp” version of ClinicOffice uses) your computer shares your printers with the remote program (ClinicOffice), hence ClinicOffice can print to your local printer even though it’s running on a remote PC.

[Support]

Thank you for your suggestion. It’s never been mentioned before. I suppose most clinics simply ask if it’s a new patient before trying to enter their name, then they already know whether to create a new record.

[Support]

You have two SELECT statements in your source. There should only ever be one SELECT statement. Simply change the source to :-

select * from view_patients_full;

[Support]

Hi Roelof,

>> On the IMC (serverside hosted) it gives an error. Is this normal behaviour?

I’m sorry – I don’t understand what this means. What is “IMC (serverside hosted)”? Also, what error message are you seeing? Please give as many details as possible.

[Support]

>> This seems rather inelegant
No – that’s a perfectly reasonable method of getting the year and month from the date. You could also look at the EXTRACT function which allows you to extract the YEAR and the MONTH and then concatenate them, but your solution is good too.

[Support]

Hi – thanks for your question.

This requires some bespoke customization of your “Invoice” Report to include custom fields. You need to adjust the “Invoice” report SQL to include the “custom_patient_fields” table linked in on the Patient table (called “per”).

However, this does require a knowledge of the SQL language which is why we offer the ClinicOffice Support Plan so that we can do these kind of minor bespoke customizations for you free of charge. I notice that you decided not to take any support with us however, so we’re happy to do this for you but we would have to make a small charge for the time involved.

If you’d like us to do this for you, please contact our support team direct and we’ll be happy to assist.

[Support]

>> What would be the query for reporting the invoices that have no payment allocations?

select inv.*, view_invamtalloc.*

from inv left join view_invamtalloc on (view_invamtalloc.inv_id=inv.id)

where (view_invamtalloc.amount is null) or (view_invamtalloc.amount = 0)

>> for some reason when I want to create a report using a query
>> including view_invoices and other tables, only the view_invoices
>> fields are available in the report data.
I’m sorry – I don’t understand what you mean. Please post the full SQL you are using and then let us know which fields are missing.

[Author]

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