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The Professional Edition uses the ElevateDB database engine while the Server Edition uses PostgreSQL.
These are not compatible and even if they were, you can’t simply “exchange items from one database to another” because ClinicOffice uses a relational database structure – all records are linked and cross-linked to other records e.g. Patients are linked to other Contacts and Staff Members, as well as Invoices, Appointments, Payments, Credits, Refunds etc. etc.
Please can you send our support team an email (support@pioneersoftware.co.uk) with the database backup attached (as long as it’s not too big) along with a full description of the problem and we take a look for you.
If the backup is larger than 2 MB then please can you upload it following these instructions :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/faq-301-how-do-i-upload-my-database-to-your-ftp-server
Many thanks.
>> 1) How can I install a server ed. when I have already a prof.ed. on my pc?
The Server and Professional programs are the same. The only difference is the shortcut used to launch them.Please make sure you are using the “ClinicOffice v4 Server Edition” icon which is in your “START MENU | PROGRAMS | ClinicOffice v4 | ClinicOffice v4 Server Edition“.
>> 2) Can I transfer or copy items from and to de different databases?
According to our records you already have the Server Edition and we have already converted your old CO2005 database to the COv4 Server Edition. There should be no need to transfer or copy items between different types of database – it has all already been done for you.Hi – thanks for your post. You can download the 1053 or 1055 updates from the following links :-
Installing these older update files will ‘roll back’ your ClinicOffice installation to that version. However, this shouldn’t be necessary and you should be able to restore any database on any version.
If you have no success, please send our support team an email (support@pioneersoftware.co.uk) with the database backup attached (as long as it’s not too big) along with a full description of the problem and we take a look for you.
**These updates can no longer be downloaded, please call our support team with reference to this post if you’re trying to follow these instructions.**
Thanks for your question. As part of the ClinicOffice Support Plan we offer an automated backup service which will regularly backup your database and also upload it to a secure off-site server.
If for some reason you don’t want to take out any support with us, then you could simply backup the entire PostgreSQL database folder. As long as your backup software uses Volume Shadow Copy (so it can backup files that are in use) then there shouldn’t be a problem.
If you wish to run a command-line utility yourself, then please take a look at the pg_dump utility which is provided as part of your PGSQL installation. You will find pg_dump.exe in your “C:PGSQLbin” folder on your server computer (presuming you installed to the default “C:PGSQL” folder).
Documentation on the pg_dump command-line parameters can be found here :-
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/static/app-pgdump.htmlI’m afraid that we’re unable to offer any support for this utility, but there is a very active PostgreSQL community, so if you require further assistance you should be able to find it there :-
http://www.postgresql.org/community/>> I can’t believe that I’m the first server admin to ask for this function
Almost every customer running the Server Edition is also on our Support Plan, so we take care of the backups for them. The few who have decided not to take out any support use their own backup software to backup their entire PGSQL folder, which is also fine. Those are the main reasons why this has not been requested before.I hope this helps to answer your question!
>> Im hoping it might be a simple addition for you guys to put in. Likely to happen?
As mentioned before, the description field is intentionally a free text field rather than a lookup field. This means it’s not possible to change the functionality for one customer without it affecting all ClinicOffice users, which I’m sure you can understand is not an option.
The only option would be for us to program a bespoke change specifically for your clinic. If you would like us to quote for this, please send an email to support@pioneersoftware.co.uk describing in full detail the exact change that you require, which screen(s) it affects, how it works etc. etc. and then we’ll be able to provide a quote for you.
Many thanks.
Hi – thanks for your post.
>> how will staff be able to quickly search and add items to an invoice?
>> It appears that the item code field is the only searchable fieldThat’s correct, when building an invoice it is the item code that is used to identify the item. The “Description” field is intentionally a free text field which is pre-populated with the default item description, but can be overwritten and therefore can’t be used as a dropdown. This is exactly how QuickBooks works (a full accountancy package which we used as a reference for the financial side of ClinicOffice).
>> Seeing as staff will not be able to remember all our stockodes/item_codes
To be honest, we’ve never had that problem expressed to us before. Most clinics will use descriptive item codes which staff can easily remember. For example “CON” for “Initial Consultatation” or “TRT15” for “15 Minute Treatment”. Some clinics have literally HUNDREDS of items and are able to use item codes without a problem. You can also printout the item database to help staff to become familiar with your item codes.I hope this helps to answer your question.
If you click the EMAIL button to the side of the email address in the STAFF EDITOR, COv4 will invoked your default email client to send an email. Similarly if you click the MOBILE button to the side of their mobile telephone number, you can send an SMS to a Staff Member.
To invoice staff, simply tick the box to make them a CONTACT and then you can invoice them like you can any other Patient or Contact in ClinicOffice.
Thanks for your suggestion – it has been added to the wishlist for COv4.
Thanks for your post Tony.
>> I would consider it a significant weakness if deleted transactions
>> (appointments, invoices and payments) just vanish.
Appointments are usually set to CANCELLED status rather than being deleted and clinics who don’t want payments or invoices to be deleted usually setup the access rights so that users can’t delete an invoice/payment record (if they need to do this, they get a Supervisor to do it).As regards the logging of deleted records, I’ve added it to the wish-list. However there’s a significant amount of work involved and as nobody else has requested this, it’s unlikely to be implemented any time soon – we currently have a very long list of more urgent development requests pending! If this is an absolute requirement for your clinic, please feel free to give us a call and we can provide a quote for designing, coding and implementing this feature in ClinicOffice for you.
Many thanks.
>> you can’t for example start a discharge note in a spare 5 minutes and then come back to it
If you have turned off the option to “Allow editing of Clinical Notes” then when you go back to the record to comtinue typing notes, ClinicOffice simply inserts your new note as a new comment. All you would have to do is type in something like “[continued from previous note]” at the start to make it clear that the two notes are related.Alternatively, you could turn off the “Allow editing of Clinical Notes” option and use the record locking feature to lock the record once you have completed the notes. That way you can go in and keep editing your notes up until the point where you have finished and then you LOCK the record.
>> I note from previous posts that CO does keep a record when a
>> clinical note has been updated but does it save exactly how a
>> record has been edited?
ClinicOffice stamps all records with a timestamp whenever they are edited but it does not log the changes made. The only way to do this would be to save duplicates of records every single time they are edited, which would bloat the database to a ridiculous extreme and greatly affect performance.>> If not then, as far as I understand from a legal viewpoint (speaking to a
>> former head of the discplinary committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons),
>> the records are useless.
Let’s say I own a veterinary surgery and don’t use a computer so all my records are hand-written. I then get called before a disciplinary committee and present a hand-written sheet of A4 paper with my treatment notes and a date scrawled across the top of the piece of paper – how do you verify the validity of my handwitten date? What’s to say that I didn’t re-write the notes the night before? Would such notes not be equally “useless”?Furthermore, if I did use a computer for electronic treatment records, what’s to stop me changing the system date/time of my computer in the BIOS, loading up my software and then entering some different notes? I could then print out these notes and they would be authentically time stamped with a completely false date. Is this not also “useless”?
Or what if I type in a load of completely fictitious notes (which get time-stamped), then I print the notes to a virtual printer driver, load the document into an image editor, adjust the time-stamps and print out the resulting document? Is that not also “useless”?
It is simply impossible to produce a computer system which is immune to abuse should someone be determined to do so. However, from our consultation with representatives from the various different professions who use ClinicOffice, we are happy that the security/auditing options which ClinicOffice provides are more than adequate and certainly a lot better than many other similar products.
I hope this helps to answer your question! 🙂
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just entering “app.start” somewhere on the report.
The SQL Source needs to be altered to link the appointment table to the invoice. Please explain in full detail which report you’re working with and exactly what you’re trying to achieve and we’ll do our best to help.
Thanks for your post.
>> It is possible to accept a cash payment and then go back before you run
>> the end of day financial reports; delete the financial transactions and then
>> delete the record of the appointment.If a user has permission to delete invoices, payments and appointments, then yes they could do this.
Once a record is deleted, there’s no way of reporting on it, because it has physically been removed from the database. Instead, you should setup your user permissions in order to restrict users from deleting records.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for reporting this – we’ll see if we can change it for the next update.
Hi guys – I gave this subject some thought and it seems that having an ‘intelligent’ report which shows/hides discount information should be a standard feature, so the default INVOICE template has now been updated to do this.
Please find the new template attached to this post. For instructions on importing it into your database, please see this post :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/how-do-i-import-a-report-file-into-my-database
Alophysio is correct. Please try the following :-
– Create a copy of your “7 day rule”
– Rename the new “Copy of 7 day rule” to “1 day rule” (or something similar)
– Change the “1 day rule” setting as follows :-
“Send a reminder 1 day(s) before the appointment”– Make sure that both rules have the option :-
Send this reminder even if one has already been sent = NO– Lastly set the “1 day rule” to run automatically every day
These two rules will work together so that if an appointment is pre-booked 7 days in advance, the “7 day rule” will catch it and send an email, while the “1 day rule” will send reminders for those booked at shorter notice.
Hope this helps!
We’ve just tested this back here and I’m afraid that we can’t reproduce this issue.
Whatever way I try to delete an appointment (using the DELETE key, right-clicking an appointment then selecting delete, or using the Common Actions “Delete Appointment” link) I only get prompted once. We’ve not had any other users report this.
Please can you provide detailed instructions on how to reproduce this problem? Many thanks.
We’re unable to reproduce this error – it works fine for us. Please make sure that your Windows system is configured to us default sizes (not LARGE fonts) as sometimes data with large fonts cannot be entirely displayed in an edit box.
The “SHARE DATABASE” function simply asks Windows to enable file sharing on the selected folder. The reason you can’t use this function in this instance is (presumably) because your NAS box is already on a network path and Windows can’t share a network path – it can only share a local drive.
You will need to manually setup File Sharing on your database folder (on your NAS box) and also make sure that all Windows Users have FULL access to it.
After you’ve done that, go to each ClinicOffice installation, go to the Database Manager and click LOCATE and enter the UNC path name to the database e.g. :-
\my_nas_boxclinicoffice_shareIMPORTANT NOTES
– Do not use network drive mappings with ClinicOffice (e.g. assigning X: to a network path)
– Each installation must reference ClinicOffice via exactly the same UNC pathI notice that you’re on our Support Plan. Please can you call our helpdesk on 0845 388 6705 and one of our technicians will be able to connect in remotely to see what’s causing the problem.
Many thanks.
Hi Tony,
Under the circumstances, it might not be a bad idea to run the update on the PCs again to make sure they’re all up-to-date.
Sometimes we come across small issues which only affect a tiny minority of customers so we release a ‘silent’ update to a build – which is what happened here. If we were to release an entirely new build, then hundreds of customers would have the hassle of upgrading to a new version which makes absolutely zero difference!
Hope this helps!
That is correct alophysio. To achieve this, you could use the following two reports :-
Invoiced Items & Services by Staff (Detailed)
Invoiced Items & Services by Staff (Summary)Hope this helps!
Hi Tony,
This problem has cropped up with a handful of customers who are running the latest release of the PostgreSQL Server. We’ve connected in to your server remotely and fixed the issue for you.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the detailed report. The problem is caused by an out-of-date script file on the computer in question. If you can please re-download and re-install the 1058 update from here, that will fix the problem.
Many thanks!
Thanks for your post. In the SQL options, please change the following two lines as follows :-
frmEditorCas=id|cas_id -> CaseReport=sess.cas_id
frmEditorSess=id|id -> SessionReport=sess.idPlease let us know if this fixes the problem.
>> Maybe a drop down box of staff members for each line
>> of the invoice would be a thought for the future.Thanks for the suggestion. The “Staff to Invoices” relationship is a one-to-one relationship i.e. one staff member is assigned to each invoice.
To change this would be a MAJOR undertaking. We would have to change the database structure, update hundreds of customer’s databases, then re-write ALL of the financial reports that are currently based on the 1-to-1 relationship. Many of our customers write their own reports (or customise existing ones). These cannot be updated automatically (since they’re bespoke) so this change would break every custom report out there, of which there are hundreds. We would then have to contact EVERY ClinicOffice customer individually to manually update any custom financial report to understand the changed database structure.
For the above reasons, I’m afraid that it’s unlikely we’re going to be able to implement this for you. 🙁
Congratulations! Thanks for keeping us updated on your progress. Your instructions will be most useful for other customers wanting to do the same thing.
Many thanks! 🙂
Hi – thanks for your post.
I’m not too sure what you mean by ‘reporting an invoice amount to different staff members’? If you’re referring to the staff field on the invoice, then you’re correct that each invoice can only be allocted to one staff member, so in that case, yes you would have to raise two separate invoices.
An alternative to this would be to have a custom report done which could be hard-coded with items in your database and could therefore report amounts from specific items to specific staff members. If you want us to do that for you, then please email us a detailed mockup of the report that require with a full specification (i.e. details of which items go to which staff members) and then we can provide a quote depending on how much work is involved.
You would be better off connecting to a remote Windows session on your host PC, rather than trying to run the database over a VPN. This can be achieved using Terminal Services or Citrix, however both these options are quite expensive too.
A quick Google search shows that there are alternatives such as TSPLUS which seem to be somewhat cheaper :-
http://terminalserviceplus.com/index.phpPlease note that this is NOT a recommendation as we haven’t tested TSPLUS with ClinicOffice. This is merely a suggestion and if TSPLUS does what it claims, then it could certainly be an excellent alternative.
Hi – thanks for your post. Virtual Private Networks are notoriously slow, mainly due to the network protocols and the heavy encryption.
How have you configured the setup? Is ClinicOffice running on the SAME machine as the database or are you running the ClinicOffice application on a REMOTE computer and reading the database across the VPN?
If it’s the latter then it’s most likely going to be very slow. You can test this by using Windows Explorer to copy the “app” files (from your database folder) over your VPN to see how quickly it transfers the data. This gives you an approximation of how long it would take for ClinicOffice to read the Appointment Diary.
If you require Remote Access, then another option may be to consider our new HOSTED Edition. Alternatively, the SERVER Edition will run faster over a network because the Client/Server engine optimizes the amount of data being transferred back and forth across the network.
Hope this helps to answer your query.
Hi Dee – thanks for your post.
[1] No the text must be plain text. This is deliberate as storing RTF codes (which would be required for font formatting) would bloat the database size significantly and slow performance.
[2] Press CTRL-Z or right click on the editor you were working on and click UNDO on the popup menu.
[3] Thanks for your request – we’ll bump the item a bit further up the wishlist.
Many thanks!
Hi – thanks for your post.
>> Can I change the word “appointments” to “Interactions and Appointments”
No, I’m afraid this is not possible as these are hard-coded system tabs. It may be possible to make some changes in a future update to allow you change these names via the Scripting Module, but at present it’s not possible.
One of the future addon modules we release will be a “Contact Manager” or “Communication Manager” module which will be designed to track all communication with patients/contacts but that’s probably a few months away at the moment.
At present, the Email Module only works with POP accounts.
POP allows emails to be downloaded from the mail server and stored locally, whereas IMAP is more of an ‘online only’ protocol.
ClinicOffice is a database application and the program design is therefore centred around accessing all data from the database, so it really needs to be able to download emails and store them in the database along with all the other data objects – hence the reason for POP rather than IMAP.
Further, this allows it to cross-reference emails with contacts, patients and staff records for incredibly fast access. Using IMAP, this sort of functionality would probably not be possible. Even if we found a way to make it possible, it would most likely be unworkable – especially for multi-user clinics who could have several users simultaneously hammering the IMAP server and also using up all their internet bandwidth.
For these reasons, at present ClinicOffice is deliberately designed to only work with POP servers. Most email services offer POP access – even those which are predominantly designed for online web access. For example, GoogleMail (GMail) and Hotmail can both be accessed via POP.
Hope this helps to explain things!
September 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm in reply to: How to warn if the Appointment Type and/or Room are missing? #32531[1] Click TOOLS | SCRIPT EDITOR to show the Script Editor screen
[2] Locate “frmEditorApp” and the “OnBeforeSaveRecord” event
[3] You need to Copy & Paste the following script into the Script Editor
💡 Click the little “SELECT ALL” link below and then right click on the selected text and choose COPY, then you can PASTE the script directly into the Script Editor in ClinicOfficefrmEditorBaseRec Editor = (Params[0] as frmEditorBaseRec);
cApp app = (Editor.Record as cApp);
string s = "";
if (app.apptype_id == null)
s += "n No appointment type was entered";
if (app.room_id == null)
s += "n No room was selected";
if (s != "")
{
if (!PSDevEx.cMessages.QuestionBox("Some information wasn't entered :-n" + s + "nnDo you still want to save this appointment?", "Confirmation Required"))
throw new PSExc.SilentException();
}[4] Lastly click SAVE in the Script Editor and then close the window
(NOTE: do not click TEST SCRIPT as this will not work for the above script)You should now find that you get an appropriate warning message if you miss out the Appointment Type and/or Room when saving an appointment.
Hi – thanks for your post.
After the update to 1058 any CASES which had been “closed” (i.e. a ‘closed date’ had been specified) will be set as “locked” while cases which were still ‘open’ (i.e. no ‘closed date’ had been specified) would have been left unlocked.
Once a CASE is locked, any sessions, forms, visual notes or any other record attached to that case would also be locked. If you need to go back and change a SESSION for example, then the only way of doing this would be to manually “unlock” the parent CASE and then also unlock the SESSION so that it becomes editable.
For security reasons (which is why this was introduced), I’m afraid that there’s no way to change this behaviour.
I hope this makes sense!
There was an invalid field name in there which was causing the problem. My guess is that you may have exported this report from a much older version of ClinicOffice, or perhaps from the Server Edition.
Please find the fixed form attached.
August 23, 2010 at 7:56 pm in reply to: FAQ 006: What limitations are there in the TRIAL Edition? #32387Hi Frances,
>> what would happen to any forms or notes I created using the trial version?
>> Would they just vanish from the patient records or be unusable?Good question! They will still be there and they will be accessible even without the modules, however you wouldn’t be able to create any more Clinical Forms or add any more Visual Notes without the modules.
The good news is that you can always add the modules at any point later on. They get activated as soon as you purchase them and there’s no need to re-install the program or change your setup at all.
Hope this helps!
Please can you ZIP the COv4_Form file first and then attach the ZIP file – thanks!
Thanks for your post. Please follow these steps :-
[1] Click Reports & Templates, locate the “Invoice” report, right click on it and click EDIT SOURCE.
[2] Click the SQL Source tab at the top and then locate the following lines in the source :-
inv.patient_per_id as patient_per_id, @NAME:patientper as _patientname,
patientper.code as patientcode,You need to change these lines by adding an extra field as follows :-
inv.patient_per_id as patient_per_id, @NAME:patientper as _patientname,
patientper.code as patientcode, patientper.dob as patientdob,Now click OK to save the updated source code. This makes the patient’s DOB field available to the report.
[3] Locate the “Invoice” report again, right click on it and this time click DESIGN REPORT. You can now add a new label to the report and link it to the “patientdob” field which is now available.
Hope this helps!
I’m sorry but we’ll need a lot more information to be able to assist you.
Firstly however, please make sure that you have updated your ClinicOffice installation to the LATEST version (click TOOLS | CHECK FOR UPDATES) on both computers i.e. the PC where you’re exporting the form and the one where you’re importing the form. Once you’ve done that, export the form again and try to import it.
If the problem persists, please email the form file to our support team along with a detailed description of the problem and we’ll see if we can help.
Many thanks.
Thanks for your post.
>> we have to right click and select the appiontment type twice,
>> almost ( and thats really confusing) every time. Maybe 1 in 20
>> works straight off the bat.Please can you give us a step-by-step guide how to reproduce the problem? We’ve tried setting the appointment type in every way we can think of but it works 100% of the time.
Hi – please find attached two reports :-
– Account Balances (All)
– Account Balances (Open)Please see this faq document if you need help importing these reports into your database :-
https://pioneersoftware.co.uk/forums/topic/how-do-i-import-a-report-file-into-my-database
Hope this helps!
Hi Tony – you can just use the CREDIT NOTES screen. Click the FINANCES drop-down button (at the top of the main COv4 screen) then click CREDIT NOTES. The “Amount Allocated” and “Amount Unallocated” columns tells you how much of the Credit Note has been used.
If you wish to search for Credit Notes which still have an amount remaining to be used, simply click SEARCH and then locate the “Amount Unallocated” field and enter >0 as the search criteria.
Hope this helps!
Hi Tony – thanks for your post. Please can you provide a detailed mock-up of the report(s) you require.
You can do this in MS Word or Excel, or you could even print out an existing ClinicOffice report (which is similar) and then write on it to indicate the changes you require. In each case, please be sure to explain what data is being displayed, where it is drawn from the database and/or how it is calculated.
Please email the report request to support@pioneersoftware.co.uk or you can fax it (0845 388 6706) and we can then see if it’s possible and also provide you with a quote.
Many thanks!
>> So that means that it is already stamping and dating them, just out of sight?
If you look at the bottom of any record editor (e.g. a patient editor) there are date/time stamps showing when the record was created (and by whom) and when it was last updated (and by whom). This is true for all records in ClinicOffice, although for practical reasons not all are visible.>> I can’t create a database to play on – I’ll just try a couple of other things before asking for help on that
If you’ve updated from a very old version, probably the best thing to do is to re-download the FULL installer again and re-install COv4. This will make 100% sure that all your files are updated. A link to the full download can be found on this page :-
pioneersoftware.co.uk/co-updatesJuly 27, 2010 at 9:30 pm in reply to: Allocating a default appointment type per practitioner. #32497Hi – thanks for your post. This kind of functionality could be introduced with a custom script via the SCRIPTING module. However, we’ll also add the suggestion to the wishlist for consideration.
Many thanks.
July 27, 2010 at 9:27 pm in reply to: FAQ 322: How to find patients who haven't visited recently? #32380Thanks for your post. In actual fact there is now a full blown RECALL SYSTEM integrated into ClinicOffice which allows you to specify if/when you want to see patients again. You can easily create letters, send emails or even sms messages to remind patients about due appointments.
Specifically to answer your question, yes it’s very easy to create a letter based on the results of the above report.
Hope this helps!
Thank you for your comments and for making your position very clear.
Anytime that any record in COv4 is changed, the record is stamped with the date/time and the user who last updated the record. Access to this information can be retrieved by looking at the LAST UPDATED BY and LAST UPDATED ON fields which are common to all records in ClinicOffice.
None the less, I’m very sorry that it has taken us a long time to get around to introducing this feature. Please be assured that it is scheduled to be done as soon as possible.
Hi – thanks for your post.
>> quite honestly, “sometime in September” isn’t really good enough.
We prioritise development based primarily on requests from our customers. We have had over 100 requests from customers waiting for full Email functionality to be built into ClinicOffice and a similar number of online access to their ClinicOffice diary.By way of contrast, we have had 8 requests (including yours) for lockable notes, hence our development schedule is as previously stated :-
July : Email Module
August : Online Diary Booking
September : A whole raft of Clinical Note Enhancements (including lockable notes)I am genuinely sorry if this is not good enough for you.
>> For that matter – a switchable option is not really good enough either.
ClinicOffice is used in HUNDREDS of clinics of varying disciplines. If we strictly enforce all notes being locked up without any option because one customer has demanded it, then we would (quite rightly) receive hundreds of complaints from many other customers.The decision to lock notes or not will therefore be configurable. Regardless of whether notes are locked or not, all records are date/time stamped which shows when they were created and when they were last updated.
>> Currently, my 2005 version of clinic office is getting very bug-y;
We’re not aware of any outstanding bugs in ClinicOffice 2005 and I’m unable to locate any error reports from you. Please can you send us error reports if/when a problem arises in CO2005?>> presumably because it hasn’t been updated in the last 18 months yet windows has
We regularly test CO2005 with the latest Windows updates on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 and are not aware of any problems.>> it crashes every 30 minutes or so
Please send us the error reports and we’ll look into it for you.>>Why would this be a good thing to do?
Imagine a clinic with 20 computers on a busy morning. A staff member switches on their PC and sees an auto-update message and decides to update their ClinicOffice. In turn this update modified the database structure, so all the other computers are now forced to run the update right away so that they can work with the updated database.For larger clinics, this can cause inconvenience and many clinic administrators like to be able to control when to update all their computers.
>>to disable this option, would i have to do it on all computers?
That’s correct. As stated in the FAQ :-Repeat these steps for each computer to disable the automatic update checking
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