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There has been a long term feature of the Black Dog system in that when switching from another Windows application to
Black Dog, very occasionally another application, typically Microsoft Internet Explorer or Outlook, would appear front of screen
but deactivated – in other words, Black Dog was in fact the active application but was not being displayed. This behaviour
was inconvenient without being a disaster but with Windows 8 it seems that additional error checking in the operating system itself
was detecting an actual error and forcibly shutting Black Dog down – more inconvenient. The behaviour is now believed to be fixed
but as it only happened rarely and not on all PCs, it is difficult to be certain. - The printed day sheet listing visits/appointments now includes by default any client and/or pet alerts. These can be suppressed by setting the global configuration flag SuppressAlertsOnDaySheet
- On start up Black Dog now checks if it was previously shut down normally. If not, then an email is sent to Black Dog Software. Note a common reason for an abnormal shutdown is a forced reboot following automatic installation of windows updates.
- Online registrations of microchips is now implemented via the VetEnvoy service. Note some microchip databases also provide a direct route so anybody wishing to make use of this, should get in touch whether they are VetEnvoy registered or not.
- Invoice items can now either be delayed indefinitely or delayed until a set date – the system then automatically un-delays them when that date is reached. Additionally an invoice item can be split into multiple parts, each delayed to a scheduled date. This is expected to be particularily useful in handling monthly payments for members of loyalty or discount schemes.
- The document preview on the Document Import now handles Word documents. This is achieved via facilities provided by Internet Explorer and may require additional configuration to ensure Word documents are displayed within the browser rather than seperately.
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Reminder types can be configured (set field ConfirmMode non-zero with a negative value allowing cancellation) so that the user is prompted to confirm the issue and due dates whenever a reminder
of the corresponding type is automatically created or modified via a pricing event. This is particularily useful for practices that
often find themselves pricing on a day subsequent to the actual vaccination. -
Drug prices, service fees, and reminder types all now have an additional field ValidSpecies that can be used to restrict
their usage to specific species. If the field is left blank, then no checks are made on species (the default behaviour) but by setting to a space-seperated list of species IDs (see the configuration table Pet Species for the appropriate ID numbers to use) then pricing will fail unless the
corresponding pet belongs to one of the set species. -
Client status types can now be configured (set flag ClientAlert) so that the status name is added automatically to
the client alert prompt. Client and pet alerts are also now displayed on creation or modificiation of appointments and operations. - Client status types can now be configured (set flag SuppressAutoAllocation) so that the default auto-allocation process that occurs when new transactions are created is omitted for clients of that status type.
- If a drug label is created for a VetToLabel drug as a result of pricing when the user is not a vet, the system prompts the user to identify the actual prescribing vet (which is the behaviour to date). The system now additionally automatically adds Authorised by …. to the MISC section of the current clinical note which has the additional affect of preventing the system from automatically saving the clinical note without user inspection on the basis that the sale of prescription only medicines is likely to require some non-automatic entry on the clinical history.
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Additional facilities have been added for reminder processing. The reminder list has additional columns that record the
last action performed for each reminder plus indicate the next action due. The latter applies if the reminder type has been configured so as to detail the actions required during the lifetime of the reminder relative to the issue and due dates. This is particularly helpful if wanting to carry out several actions for a single reminder; for example, on the sale of a 4-pack worming
stop-on, a practice may like to send three SMS reminders at intervals to remind the client to apply the next spot-on, plus a further
reminder to purchase another pack.
If fully utilised these facilities can remove the need for users to remember what actions are required, and instead reminder processing can be a matter of simply once a week, asking the system to perform all the actions due in the next 7 days.
For further information please contact Black Dog Software. - When printing multiple copies of a drug label, the system can either split the quantity dispensed between the labels, or can print the total quantity on every label. This option is controlled by a checkbox set by the user immediately prior to printing. By default this checkbox is set so that the quantity is split between labels but this is now configurable.
- The system now uses label templates – these allow the addition and customisation of labels in a similar fashion to the existing facility for client letters, consent forms etc. Possible examples include a pet details label.
- The document import screen now provides additional support for VetScan HM5 and PocketChem UA test results – abnornals are automatically extracted from the result file and summarised as part of the imported document description
- Screen actions that are configured for the appointment list and operation list screens (which by default include SMS appointment reminders and SMS operation complete notifications) are now available via the right-click context menu on the appointments and operations screens themselves
- During download of delivery information as part of the order check-in process, an option has been added to automatically create a new drug price if there is not an existing one corresponding to the supplied item. Note this only applies if the downloaded delivery data contains sufficient information with which to create the new drug price – currently this means that the option applies to Dunlops only. By default the option is enabled – to disable set the global configuration flag “SuppressAutoCreateOnDelivery” to true.
- SMS messages can now be sent to multiple clients via user-configurable “screen actions” (see sections in the system manual “Using screen actions” and “Screen actions” for further information). Such actions are available via the client list, reminder list, pet list and debtor administration screens and thus can be used to send for example: Appointment reminders – the appointment list screen can be used to easily send SMS reminders to all clients with an appointment the following day; Booster reminders via the reminder list screen; Debt reminders – the debt admin screen could be used to send SMS notifications of current outstanding balance to all clients on a weekly basis.
For further information re. version numbers etc. see the earlier post.