New in 2.2
The following is a list of new features and improvements in the 2.2 release. You should also check Known Issues and the Implementation Checklist.
Features in this release include:
- IDEXX VetConnect PLUS integration
- Zoetis VetScan FUSE integration
- Laboratory enhancements
- Charging
- Charge Reporting
- Insurance
- Payments
- Patients
- Products
- SMS
- Reports
- Scheduled Reports
- User Interface
- Administration
IDEXX VetConnect PLUS integration
OpenVPMS can now submit orders directly to IDEXX VetConnect PLUS, and receive the results. Orders can be submitted to IDEXX Reference Laboratories, or IDEXX VetLab Stations.
For more details, see How To - Online Investigations with IDEXX VetConnect
Zoetis VetScan FUSE integration
OpenVPMS can now submit orders directly to Zoetis VetScan FUSE, and receive the results.
Contact Zoetis for details.
Laboratory enhancements
Investigations
Investigations now support:
- multiple tests
This improves billing, as a single investigation may be generated from multiple invoice items. - inline results
Investigation results may now be stored in the investigation, as well as being summarised in an attachment.
Plugin Support
OpenVPMS now provides an API to support laboratory provider plugins. This provides:
- service discovery (i.e. what devices are available)
- test import
- online ordering
- results import
Charging
Invoice and Estimate credit items
Invoices and Estimates can now include credits, by entering negative quantities. This:
- removes the need to create a separate Credit, if a product needs to be returned.
- is another mechanism for providing discounts.
To support discounting, products included by templates can now have negative quantities.
Charge Reporting
Work In Progress
The Work In Progress workspace has moved from Reporting - Work In Progress to Reporting - Charges.
This now:
- displays the customer summary when selecting a charge
- supports printing and emailing the selected charge
Search
A new Search facility has been added to Reporting - Charges to search for charges by:
- identifier
- customer name. Partial customer names may be entered
- customer identifier
- amount or range of amounts
- type
- date
- location
Insurance
Gap claims with pre-payments
Gap claims may now contain invoices where payment has already been made, so long as at least one invoice in the claim is unpaid or part paid.
Previously, all invoices had to be unpaid. This prevented gap claims where a deposit had been collected.
Insurance claims at Check Out
There is now a Practice option, Insurance Claim at Check Out to determine if insurance claims should be made during Check Out. This applies to those patients with insurance policies.
This provides the options:
- Don't claim - don't prompt to make any claims
- Gap Claim Only - only prompt to make gap claims. This occurs before payment is collected, and only applies if an insurer supports gap claims.
- Standard Claim Only - only prompt to make standard claims. This occurs after payment is collected.
- All - prompt to make both standard claims and gap claims
Payments
Audited editing of payment types on finalised payments
Administrators can now edit finalised customer payments to change payment types.
This can be done via Customer - Accounts or Reporting - Till Balancing.
Default Payment Type
A default payment type can now be configured using the Default Payment Type option on the Practice. This can be used to preselect the type of payment to that most used by the practice e.g. Cash, Credit, Cheque, EFT.
Patients
Unlimited Note length
Patient Note and Addendum records are now effectively of unlimited length. Previously they were limited to 5000 characters.
Communications in patient history summary
Communications can now be summarised in Patients - Medical Records - Summary.
This:
- makes it easier to see the flow of events for a patient, such was when reminders were sent
- removes the need to copy communications as Notes into a patient's history
Communication records are for informational purposes only, so they:
- do not appear in printed histories
- are not submitted in insurance claims
New Communication records can be created using the Log button.
The display of Communication records can be enabled or disabled with the Show Communications preference.
Patient Colour in Summary
The patient colour is now displayed in the summary panel beneath the patient breed, if present on a patient.
Products
Price History
This release includes improved support for maintaining a history of product prices:
- If a product supplier has Auto Price Update set, changes to the List Price will now close the existing Unit Price and create a new one.
This will also occur when processing supplier deliveries.
- Prices may be easily copied using either the new Copy or Copy & Close buttons in the product price editor.
The Copy button is provided to copy a price, with the new price starting when the existing price finishes.
The Copy & Close button is provided to copy a price that has an undated To Date. It prompts to enter a date when the existing price should finish and the new one start.
- Users without administration permissions are now prevented from editing or deleting prices dated prior today.
Price Notes
Product prices now include a Notes field. These can be used to note why a price has been changed. For Unit Prices created:
- by a delivery, this will include a message like:
Price created by delivery 10009 from supplier Provet on 20/2/2020
- a product supplier with Auto Price Update set, this will include a message like:
Price created by auto-update of supplier: Cenvet
Stock Import/Export permissions
Stock Import and Export is now available to users with Stock Manager role, not just administrators.
Tests
Products can now charge individual Tests, allowing for better charge capture.
These replace Investigation Types on the product.
SMS
Reporting
SMS messages are now queued for delivery to SMS providers. If a provider is not available, messages will be retried until sent, or they expire.
The status of messages can be viewed in the Workflow - Messaging - SMS workspace.
Clickatell plugin
A new Clickatell plugin is available for the Clickatell SMS REST service.
This supports monitoring status changes to messages, something not possible with the existing Clickatell support via the Clickatell SMTP Connection.
See Reference - Setup - SMS for more details.
Reports
Estimates Report with invoice information
The Estimates Report available in Reporting - Reports has been updated to include:
- the invoice information for estimates that have been invoiced. This includes the:
- Invoice Id - the identifier of the invoice that the estimate was invoiced to
- Invoice Amount - the total of the invoice
- Diff - the difference between the invoice amount, and the estimate amount
- totals by status and clinician
These can be used to improve estimates by showing under or overquoting.
Note that estimates done prior to OpenVPMS 2.2 have no relationship to their invoice, so no invoice information will be shown for these.
Due Patient Reminder Report
A new Due Patient Reminder Reminder has been added to Reporting - Reports.
This supports listing all patient reminders due between two dates, optionally filtered by Reminder Type.
Scheduled Reports
Calculated date parameter offsets
Calculated date parameters in Scheduled Reports may now have an offset, expressed in days, weeks, months or years. E.g.:
|
subtracts three months from the current date |
|
adds one year to the first day of the current month |
Report name formatting
The file and email attachment name of Scheduled Reports can now be specified using the Report Name and Report Name Format options.
This overrides the default name determined by the report.
This can be used to help distinguish results when the same report is used by multiple Scheduled Reports.
User Interface
Customer account records and estimate email attachments
Customer account records and estimates can now be attached to emails via the Attach button in the Write email window.
Create and update user information
The user that created and last updated an object is now displayed.
This information is available for:
- Acts - e.g, charges, estimates, appointments, reminders, documents
- Parties - e.g. customers, patients, suppliers
- Entities - e.g. discounts, reminder types, product doses
- Users
- Products
- Product Prices
- Lookups
- Documents
- Archetypes
- Roles
Administration
ESCI
ESCI inboxes can now be viewed and administered. This includes the ability to:
- selectively process documents, ignoring errors in Invoice documents that refer to non-existent orders
- administratively delete a document that cannot be processed
Implementation Checklist
The following is a checklist for existing users upgrading to the 2.2 release and is aimed at both the person doing the upgrade and the administrators responsible for systems operations.
It provides a list of things that you may need to do in order to take advantages of the new features in this release.
Default Country
To ensure addresses are sent to IDEXX with the correct country, ensure that your country lookup is marked as default:
- Go to Administration -> Lookups
- Select Country in the Type dropdown
- Verify you have a country lookup (e.g. Australia), with Default ticked
Template updates
Document templates
The following document templates were updated:
- reports/Customer/Counter Sale/<size>/Counter Sale.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Credit/<size>/Credit.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Credit Adjustment/<size>/Credit Adjustment.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Customer/Debit Adjustment/<size>/Debit Adjustment.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Customer/Estimate/<size>/Estimate.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Estimate/<size>/Estimate Items.jrxml
See OVPMS-2137 - reports/Customer/Estimate/<size>/Estimate Items-PT.jrxml
See OVPMS-2137 - reports/Customer/Invoice/<size>/Invoice.jrxml
See OVPMS-2212, OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Invoice/<size>/Invoice Items.jrxml
See OVPMS-2137, OVPMS-2212 - reports/Customer/Invoice/<size>/Invoice Items-PT.jrxml
See OVPMS-2137, OVPMS-2212 - reports/Customer/Receipt/<size>/Receipt.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Refund/<size>/Refund.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Customer/Statement/<size>/Statement.jrxml
See OVPMS-2249 - reports/Letterhead/<size>/Letterhead AddressBlock.jrxml
See OVPMS-2372 - reports/Letterhead/A5/Letterhead AddressBlock-A5.jrxml
See OVPMS-2372 - reports/Patient/Insurance/<size>/Insurance Claim.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Patient/Insurance/<size>/Insurance Claim Invoice.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249, OVPMS-2341 - reports/Patient/Insurance/<size>/Insurance Claim Medical Records.jrxml
See OVPMS-2283, OVPMS-2292 - reports/Patient/Medical Records/<size>/Medical Records.jrxml
See OVPMS-2283, OVPMS-2292 - reports/Patient/Medical Records/<size>/Problems.jrxml
See OVPMS-2292 - reports/Product/Stock Adjustment/<size>/Stock Adjustment.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241, OVPMS-2249 - reports/Product/Stock Transfer/<size>/Stock Transfer.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Bank Deposit/<size>/Bank Deposit.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Charges/Search/<size>/Charges.jrxml
See OVPMS-2239 - reports/Reporting/Till Balancing/<size>/Till Balance.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Credit/<size>/Supplier Credit.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Delivery/<size>/Delivery.jrxml
See OVPMS-2048, OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Invoice/<size>/Supplier Invoice.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Order/<size>/Order.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Refund/<size>/Supplier Refund.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Remittance/<size>/Supplier Remittance.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Supplier/Return/<size>/Supplier Return.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Workflow/Appointment/<size>/Appointment.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Customer Order/Pharmacy Order/<size>/Pharmacy Order.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Customer Order/Pharmacy Return/<size>/Pharmacy Return.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Workflow/Message/<size>/Audit Message.jrxml
See OVPMS-2363 - reports/Workflow/Message/<size>/Message.jrxml
See OVPMS-2363 - reports/Workflow/Message/<size>/System Message.jrxml
See OVPMS-2363 - reports/Workflow/Task/<size>/Task.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241
For sites using standard templates, these can be loaded using:
toolbox template --load documents --size <size>
where <size> may be A4, A5 or Letter. This will load all document templates, so should not be run on sites that customise these. Sites that customise these should refer to the following sections for specific changes.
Report templates
The following report templates were created or updated:
- reports/Reporting/Charges/Work In Progress/<size>/Work In Progress.jrxml
See OVPMS-2239 - reports/Reporting/Reminders/<size>/Patient Reminders.jrxml
See OVPMS-2300 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Customer Acquisition Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2245 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Customer Referral Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Customer Retention Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Estimates Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2332 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Estimates Report subreport.jrxml
See OVPMS-2332 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Financial/<size>/Key Performance Indicators.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Financial/<size>/Practice Summary_CountVisitsLocation.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Financial/<size>/Practice Summary_IncomeByClinician.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Financial/<size>/Practice Summary_PaymentsByLocation.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Patient/<size>/Due Patient Reminder Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2386 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Patient/<size>/Patient Acquisition Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2241 - reports/Reporting/Reports/Patient/<size>/Patient History Search.jrxml
See OVPMS-2292
For sites using standard templates, these can be loaded using:
toolbox template --load reports --size <size>
where <size> may be A4, or Letter. This will load all report templates, so should not be run on sites that customise these. Sites that customise these should refer to the following sections for specific changes.
Medical Records and Insurance Claim Medical Records
The Medical Records.jrxml and Insurance Claim Medical Records.jrxml templates have been updated to:
- display notes > 5000 characters.
- include times
These can be loaded using:
toolbox template --load "Medical Records" "Insurance Claim Medical Records" --size <size>
For sites that customise these, the field $F{note} needs to be replaced with a variable $V{note}, with the expression:
$F{shortName}.equals("act.patientClinicalNote")
|| $F{shortName}.equals("act.patientClinicalAddendum")
? EVALUATE("document:text(., 'note')")
: nullSee:
Problems
The Problems.jrxml template has been modified in order to display notes > 5000 characters.
This can be loaded using:
toolbox template --load "Problems" --size <size>
where <size> may be A4, A5 or Letter.
For sites that customise this, the field $F{note} needs to be replaced with a variable $V{note}, with the expression:
$F{shortName}.equals("act.patientClinicalNote")
|| $F{shortName}.equals("act.patientClinicalAddendum")
? EVALUATE("document:text(., 'note')")
: nullSee OVPMS-2292
Author changes
Each primary object now tracks who created or updated it. The author node that was present on acts is no longer supported.
Where a template previously used:
author.entity.name
it should now use:
createdBy.name
Where a site customises any of the above document or report templates, they will need to be updated to replace uses of author.entity.name with createdBy.name and reloaded.
See OVPMS-2241
Customer and patient createdDate
Templates that use the party.customerperson or party.patientpet createdDate field should instead use created.
Reports that query the createdDate from the entity_details table should instead use entities.created.
See OVPMS-2241
Patient History Search
The Patient History Search.jrxml report has been modified in order to support notes > 5000 characters.
This can be loaded using:
toolbox template --load "Patient History Search" --size <size>
where <size> may be A4, Letter.
See OVPMS-2292
Known Issues
This page documents any known issues that may cause problems. Note that it does not list problems reported against earlier releases of OpenVPMS that are not yet resolved, but rather issues that may cause you problems with this release.
Lost space character using Email Template
If you create an Email Template using an Open Office odt document as its content, and that document contains two adjacent User Fields separated by one space, eg
(here shown after using Ctrl-F9 to reveal the field content)
Then when this shows in the email you may see "Dear MrBloggs" rather than the expected "Dear Mr Bloggs".
The work-around is either to replace the space by a non-breaking space (entered using Ctrl-Shift-space on Windows or Option-Space on a Mac) or use two spaces instead of one. [In the second case, normal HTML processing will replace consecutive spaces by a single space.]
External Edit triggers security dialog each time it runs
If you use the External Edit facility to edit an Open Office document, AND you are using Java 8 update 112 or later then a Java security check window appears each time you use External Edit and its 'do not show this again' checkbox does not work. See also OVPMS-1889
Audit info
Audit info popups display on top of dialogs. To avoid this, click off the audit info before opening dialogs.
Plugins
Removing a plugin from the deploy/ directory may not uninstall it.