New in 2.3

Complete

The following is a list of new features and improvements in the 2.3 release. You should also check Known Issues and the Implementation Checklist.

Features in this release include:

EFTPOS integration
VetCheck integration
Customers
Patients
Charging
- Multiple selection shortcut in Charges and Estimates
- Restricted drugs
Payments
- Simplified payments
Products
- Medication label macros
Scheduling
SMS
- SMS reply management
- Improved SMS reply visibility
Suppliers
- Prompt if an item is already on order
- Supplier details on orders protected from changes
Reporting
Administration

EFTPOS integration

OpenVPMS now includes an EFTPOS plugin API to support EFTPOS integration.
A commerical add-on is available, supporting Windcave terminals.

VetCheck integration

OpenVPMS now includes integration with VetCheck. VetCheck supports generation of digital practice forms with e-signature, digital dental or GA monitoring charts, vaccination certifications, discharge instructions, home care videos, pet healthcare programs & handouts.

See VetCheck Integration for details.

Customers

Account reminders

SMS reminders can now be sent for unpaid or part-paid invoices and counter sales.
See Account Reminders for the details.

Add contacts in summary

An Add button is now displayed in the customer summary if a customer is missing a phone number or email address. This can be used to quickly add a new contact.

Tasks

Tasks for a customer are now displayed in Customers - Information.
Selecting a task switches to Workflow - Work Lists.

Transaction allocation

The allocation of debits to credits and vice-versa can now be viewed in Customers - Account.
This can be used to show which payments paid off an invoice, and any balance remaining to be paid, for example.

Launch external email editor

External email editors can now be launched by clicking on the button displayed next to an email address.

This facility needs to be enabled by selecting the Show mailto: Links option in the Practice.
Note that emails sent via external email editors will not be logged in Customer Communications.

Telephone links

Telephone numbers are now displayed as tel: links, so users can click them to launch the associated phone application, e.g. Skype.

Patients

Appointments and tasks

Appointments and tasks for a patient are now displayed in Patients - Information.
Selecting an appointment switches to Workflow - Scheduling to enable check-in/consult/check-out etc.
Selecting a task switches to Workflow - Work Lists.

Estimates

Estimates for a patient are may now be viewed and managed in Patients - Medical Records - Estimates.

Print & OK for medications

The patient Medication dialog now includes a Print & OK button which is a shortcut for printing the label and then clicking OK.

Show/hide communications in history summary by reason

Communications can now be shown or hidden in Patients - Medical Records - Summary using the Show In Patient History flag of a given communication reason.

This can be used to hide sensitive communications, or exclude a range of communications from view by default.

Note that any communication with this flag unset will still be visible in:

Charging

Multiple selection shortcut in Charges and Estimates

All charges and estimates on the current page can now be selected for deletion by clicking the checkbox on the Items header, as shown below:

Items that cannot be deleted, or require single selection for deletion (e.g. they have minimum quantities), will not be selected.

Restricted drugs

Medications with a restricted drug schedule may now only be sold using a Counter Sale if the practice option, Sell Restricted Drugs OTC is selected.

Payments

Simplified payments

Payments have been simplified to reduce the number of clicks required to add payment items:

An EFT item is added by default
The payment type is configurable, using the Practice option Default Payment Type.
Previously, a payment type had to be selected and Add clicked.
The payment types are displayed as buttons, to simplify switching from one payment type to another.
Previously they were displayed in a dropdown list.

Products

Medication label macros

The Label Instructions of a Medication product can now include macros, which will be expanded when the product is dispensed. This enables patient-specific labels to be generated.

Scheduling

Appointment & task notes length

The length of the Notes field in appointments and task has been increased from 255 to 5000 characters.

Default reason for appointment types

Appointment Types can now specify a Reason which will be copied to the appointment when the Appointment Type is selected.

Expand Roster preference

There is now an Expand Roster preference in Scheduling which may be selected to pre-expand rosters displayed at the top of appointment schedules.

Complete button for tasks

Workflow - Work Lists now includes a Complete button to mark the selected task as Completed.
This is a shortcut for selecting the task, editing it and changing its status to Completed.

SMS

SMS reply managment

SMS replies can now be monitored in Workflow - Messaging via the SMS Replies tab.

Improved SMS reply visibility

SMS replies are now displayed in:

Suppliers

Prompt if an item is already on order

A prompt will now be displayed when ordering a product for a stock location that has been ordered previously, but not yet delivered. This displays the order details, including the undelivered quantity.

Supplier details on orders protected from changes

To prevent against accidental updates, the Reorder Code, Reorder Description, Package Size, Package Units, Nett Price and List Price fields of a Supplier Order can no longer be changed if they were sourced from the Supplier details of a product.

Reporting

New document templates

The following document templates have been added:

Desexing Certificate	Patient desexing certificate. JasperReports replacement of the OpenOffice version
Euthanasia Consent	Euthanasia consent form
General Admission Form	A general patient admission form
Microchip Certificate	Patient microchip certificate
Prescription	Prescription. JasperReports replacement of the OpenOffice version
Prescription External	A template to support external prescriptions
Rabies Vaccination Certificate	Patient rabies vaccination certificate
Referral Letter	Patient referral letter. JasperReports replacement of the OpenOffice version
Surgical Admission	A surgical admission letter
Vaccination Certificate	Patient vaccination certificate. JasperReports replacement of the OpenOffice version
Vaccination Certificate (Reminders)	Patient vaccination certificate that includes upcoming reminders.

New email templates

The following email templates have been added:

Customer Base Email	Customer email template
Customer Invoice Email	Email template for customer invoices
Customer Receipt Email	Email template for customer receipts
Customer Refund Email	Email template for customer refunds
Customer Statement Email	Email template for customer statements
Patient Base Email	Patient email template
Patient Estimate Email	Email template for patient estimates
Patient Owner History Email	Patient history email template for patient owner
Patient Referral History Email	Patient history email template for patient referral

New reminder templates

The following templates have been added to support reminders:

Customer Grouped Reminder	Grouped reminder template to group reminders by customer
Patient Grouped Reminder	Grouped reminder template to group reminders by patient
Patient Single Reminder	Template for a single patient reminder
Patient Single Overdue Reminder	Template for a single patient reminder that is overdue
Patient Desexing Reminder	Template for a patient desexing reminder
Patient Collection Reminder	Template for a product collection reminder
Patient Collection Overdue Reminder	Template for an overdue product collection reminder
Patient Grouped Email Reminder	Email template for grouped patient reminders
Patient Single Email Reminder	Email template for single patient reminders
Patient Collection Email Reminder	Email template for patient collection reminders

JasperReports OpenOffice document generation

JasperReports templates may now be used to generate OpenOffice documents for Patient Letter, Customer Letter, and Supplier Letter document templates, by setting the Output Format to OpenOffice ODT.
This enables letters generated from JasperReports templates to be subsequently edited using External Edit.

Laboratory account identifier merging support

Some offline laboratories require an account identifier to be included in the documentation submitted with the sample. This may be different for each practice location.
To support document merging, Investigation Types now support a list of practice locations which include an Account Id.

These may be used in the template associated with an Investigation Type using the expression:

investigation:accountId()

Administration

Archetype installation

Archetype installation is now done automatically when updating the OpenVPMS database.
Previously it needed be done manually, using the toolbox archetype --load command.
Users who customise archetypes must still apply their changes after updating the database.

Plugins

Plugins are now managed in the OpenVPMS database.
- plugins no longer need to be redployed after minor upgrades
- there is no longer any need to configure the plugin directory
Plugins support is now enabled by default
Plugins may now be uninstalled via Administration - System - Plugins
The toolbox plugin commands have been expanded:
- toolbox plugin --install <jar>
  Installs a plugin.
  The plugin will be deployed when OpenVPMS is restarted, or by clicking the Refresh button in Administration - System - Plugins.
- toolbox plugin --uninstall <plugin key>
  Uninstalls a plugin, given its key.
  The plugin will be undeployed when OpenVPMS is restarted.
- toolbox plugin --list
  Lists the keys of installed plugins

Toolbox

The toolbox configure command now has a --default switch to generate openvpms.properties without prompting. This uses default values for MySQL. This can be used for unattended installations.
The toolbox database --create command now accepts a --host argument to indicate the host OpenVPMS will be connecting from. It defaults to localhost.
The toolbox database --update command now automatically installs plugins from the <OPENVPMS_HOME>/plugins directory, if they have been installed previously.

Themes

OpenVPMS now ships with a number of themes that set the colour scheme.
See Administration - Style Sheets - Themes for details.

Implementation Checklist

Complete

The following is a checklist for existing users upgrading to the 2.3 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.

MySQL Server
Document template updates
Report template updates
Appointment, Task and Calendar Block Notes lengths

MySQL Server

If deploying using MySQL Server 5.7, the sql_mode no longer needs to be changed to remove ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY. All standard report templates have been updated to avoid errors.
If running a custom report and it fails with an error like:

SELECT list is not in GROUP BY clause and contains nonaggregated column ...
incompatible with sql_mode=only_full_group_by

it needs to be corrected. See https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/group-by-handling.html for details.

Document template updates

The following document templates were updated:

reports/*/*.jrxml
All JasperReport templates were updated to remove explicit use of the DejaVu Sans font, in order to make it easier to replace with another font, as per Locale and Fonts - Unix and Locale and Fonts - Windows.
See OVPMS-2507
reports/*/*.jrxml
All JasperReport templates were updated to increase field widths for currency fields to support multicharacter currencies.
See OVPMS-2305
reports/Workflow/Appointment/<size>/Appointment.jrxml
See OVPMS-2468
Updated to change use of the field 'description' to 'notes'.
reports/Workflow/Task/<size>/Task.jrxml
See OVPMS-2468
Updated to change use of the field 'description' to 'notes'.

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 above for the changes required.

Alternatively, templates can be loaded individually using:

toolbox template --load 'Appointment' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Bank Deposit' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Counter Sale' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Credit' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Credit Adjustment' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Debit Adjustment' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Delivery Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Estimate Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Estimate Items-PT' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Insurance Claim Invoice Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Invoice' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Invoice Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Invoice Items-PT' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Order Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Pharmacy Order Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Receipt' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Receipt Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Refund' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Refund Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Statement' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Statement Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Statement Items-PT' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stock Adjustment Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stock Transfer Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Supplier Invoice Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Supplier Refund Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Supplier Remittance Items' --size <size>
toolbox template --load Task --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Till Balance' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Work In Progress' --size <size>

Report template updates

The following reports were updated:

reports/Reporting/*.jrxml
All JasperReport templates were updated to remove explicit use of the DejaVu Sans font, in order to make it easier to replace with another font, as per Locale and Fonts - Unix and Locale and Fonts - Windows.
See OVPMS-2507
reports/Reporting/*.jrxml
All JasperReport templates were updated to increase field widths for currency fields to support multicharacter currencies.
See OVPMS-2305
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Customer Payments Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2522
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Addresses for Sales.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Addresses.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Email Addresses for Sales.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Email Addresses.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Phone Numbers for Sales.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Export Customer Phone Numbers.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Customer/<size>/Wait Time Statistics.jrxml
See OVPMS-2558
reports/Reporting/Reports/Patient/<size>/Patient History Search.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Patient/<size>/Patient List Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2451
reports/Reporting/Reports/Product/<size>/Stock Back Order Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2505, OVPMS-2512
reports/Reporting/Reports/Product/<size>/Stock Reorder Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2505
reports/Reporting/Reports/Product/<size>/Stocktake Export Report.jrxml
See OVPMS-2452

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 above links for the changes required.

Alternatively, templates can be loaded individually using:

toolbox template --load 'Charges' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Clinician Sales Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Account Balance' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Balance Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Payments Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Product Sales Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Reconciliation Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Running Balance Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Customer Sales Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Debtors - Current - SubReport1' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Debtors - Current' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Debtors - Historical' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Estimates Report subreport' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Estimates Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Addresses for Sales' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Addresses' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Email Addresses for Sales' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Email Addresses'--size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Phone Numbers for Sales' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Export Customer Phone Numbers' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Insurance Claims Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Key Performance Indicators' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Patient History Search' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Patient List Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Clinician Sales Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_CountApptsClinician' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_CountApptsType' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_CountVisitsClinician' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_CountVisitsLocation' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_IncomeByClinician' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_IncomeByLocation' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_OutstandingDebtors' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_PaymentsByLocation' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_ProdSalesLocation' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Practice Summary_ProdSalesType' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stock Back Order Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stock Reorder Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stock Valuation Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Stocktake Export Report' --size <size>
toolbox template --load 'Wait Time Statistics' --size <size>

Appointment, Task and Calendar Block Notes lengths

The Notes field of Appointments, Tasks and Calendar Blocks has been increased from 255 to 5000 characters.
This may require updates to the Display Expressions in Schedule or Work List Views.

If the Display Expression contains:

openvpms:get(., 'act.description')

this needs to change to:

openvpms:get(., 'notes')

The standard Appointment and Task templates have been updated to change use of the field 'description' to 'notes'.
These can be loaded individually using:

toolbox template --load Appointment --size <size>
toolbox template --load Task --size <size>

where <size> may be A4, A5 or Letter.

See OVPMS-2468

Known Issues

Complete

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.]

Audit info

Audit info popups display on top of dialogs. To avoid this, click off the audit info before opening dialogs.