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
