New in 2.4
The following is a list of new features and improvements in the 2.4 release. You should also check Known Issues and the Implementation Checklist.
Features in this release include:
Departments
Charges may now be assigned Departments. These represent areas of the practice e.g. Consulting, Surgery, Emergency, and can be used to:
- classify charges for improved reporting
- determine pricing via calendar-based service ratios
See Concepts - Departments for more details.
Workflow
Appointment confirmation & cancellation by SMS
Appointments can now be confirmed and cancelled by SMS, if a 2-way SMS provider is being used.
See Appointment Reminder Sender - Reply Processing for details.
Improved appointment SMS visibility
- In Workflow - Scheduling, if an SMS reminder has been sent for an appointment, this can now be seen by clicking on the
icon. A bouncing 
is displayed when there is an unread reply.
This displays a window showing the original SMS, and any replies e.g.:
- If an SMS is associated with an appointment, a Go to Appointment link will displayed to go to Workflow - Scheduling to view the appointment e.g.:
Manual appointment reminders no longer prevent automatic reminders
If the Remind button in Workflow - Scheduling is used to send an appointment SMS reminder, this no longer prevents a subsequent automatic reminder for the appointment being sent.
This is useful if the practice sends a confirmation SMS to a customer when an appointment is made, but also want the customer to be reminded about the appointment when it is due.
The Disable Automatic Reminder flag can be ticked to prevent a subsequent automatic reminder.
Automatically close print window on Check-Out
At the end of Check-Out, a window is displayed to print documents. Previously, this automatically closed when the selected documents were printed, but not when they were emailed.
To save a click, the window now closes when they are emailed as well, and the documents are flagged as being printed.
Products
Product Tasks
Medication, Merchandise and Service products can now be configured to create Tasks when invoiced.
In the above:
- a Task with with Task Type set to 'Post-surgery follow-up' will be created , starting 1 day after the invoice date.
- the user will be prompted to select from available follow-up work lists that have the 'Post-surgery follow-up' Task Type.
This displays as follows when the product is invoiced:
Alternatively, the task can be configured for a specific work list:
In this case, the work list cannot be changed when the product is invoiced:
Product browser Product Type Filter
Product browsers now include a Product Type filter:
Printed Description
Products may now include a Printed Description field, to provide additional information to customers about products they are purchasing.
Where present, these will be included in printed Invoices, Counter Sales, Credits, and Estimates.
Customers
Customer referrals
When a customer is referred by another customer, this can now be recorded by selecting Customer in the Referred By field. This prompts for the referring customer:
Improved charge, payment and refund notes visibility
Any notes associated with customer charges, payments and refunds are now displayed in the summary tables in Customers - Charges, Payments and Account.
Patients
Microchip source number
The Source Number can now be recorded when adding microchips. This is used in some jurisdictions to identify a breeder, council pound, animal shelter, pet shop or foster carer that owns the animal.
Prescriptions for products with doses
Previously, only a fixed quantity was supported.
Documents
PetSure insurance claim pre-approval request templates
Two new templates are provided to help submit insurance claim pre-approval requests to PetSure:
- PetSure Pre-Approval - use to request pre-approval for a standard insurance claim
- PetSure GapOnly Pre-Approval - use to request pre-approval for a gap-only insurance claim
To use:
1. Create a patient Letter
2. For the Template field, select one of the above templates
3. Fill out the prompts
For standard claims, the PetSure Pre-Approval Letter needs to be printed and signed by the customer. If submitting it to PetSure on the customer's behalf, the signed copy should be scanned and uploaded to the Letter, before emailing.
Fit to Fly certificate
A Fit to Fly template is now included to generate fit-to-fly certificates for patients.
To use:
1. Create a patient Letter
2. For the Template field, select Fit to Fly Certificate
3. Fill out the prompt, if required
Database letterhead logos
Letterhead logo images can now be stored in the database. This is an improvement over the existing technique of storing logos in the filesystem, which fails if the logo file is no longer accessible (e.g. if the file is deleted, or OpenVPMS is moved to a different machine, or a network drive is unavailable etc).
Logos can be added by uploading an image to the Logo field of Letterhead & Document Control.
To use this feature, the Letterhead templates need to be loaded. See the Implementation Checklist for details.
E-signatures
Signature images may now be uploaded for each user, for inclusion in JasperReports.
The following templates have been updated to automatically insert a signature for the clinician:
- Desexing Certificate
- Microchip Certificate
- Prescription
- Prescription External
- Rabies Vaccination Certificate
- Referral Letter
- Vaccination Certificate
- Vaccination Certificate with reminders
External Edit
OpenOffice now launches automatically when using External Edit to edit an OpenOffice or Word document.
Static content for Forms
Document Templates for Customer, Patient, and Supplier Forms may now be PDF files. This can be useful when providing handouts that don't need to be merged with customer, patient or supplier data.
Email Template attachments
Email Templates may now have predefined attachments that will be attached to emails wherever the template is used. This includes:
- when the template is selected in the Mail editor
- emailed reminders
- emailed statements
- emailed scheduled reports
Attachments may be Forms with PDF content.
Laboratory
Order validation
Laboratory services can now raise an alert when editing investigations.
This can help avoid submission errors if the investigation or associated details are incomplete.
E.g. IDEXX requires that the patient has a birth date:
The laboratory order cannot be submitted until the error is corrected:
Administration
Change Printer
If a physical printer is changed or removed, any practice location or document template that uses the printer must be updated.
This process is now streamlined through the Change Printer button in Administration - Templates.
OpenOffice
- Multiple OpenOffice instances are now supported, in order to improve response times when performing document merges and printing.
- OpenOffice can now be configured and restarted within OpenVPMS. See Administration - System - OpenOffice for details
Strong passwords
The requirements for user passwords can now be set via the Password Policy button in Administration - Users.
Forgot password support
Users can now reset passwords via the Forgot your password? link on the Login page.
This sends out an email containing a code that must be entered to reset the password.
This requires:
- Users to have an email contact, in order to receive the code
- a Mail Server to be configured on the Practice
For security, codes expire after a short period of time and there is a limit to the number of times they can be entered incorrectly.
Change password support
Users can now be made to update their passwords when they next login by:
- setting the Change Password flag when editing a user; or
- using the toolbox user --force-change-password command
This can force all users to change passwords.
This can be used to ensure passwords meet the Password Policy.
Practice Logo
A logo may now be configured on the Practice.
This is displayed:
- on the Login page
- at the top of the screen, unless a Logo is configured for the current Location
Firewall
OpenVPMS now includes a firewall that can limit access to specific IP addresses.
This should be enabled where OpenVPMS is deployed on a publically accessible host with limited/no firewall support of its own.
The firewall can be configured to allow specific users to connect from outside with multifactor authentication. Both one-time passwords sent via email, and Time-based one-time passwords (TOTP) are supported.
See:
Scheduling
Schedules now include a Max Duration to determine the maximum duration of appointments and calendar blocks. When set, this greatly improves response times in Workflow - Scheduling.
