Integration with PET PACK's online email newsletter and reminder service

Submitted by Guest on Fri, 18/09/2009 - 12:24

General developer's discussion

We're interested in having an integration tool that allows data in Open VPMS to integrate with the PET PACK online email newsletter and reminder service.

This would involve the transfer and updating of email addresses [and possibly other data such as annual vaccination date] between the 2 systems.

The aim is to have a system where the vet can enter the email address once in Open VPMS and it's sent automatically to PET PACK. Equally, pet owners that update their emails online via PET PACK can have that info automatically sent back to Open VPMS.

Please let me know what the next steps are in getting this set up.

Regards,
James Ramsden

PET PACK's online email newsletter

Submitted by Matt C on Fri, 18/09/2009 - 23:49.

Hey James,

We just need to see some interest from the user community (responses to this post) and then we can;

1. Create a users specification or description of what they want it to do.

2. Create an active project

3. Create a development task (JIRA) - this step often involves the developers spelling out exactly how it will work ie. choice of protocols etc.

4. Cost it

5. Raise funds through user/industry pledges

6. Develop/Create

7. Deploy!

I will start with asking some questions;

1. Would every new client who has an email address entered generate a message to Petpack? (ie. a practice location setting) or would it be an option for each user with a configurable default setting? eg. "Always mark new clients as Petpack participants"

2. If an email address is invalid, how would the user be notified?

3. If an email address provided by the clinic starts to bounce, would this information be sent back to OpenVPMS or would this type 2 way communication be better handled via more typical modes of communication (ie. email).

4. If a customer wishes to withdraw from the program, would this sort of information be sent automatically also (note these guys may still have an email address in their contacts).

5. Should this be done through Classifications to allow Petpack participants to be easily reported in future reporting tools that may be developed.

Cheers,

Matt C

PET PACK email newsletter integration

Submitted by drjames@petpack.com.au (not verified) on Thu, 08/10/2009 - 12:38.

James Ramsden PET PACK Email newsletters, reminders and websites for clinics

Matt,

Thanks for your response. Jim Thompson at Turramurra has requested I explore this integration.

Will we need more Open VPMS vets requesting this development to get it off the ground?

Answers to your questions are:

1. If a clinic is using PET PACK, the default would be to send the email address to PET PACK.

However, we'd need the option to not send - there would be the odd case where someone provides an email but

they don't want the email newsletter

2. Currently PET PACK notifies when email addresses are invalid. I think that it would be best to still use that facility.

3. Bouncing emails are reported on PET PACK. We'd leave it that way - no need to send the info back to Open VPMS.

4. If a pet owner unsubscribed from PET PACK, I think it best if that is managed at PET PACK. I'm invisaging only new and

updated emails are sent to PET PACK

5. Not sure what this means - please explain further.

Regards,
James

Pet pack project

Submitted by Matt C on Fri, 09/10/2009 - 11:04.

Hi James,

No, we have had active projects happen with one very keen user.

Based on your answers I think the specification for the project may be pretty simple.

It may be cheaper/quicker to adapt existing features rather then have to create new ones particularly as we want this feature to only be visible to those clinics using Pet Pack.

Afew last questions, then I think we can start to figure our a short feature list to make into an active project.

1. When participants notify you of a new customer, what details are they required to send? Just the new email address and some patient details?

2. When they update an email address, how do you match it to an existing email (just old email + new email?)

3. Do you group email addresses for multiple pets or send one email per pet?

4. How do you identify if the new particpant is a duplicate for one already in the system? What fields do you match by?

Cheers,

Matt C

PET PACK project

Submitted by drjames@petpack.com.au (not verified) on Tue, 17/11/2009 - 12:04.

Hi Matt,

Sorry for delay in getting back. Answering your questions:

1. New pet owners info incl. email address, unique client code [as generated by OpenVPMS], pet details [DOB, species, key preventative products eg Frontline Plus, when next Vacc due]

2. Updated email addresses are matched to an existing email address using the unique client code

3. Each pet owner receives one newsletter but individual email reminders for each pet

4. Duplicates are matched by unique client code. If they have the same unique client code, we assume they're the same person and don't create new record.

In addition, we need a way to turn off PET PACK email reminders when the clinic knows that a pet has died ie Euthanasia. Ideally, OpenVPMS would send a message to PET PACK that would allow us to automatically turn off PET PACK reminders for that pet.

Thanks,
James

PET PACK email newsletter integration

Submitted by drjames@petpack.com.au (not verified) on Thu, 08/10/2009 - 12:41.

James Ramsden PET PACK Email newsletters, reminders and websites for clinics

ps Matt, which forum do I subscribe to in order to receive email notification of updates to this discussion?
Regards,
James

Subscribing to User forum

Submitted by Matt C on Fri, 09/10/2009 - 10:50.

Hey James,

Subscribe to "General User's Discussion" . I'm not sure how to sub to just a thread.

Matt C

Subscribing to User forum

Submitted by dadmin on Fri, 09/10/2009 - 20:50.

Hi James,

don't subscribe to "general user's discussion" as I've just noticed that this post is in the "General developer's discussion" so you would need to subscribe to that one.

Matt Y.

Wrong forum

Submitted by Matt C on Sun, 11/10/2009 - 08:53.

Thanks Matt.

I had suggested the wrong forum!

Matt C

To subscribe to a thread

Submitted by dadmin on Fri, 09/10/2009 - 18:00.

To just subscribe to 1 thread:

Log in to the site
Visit the forum thread you want to follow
Follow the subscribe to this post link at the top of the page just under the original post

subscribe to this post

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To subscribe to a thread

Submitted by drjames@petpack.com.au (not verified) on Tue, 17/11/2009 - 12:10.

Thank you! I've done as suggested - looking forward to getting the emails.
James

Integration with PET PACK's

Submitted by tanderson on Sun, 06/12/2009 - 14:59.

I think there are several ways of integrating PET PACK. Perhaps the easiest to get off the ground would simply involve extending the customer information in OpenVPMS.

This would involve adding a section to the customer data to indicate what information and marketing they want to receive.

By capturing this information, a tool can then be developed to extract all customers interested in receiving the PET PACK newsletter and send the required details to PET PACK.

The changes to the customer details would be part of the OpenVPMS distribution, but the tool to extract the PET PACK specific details wouldn't need to be.

You could develop this yourself (happy to point you in the right direction if you need assistance), or you could approach a service provider to develop and deploy it for you.

-Tim

PET PACK

Submitted by Matt C on Mon, 07/12/2009 - 17:18.

Hi Tim,

Could the involvement just be done through classifications?

ie. Create a new patient classification that was "Pet Pack participant".

If this was a good way to group these patients then we might need to consider creating some default classifications so that we are not adding new steps in the "addition of a new client process".

Furthermore should this classification/grouping happen at Customer level or Pet level?

What about the following interactive scenarios;

- Change of email address.

- Deceasing of a participant patient.

- Removal of Pet Pack Participant classification (Patient does not want to receive info).

These scenarios require an update to be sent to Petpack. Or do we just send a complete patient participant list every time rather then just updates to synch pet pack and the clinics records?

Cheers,

Matt

PET PACK

Submitted by tanderson on Mon, 07/12/2009 - 23:34.

A customer classification would be easiest.

An ETL tool (e.g Pentaho Kettle) could then periodically query the customers and for all those with a Pet Pack classification.

It would generate a listing of these customers, their email addresses, patients etc, and upload this to the Pet Pack site.

From this listing, Pet Pack could determine which customers:

are new
have been updated
are no longer on the list

and update its database accordingly.

In terms of Pet Pack to OpenVPMS synchronisation, the only thing I think you'd want to send back would be if a user stopped their Pet Pack subscription.

This would enable the Pet Pack classification to be removed from the customer.

-Tim

Petpack synchronisation

Submitted by Matt C on Thu, 18/03/2010 - 10:57.

Hi James (and Tim),

So to clarify the requirements for this development so we can get an active project going.

1. We would identify participating petpack clients by using the existing "Classifications" tab under Customer.

This would involve during new client creation that the user went into Classifications and added the "Petpack Participant" classification to the Customer.

2. A report (data like csv as will be available in Report in version 1.4) would be generated either using the exisiting Reports workspace or via an external 3rd party application such as Pentaho Kettle, to create a data listing of ALL customers currently having this classification.

Currently this file would then need to be manually emailed to Petpack.

3. Petpack matches the data dump against current records for this clinic, updating any client details changes and deactivating those that no longer appear in the dump.

4. If a user opted out of the petpack scheme, the clinic would need to manually remove the classification from the customer. This opt out would be communicated from Petpack to the clinic via email James?

Presently this scheme involves minimal development (mainly just a customer report that pulls out customers with appropriate data).

Step 1. If the user wanted all new customers to have a default Classification (ie. All new customers participate in Petpack unless otherwise specified), this would require some new development.

Step 2. If automatic emailing of reports is desired from OpenVPMS, then the Email enhancements project would need to be completed.

Step 4. If automatic customer classification updates from the Petpack data file was desired, this would involve a new feature to be developed.

James can you advise how you would ideally want each of the four steps defined above to work or if the existing steps as described would meet your requirements?

Cheers,

matt C