What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
We're noticing that, no matter which phone number we check the "preferred" box for, the home number is always the one presented on the summary screen at left. For example, we have a few clients that "prefer" us to call on mobile or business numbers, but it's a real PITA that only the home number shows (I suppose it keeps the "post-it notes" suppliers in business 
).
Is the "preferred" check-box a WAD or a bug?
Yuri.
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Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
The summary will displays customer's phone with HOME classification in preference to any other.
If the customer has no phone with HOME classification, then their preferred phone will be displayed.
-Tim
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
Removing the HOME purpose from the home phone number and "preferring" the mobile does enable the mobile number in the left-side summary screen (interestingly, if you prefer both work and mobile, work wins over mobile).
However, once HOME purpose is removed from the phone number, there are unexpected/unintended consequences: forms that call for a home phone number (eg the CAR microchip form) now show the same number for both home and mobile number fields.
IMHO, while the "preferred" tick/home number is not a bug per se (but I reckon it comes close
), I think the summary screen needs to be reworked so that "preferred" number is the number displayed over the HOME number (display defaulting to HOME if no preference ticked).
Yuri.
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
I would agree with Yuri. We rarely have clients with the preferred number as home (generally mobile as the preferred number), yet they do have a home number just in case.
I don't know if it is possible, but I would also suggest have the default setting to not have preferred box ticked when adding a phone number (or just have it ticked on the first phone number entry), but then default to unticked for second/third phone number added. Would be easier for us to tick once rather than untick multiple times. Not sure if this works for other clinics though.
Greta
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
I would totally agree with you Greta. I think it is more logical to default to unticked when adding client phone numbers and users can tick the preferred number as informed by clients. If there is no preference by the client, I think OpenVPMS can then display the first number on the list at the summary column.
Quick question here while we're on the topic of entering phone numbers. Does everyone use the Purposes function? Does everyone always overwrite the Phone Number name to Home, Mobile, Work etc? I have to admit our databse is not very standardised in that regard. Would it be better if OpenVPMS have a drop down list of phone number types which will save time while doing entries, as well as keeping a free type Contact Name field which we can optionally use to note the name of partners or secondary person if provided by the client for example?
Regards,
Anthony (ActiVet)
Kind regards,
Anthony (ActiVet)
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
>Does everyone use the Purposes function?
We always use the Purposes function to label phone numbers. Otherwise forms we commonly use (referral, microchip, HD evaluation) would never display the contact data properly.
>Does everyone always overwrite the Phone Number name to Home, Mobile, Work etc?
>Would it be better if OpenVPMS have a drop down list of phone number types
I don't quite understand what you're asking, Anthony. I don't "overwrite" anything, I simply click Home, Work or Mobile and click the right arrow and the Purpose is selected. IMHO, the side select list is better than a drop-down list because you can see both what's available and what's been selected (it's a similar two clicks to select a Purpose which ever method you use). The Purpose selector is clearly visible under the phone number fields when you're entering phone numbers.
I do agree that the "preferred" tick should be "unpreferred" by default.
So now that an overwhelming majority of respondents to this thread would like to see this functionality changed/modified, is it something that could slide into v1.6 with appropriate lubrication with funds?
Yuri.
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
Hi Yuri,
I apologise about the confusion. I just checked our implementor's training notes for adding new customer details and I have to admit that we had never really used the Purposes tab at all because we were not trained to do so and I did not know those were important for merging phone contact data onto customised forms.
All we've been doing was to 'edit' the Name field when adding a New Phone Contact each time by overwriting the default 'Phone Number' written to display Home, Mobile, Work or name of the person if different to account name like Peter commented. So I know that was completely irrelevant data entry now (oops!) and we'll need to start doing the phone contact entry with purpose properly! Thank you Yuri!
Regards,
Anthony (ActiVet)
Kind regards,
Anthony (ActiVet)
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
You can make the preferred tick unchecked by default by editing the contact.phoneNumber archetype and changing the preferred node's defaultValue to false().
i.e.:
<node name="preferred" path="/details/preferred" type="java.lang.Boolean" defaultValue="false()"/>Just to clarify, can you verify your requirements are:
-Tim
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
Reposting Peter's comment:
Kind regards,
Anthony (ActiVet)
Re: What's "Preferred" Check Box Used For?
Re Peter G's comment:
That's why Tim A has added the functionality to strip out anything that's not a phone number when selecting a mobile number for sending an SMS (read http://www.openvpms.org/forum/sms-support#comment-4746 and subsequent posts for discussion on that very topic ).