December 2023

To wish everyone a wonderful holiday season...

We hope you will be able to take a relaxing break from your work and celebrate this special season.

With Christmas and New Year's Day falling on a Monday, the Eve days will be on a Sunday so we have added two extra days after Christmas to our holiday schedule.   This year, our offices will be closed on:

• December 25, 26 and 27 for the Christmas holiday.
• January 1,2024 for New Year's Day  

If you have any year-end tasks for which you would like extra support, please schedule time with us on December 28 or 29. 

Keep in mind that both QuickBooks and DQB are driven by specific dates and do not depend on calendar month or year end.   This means you can create transactions and perform tasks at any time by specifying the date or date range.

A new addition to the ongoing challenges to secure your information! 

If you recall from last month's newsletter, we reviewed how we have been addressing some of the most important security challenges.  Here it is again:

From the dental lab forums and news releases, we learned that two of the other companies providing online software for dental labs recently experienced severe disruptions.  The most serious and long lasting were those under Henry Schein where a cyberattack brought down all their systems for many days, putting them and their customers back to handling business manually.   The other was Evident where it was reported that all the information entered by the labs across a couple of days was completely lost.  

Securing your information has always been a challenge for all of who provide software and all the more since the expansion to the internet.   With just about every release, we need to include more advanced measures to assure against data breaches.  For those synchronizing with the online versions of QuickBooks, Intuit requires that we continually update our software to coordinate with their security measures.   

Here are some of other ways we have tackled the need for greater protection and security of your work and information.  

• For online hosting, DentalRx and Lab Lookup, we have tested and recommend use of Amazon Web Services for their advanced technology and performance.  
• For communications, we have chosen Verizon FIOS and Digital Voice for their very high level of accessibility and security, advertised to be 99.99% reliable. 
• For each lab, we developed and offer Advanced Backup Protocol to provide for automatic backups to both local and internet locations with a wide choice of locations, media, encryption and security measures.

This month we are pleased to announce a new addition and to thank Jen Acquaviva of Acqua-Dent for her coordination in successfully beta-testing this. The new offering is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) customized specifically for the needs of those using DQB both for the desktop and online versions of QuickBooks.   The technology essentially provides a highly secure tunnel for all the programs and data on your system to prevent unauthorized access.  If your system includes remote devices, these can be included in the VPN.  

We will be offering this capability to all of the DQB licensees with a service agreement or subscription.   The only cost will be for the time needed by our tech support staff to install, setup and guide you on its use.

To answer your questions....

Q: Do we have to switch from the QuickBooks version we've been using for years to the online version?  What is involved in doing this?

A: There has been a major trend among the largest companies offering software to move from the traditional model of licenses to subscriptions for software as a service.   This includes Intuit for QuickBooks.  The subscription model keeps all of the users up to date, saves on distribution and support costs, and assures recurring revenue for the vendor.  

For those who have been using QuickBooks Pro or Premier desktop version, you will have to switch to either a subscription for the desktop or an online subscription if you also use one of the services that are hosted on Intuit servers such as payment processing or payroll.    The Pro and Premier versions will no longer be offered to new licensees after July 15, 2024 but those who already have these can continue on.   The Enterprise version will continue to be offered to new licensees. 

Several years ago we adapted the connector program that provides for transferring information back and forth between QB and DQB to accommodate the online versions and have continued to keep it up to date so that all QB versions can synchronize.  We have already successfully transitioned a number of labs from desktop to online as well as installed new subscribers.   We have also developed a white paper to document the differences between the two and what is involved in the transition from desktop to online.  You can request a copy of this be emailed to you. 

Q: Can we schedule by the amount of time it typically takes to do a procedure?

A:  Fundamentally yes, but it is not by the specific clock time as you would have for an appointment calendar. For automatic scheduling in DQB, the program algorithm uses scheduled units for each case item.   The scheduled units are calculated by multiplying the case item units by the schedule factor.   The schedule factor, which can be setup for the item, within the standard procedure or specifically within the case, should reflect the time needed to complete the item. 

The default schedule factor and the number of schedule days are both set to 1 but can be adapted for your scheduling.   When setting up the daily limit on scheduled units for each work center, you can work with whatever time interval you wish.  For example, if you want to schedule work in 15 minute intervals, there would be 4 for each work hour for each technician.   For a work center with 2 technicians, an 8 hour work day, the basic calculation for the daily limit would be 4 x 2 x 8.  You can edit this as you wish.

When estimating the time needed for each case item, it is wise to include any associated tasks such as time for review, coordination, access to materials and files, recording notes and marking completions.

A review of the DQB email features

In our support calls, one of the topics frequently needing guidance involves how to email to your customers directly from DQB.   Here are the most important aspects.  

Options/Email Settings:  Before you can send emails to your customers, you must specify the factors involved with your specific email service such as the name and port.  These are typically provided by the service.  You can also contact our tech support to help with this.  

Customer Email Address:   The main email is specified in QuickBooks and synchronized into DQB.  

Case Entry/Email Tab:   Here you can send emails to your customer for case specific messages or other purposes. 

Basic Lists/Customers:   From the Email tab or Action menu, you can send an email message to your customer for any purpose and if you wish, add an attachment.  You can also send welcome emails, setup other email templates, and establlsh an address book.

Reports:   You can Save customer or case specific reports to an industry standard format such as PDF to send as an attachment to the emails.

The above features are available in all versions of DQB, both starter and standard.  The program provides a history of these emails. The emails can be received on computer stations or mobile devices.

DQB Customer Center:  

This feature is available only for the standard versions of DQB.  It is designed to focus on one customer at a time and includes the above email features.

DQB Email  Notifications Supplement:  

This supplement is available only for the standard versions of DQB.  It is from the Apps/Notifications menu that you can enter further settings and schedule regular notifications for two purposes: 

• For customers, cases received and recently shipped reports along with marketing and informational messages 
• For internal staff members, a choice of management reports already developed or customized for your lab

DQB Images/Digital Files Supplement:  

This supplement is available only for the standard versions of DQB. With this, you can

• Browse to find digital files sent via email from the dental office
• Send emails with attachments for digital files and documents

All of the above are available for DQB synchronization with both the desktop and online versions of QuickBooks.

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