December 2018

Schedules for the month ahead

This year we will have two four-day holidays to hopefully be relaxing with friends, family and favorite things .   For Christmas, we will be closed Monday, December 24 and Tuesday, December 25.  For New Year's, we will be closed Monday, December 31 and Tuesday, January 1. 

For the workdays between the two holidays, we will not be scheduling any major system reconfigurations or updates.  If you wish to have support for these, please schedule your session soon.

Lots of activity!

We have been pleased that a number of you have heeded our recommendation to implement new configurations and features earlier rather than wait until the last week of the year.  The most requested new features have included the Advanced Backup Protocol, DentalRx Direct and custom websites.  In the question and answer section below we will post some of the queries we have received on these topics.  

For new development, we have continued a steady beat on the upcoming January DQB release as well as the local drive app and an expansion of the Notifications supplement to include both external emails to the dental offices and internal automatic reports for lab management.

As we end the year...

It has been a very good year for the DentaLab systems and we thank all of you who have helped to make it so.   We hope you will be able to take a break from your busy schedules to relax and enjoy this special holiday season. 

Here's wishing us all continued success and good times in the year ahead!

To answer your questions...

Q: For the Advanced Backup Protocol, is it better to chose local  or web-based backups?

A:  When you backup your important business information, you are guarding against a number of possibilities that could cause loss.  Among them are hardware failure, theft, weather-related damages, data breaches from web-based sources, operational errors, ransomware.   Since it has become so easy to do with the new protocol, we recommend that you create multiple automatic backups and direct these to both local and remote media.   

We also recommend that you chose a high level of security.  We can help to guide you in making these choices as well as the documentation and steps to take should recovery ever be needed.  

Q: What are the differences between DentalRx and DentalRx Direct?

A: For the basic goal of providing a web portal for the dental offices to submit cases, send digital documents and other communications, as well as looking up case statuses and histories, both of these are the same.  Our long standing offering of DentalRx has been geared toward those who that would like customization for their websites, typically to achieve marketing and communication goals for the lab with the same look and feel as their brand and the offering of specific features. 

For those labs with smaller budgets, we more recently introduced DentalRx Direct as well as the creation of new modern websites with tools such as Wix and Word Press.  This approach provides for easier creation of the website and the portal for the dental offices.   For those willing to take on a small learning curve, small modifications can be performed by the user in the future.

For both, however, the initial technical and security setups must be performed by a professional.  The web server for both is hosted on Amazon Web Service and provides a very high level of security.   The cost for your service is included in your monthly service agreement fee.

Q: How do we know when cases have been submitted via DentalRx and DentalRx Direct?

A: For these cases, the Entry By field is set to DRX.  You can go to the Case List and in the search criteria section at the bottom, set the Entry By field to DRX and have the received date set to either the current date or whatever date range you desire. 

As more and more labs are moving ahead with DentalRx Direct, we have had requests to develop an alert to let the lab know that DRX cases have been submitted.  Our staff has come up with several possibilities and we would welcome your suggestions as well.

Q: Will the dental office be able to lookup cases that have been submitted the traditional way when using the web portal in DentalRx and DentalRx Direct?

A: Yes, all cases that meet the criteria entered by the user will be shown via the web portal.

Responding to new expectations

We have taken note that a number of the requests coming our way from the labs have in fact come to them from the dental offices.  There is definitely a growing list of  expectations.   Here are some of them: 

• Most likely #1 is that you will provide a convenient web portal for them to send prescriptions and accompanying digital files and documents.
• Transmission of patient information will be secure and in compliance with HIPAA and other government regulations.  
• The lab will have a website that covers their offerings and specialties along with their hours and contact information. 
• Whenever needed, the lab will be able to quickly and accurately provide details on past cases for a patient. 
• Their preferences for materials and techniques will be documented and honored for every applicable case.
• Pickups and deliveries will be reliable and on time with local service whenever needed.

Your service for 2019

For many reasons we firmly require that in order to have access to the services of our tech support staff, a service agreement must be in place once your initial no-charge  period for a new license has ended.   Among these:

• the agreements define the rights and responsibilities of each party
• they serve to provide a sound financial basis for having programmers on staff
• there is always a need to keep up with ever-changing technology and compliance regulations
• the importance of having users participate in the development of the system
  
• not wanting to encourage our users to neglect their systems
• there is a need for continual education and guidance as technologies and personnel change
• to have adequate personnel trained and available for whatever special need arises 
  

As many of you know, we have competitors who provide dental lab software but no longer have programmers on staff, who discourage innovation and interaction, who will not address customization requests.  As a professional software development company, we are determined not to follow in their path.   We provide a core of already developed and proven software but will also address any special needs as well as the ever-changing innovations for the labs and for computer systems. 

There have been just a few categories where the monthly fee will have a small increase for 2019 but most will remain the same as 2018.

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