April 2014

Hello April, Hello Spring!  

Many of us have never been so glad to see spring arrive as this year.  Although the meteorologists prediced that the snow would be about five times greater than last year, it was far more and often accompanied by ice storms.

Although many dentists and their labs were slowed down due to weather-related patient cancellations, we continued to be busy with custom programming, a comprehensive release, and helping a number of labs update their operating system due to the end of support for Windows XP on April 8.  

In the world of software development, much of the focus is on security.  It is often assumed that we all know to handle data, perform algorithms and display it nicely.  It has been and continues to be a major battle to prevent data breaches caused by internet malware as those who create this devise new ways to hack into valuable information.    Another aspect of security is directed at inhouse access to the company's information.   In this quarter's release, we have addressed this with new custom roles that you can define for your security levels in the standard system.   

The official release lists for DQB Starter and Standard are below and will also be posted on our website in the Support section.   If you have an up-to-date service agreement, please call to receive the current authorization codes to download.   This process only takes a few moments.   

For those updating to QuickBooks 2014

We have in Options/QuickBooks Synchronization a button to Change QB File Location that to date has been primarily used when the name or location of the QuickBooks company needed to reconfigured for synchronization with DQB.   We have found with those updating to QuickBooks 2014 that this option needs to be used to reconfigure even if the location and name name have not changed.   

You will need to have the 2014 QuickBooks company file open and in single-user mode when you use this button.  Please call if you need guidance.  

What's next?

Once the beta-testers have completed their feedback and any requested modifications are made, we will be offering downloadable IdentAlloy e-certificates that can be printed on the Case Material Disclosure form or the DQB invoice form.   As the leading software systems for dental labs, Jenmar and Mainstreet's DentaLab for QuickBooks were chosen to be the pioneers in developing the code for this new method which will eventually replace the paper stickers.

If you are still running Windows XP on stations that access the internet, we urge you to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 as soon as possible.  Call if you need guidance.

Our list for the July release DQB 1.39 already has a number of possiblities.   If you have suggestions or ideas to add, now is the time to send them in.

To answer your questions...

Q:  We know that we can get a list of the cases entered today, but is there a report that will give us a rundown of the items in the cases we received today?

A:  Yes.  In the Cases menu is an option for Special Items that was originally requested to track the extra requested items such as prescription pads, boxes, etc.  This report is based on the case entered date, so you can specify a single date or a range of entered dates.   By next selecting the default product group that includes all items, you can generate a report on the items in the cases you received today. 

This report has proven to be useful for many purposes.  For example, if you have been promoting certain items, you can create a product group for these and then closely track day by day if your efforts are generating new business.   If a certain item requires inventory, you may want to look back to a monthly or quarterly range of dates to see how much inventory was typically requested in that time period so that you know how much to have on hand.  

Q:  We created a price level for a group practice, but now we have agreed to a special price on one item for just one of the doctors in the group.  How should we handle this?

A:  We would recommend that you create a new price level in Basic Lists/Price Levels, give it a unique name and begin by using the option to copy the group practice price level.   Then change the one item to the special price and assign the new price level to the one doctor in Basic Lists/Customers.

Loads of time-saving conveniences

There have been many crossovers to DentaLab for QuickBooks from other systems and from these labs, we often hear appreciation for the many time-saving conveniences they never had before.  We can tell you that although some of the suggestions for these came from our own staff, many have come from the labs in our user group.  Here are some examples:

• In Basic Lists/Price Levels, to begin a new level, you can copy one of the existing levels (most likely the one most comparable to the new level).
• In Case Entry, if you realize you had selected the wrong doctor for a case, you can simply go to the top of the screen and click the Change button to select the correct doctor....no need to re-enter the case information. 
  
• If you find you need to enter the same specification or note again and again, you can request that the text be entered into the Lab Notes table for easy insertion into case memos, case plans, customer alerts and communications, invoice messages.  
• If you recorded an interaction with a customer in their communications log and want others in the lab to be aware of this, you can simply check the indicator to have it also serve as an alert.
• If you have been asked to rush a case when you know your workload is very full, you can go to Cases/Extra Time Cases to quickly find which cases cam be rescheduled to accommodate this.
• If you would like a reminder list for tasks to be done involving customers, go to Customer Center and ask for the list by date or date range.  This list will include activity logs, communications.
  

There are many many more of these conveniences throughout the system.   Taking a few moments to become aware of these can save you a great deal of time, one of the most important resources in every lab.

The release list for DQB Starter 1.38

DQB Starter will also be updated this quarter, bring more of the capabilities of the standard system to this version for small labs with single stations:

Basic Lists - Tooth Charts

In Basic Lists for Tooth Charts, the user will be able to add tooth charts.  The two most-used charts will already be setup:  Universal Numbering System and FDI. World Dental Federation Notation.   The user can also set an indicator to let the system know which chart to use as the default in Case Entry.

Case Entry - Selection from Tooth Charts

In Case Entry, the user will be able to select from one of the tooth charts setup in Basic Lists.   The option to enter the tooth numbers free-form will continue.

Reports Menu - Extra Time Cases

To help determine which cases can be rescheduled, the Extra Time Cases report will list the open cases with the specified number of extra days between the scheduled end date and the doctor's request date. 

Options Menu - QB Company Changes

There are now two buttons to handle QuickBooks company file changes.   One is Change QB Company File Location to use if you are continuing to use the same file, but its location has changed.  The other is to be used when starting a new company file.  This option will remove the data associated with the prior file and requires coordination with Mainstreet to obtain a special password.

The release list for DQB Standard 1.38

Invoice Settings – Option to Append Request Time to Request Date

In Invoice Settings/Custom Fields for selection of case fields to transfer to the QuickBooks invoice, a new indicator has been added to the right of Request Date to include the Request Time.  If checked on, the case request time will be included with the request date.  Sample: 04/15/2014 Noon

Case List – Add Rep Field to Customize Columns Selection List

For each cusotmer synchronized from QuickBooks, we include the Rep field which is used to store the representative or sales person assigned to the account.  In the actions for Case List , you can customize the columns to be displayed.  We have added the Rep field to the selection list.

New Reports on Case Item Completions

To comply with government regulations, each lab should be recording which technician completed each case item.  There are three methods of recording:  keyboard entry, tablet touch, or barcode scanning of work tickets. 

New reports to provide this information are now available in Cases/Case Item Completions for a selected completion date or date range for all technicians or a selected technician. For each technician, the standard sequence will be completion date, case number, item name with total quantity (in units) for the date range.

Introduction of Column Heading Sort within Report

The new Case Item Completion reports also introduce a new capability for DQB reports.  Just as you can click on column headings in screen grids to sort the data in each column, you will now be able to sort columns in screen reports.  We will continue in future releases to add this capability to more reports whenever appropriate.

Customer Profile Report – More Space for Custom Fields

The Customer Profiles Report has been modified to provide for more space for longer entries in the 10 custom fields.  

New Custom User Roles for Security

In Options/Users & Security, we have had five levels of security for the most common user roles:  Manager/Administrator, Entry, Case Entry, Technician Plus, Technician.

You will now have the capabiliaty for creating new custom user roles for security levels.   For example, you may want to create a Business Development role to give access to the Customer Center or a Delivery role to give access to the Pickup and Delivery List.

First, you will enter a unique name for the custom level.  Then, you can begin the selection process with one of the existing levels or begin with no selections.  You next check which selections the custom level can access and then click Save to create the new custom level.  .

Once complete, the custom level will be available for assignment to a user.  Only the manager level can create and/or edit a custom level and make the assignments.  The options for users and security and to restore the database will continue to be restricted to the manager.

Option to Detect Idle User and Automatically Logout

In Options/Company Informaton/Application for Idle User is a new indicator.  If you check this, the program will determine if a logged-in user has been idle for the specified number of minutes and if yes, the user will automatically be logged out so that another user can log in.  The default number of minutes is 10 but you can override this with another number.   The minimum is 5 minutes.

Note:   This option is most applicable to networked systems. 

New DQB Standard Invoice Format

As we anticipate more labs will use DQB to print their invoices rather than QuickBooks due to the upcoming introduction of IdentAlloy e-certificates, we have updated the format of the standard DQB invoice.    The new version will include more of the case and invoice fields.   If you have a custom DQB invoice, please let us know if you wish to have this adapted to be comparable to the standard. 

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