General changes and fixes in 4.9 (as of October 2020)
The AMPAREX release notes contain summaries of recent changes and software enhancements made available in the latest release.
1. AMPAREX Start Icon
1.1. The start option via Java WebStart is not applicable
Reason for change The Java Web Start technology is no longer supported on Java version 9 and higher. AMPAREX has also removed this technology from its application. If you are currently still using the Java Web Start, you will receive a warning message when you start AMPAREX, informing you to switch to the current 'AMPAREX Launcher' instead. From AMPAREX 4.9 onwards, it will no longer be possible to start the program using Java Web Start. | |
Solution Install the 'AMPAREX Launcher' on those affected workstations. You can download it from the AMPAREX homepage. |
2. Patient
2.1. (Multiple) email recipients
Reason for change Previously, documents could be sent to a saved email address from the preview window. An email address was pre-selected and the selection could not be changed. | |
Solution In the ‘Send’ dialogue of the print preview of a document, the customer's e-mail address is now always preselected as the recipient. If no e-mail address is saved on the customer file, other possible recipients can be selected manually. However, these will not be preselected. In addition, a search dialogue can be used to search for further recipient addresses. If an address with an email is selected, it will be saved as a further recipient address in the ‘Send’ dialogue. Searching for other customers in this dialogue is expressly NOT permitted due to the GDPR. | |
Requirement(s)
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2.2. Notification if email address is missing in the process
Reason for change The email address is not a mandatory entry on the customer file. However, it would be desirable to always record the email addresses to facilitate contact with patients. | |
Solution A new notification dialogue can be used to inform employees about a missing email address on a customer file. A new option is to remind employees to enter the missing email address when creating a new treatment/process. Another option allows setting the advertising permissions using the same dialogue. If the permission for 'advertising by email' is withdrawn at this point, the dialogue will be displayed again in future. | |
Requirement(s) This dialog is displayed when:
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2.3. Ordering option of reserved hearing aids
Reason for change If you want to order articles via the 'Reservation Wizard', the quantity of articles was always preset to '0'. | |
Solution This process has been made more user-friendly. By marking the articles to be ordered, the order quantity will be set to '1'. | |
Requirement(s) At least one item is selected in the patient's process for the reservation wizard. |
3. Branch office administration
3.1. Delivery date for the invoicing of service contracts
Reason for change The delivery date was previously specified by users each time service contracts were invoiced. But because of the temporary VAT cut in some countries, it has become apparent that the delivery date relevant for service contracts invoicing may be different, depending on the service. | |
Solution The rule for the delivery date can be preset so that the appropriate scenario can be selected. | |
Requirement(s) The relevant delivery date can be selected via the chain setting → Invoice handling → Service contracts. Available for selection are:
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3.2. Payment type 'Collection'
Reason for change If, after sending reminders, an invoice is still unpaid for and one can use a debt collection agency to collect the outstanding payment. | |
Solution An additional payment method - 'Collection' - has been introduced for such cases. The payment type 'Collection' behaves in the same way as the payment type 'Financing'. | |
Requirement(s)
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4. Master data
4.1. Discounts
4.1.1. VAT on discounts
Reason for change Up until now, discounts have always applied to all articles in an invoice regardless of the VAT rates for individual articles. This was too inflexible and has been changed. | |
Solution A discount, subject to other discount conditions, can be made valid only for articles belonging to a certain VAT rate. | |
Requirement(s)
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4.1.2. Restrict discounts to several article types
Reason for change Up until now a discount could only be limited to one article type. If you wanted to limit the discount to a further article type, you had to create several discounts. | |
Solution Multiple discounts no longer need to be created. Several article types can be selected within one discount. | |
Requirement(s)
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4.1.3. Adjustable volume discounts
Reason for change Until now, it was possible to set a discount to apply above a certain quantity being sold. In this case, however, only the quantity that was above the predifined value was discounted. | |
Solution For discounts where a value ‘Min. purchase quantity’ has been set, there is a possibility to choose between two options: apply the discount to all or only to those article above the predifined minimum purchase quantity. | |
Requirement(s)
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4.2. Inventory templates
Reason for change Inventories (stock taking) have to be created manually in the ‘Inventory management’ module using the inventory wizard. However AMPAREX won’t remember the selected wizard options from the previous inventory, so that any standard settings must be entered again and again. In addition the annual inventory usually must be created on December 31st. This may not always be possible, 31.12. could happen to be a Sunday. | |
Solution For the reasons mentioned above, the possibility was added to create inventory templates to work with the current inventory wizard. Such templates can be selected manually when creating an inventory in the ‘Inventory management’ module or they can be executed automatically at any given time. In addition, users can define whether inventories are to be completed automatically and immediately after their creation or even whether they are to be devaled additionally based on the devaluation rules. Furthermore, it can be specified whether a group of employees should receive an AMPAREX message if the inventory was successfully or unsuccessfully created. | |
Requirement(s)
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4.3. Change log for document templates
Reason for change Changes to the properties of a document template (name, archievable, etc.) were not fully logged. | |
Solution Now all property changes are logged in the master data document template sheet. The changes can be see via the 'Additional functions' menu. Changes in the document template itself are still logged in the document template archive. | |
Requirement(s)
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5. Services
5.1. Automated bookkeeping export
Reason for change Until now, it was only possible to export accounting data from AMPAREX manually. Larger companies in particular, which frequently transfer data to the accounting department, wanted automation. | |
Solution Accounting data can now be automatically exported and regularly transferred to an FTP server. | |
Requirement(s)
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6. Statistics
6.1. Survey evaluation
Reason for change Up until now, the possibilities of evaluating survey results have been very limited. One could only create a selection and check if a customer had participated in a survey or not. | |
Solution More options to choose from are available in the ‘Survey’ selection so each survey question can be evaluated. | |
Requirement(s)
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6.2. Send statistics automatically by Email
Reason for change Until now, statistics could only be created and retrieved manually. | |
Solution Frequently needed statistics can be created automatically and the result sent to an employee by an email. Statistic templates can be configured in the ‘Master data’ module. Under 'My AMPAREX' module each authorised user can determine the interval at which such statistics are to be automatically executed and sent to his email address as an .odt/.pdf file. | |
Requirement(s)
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6.3. Sequence of search criteria in a selection
Reason for change The sequence of search criteria in a selection could affect the results. If the search criteria order was not correct, one would have to start from scratch again. | |
Solution The order of the selection criteria can be changed afterwards. By using the 'up' and 'down' arrows the selected criteria can be moved to the desired position. | |
Requirement(s)
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7. Organiser
7.1. Appointment booking outside of availability
Reason for change If appointments were created outside user's availability, there was no warning message until now. This could potentially lead to the appointments not being kept. | |
Solution The creator of an appointment is explicitly informed that the appointment is to be created outside the resource availability. The appointment can then either be saved anyway or edited further. | |
Requirement(s)
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8. Inventory management
8.1. Repair editing
Reason for change Previously, when accepting a repair, only the serial number could have been changed. | |
Solution The article itself can also be changed now. This can be useful when the repaired article was neither repairable nor available and therefore another one was delivered. | |
Requirement(s)
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8.2. Return a defective article
Reason for change Up until now defective articles could only be removed from stock manually through the 'Item inventory' section of AMPAREX. Only the deletion reason has been recorded. | |
Solution All complains about defective articles can be recorded if necessary. This process can be started by clicking the 'Complain' button for all serial managed articles:
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Requirement(s)
This function is not available for quantity managed articles. |