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Tag: features

Winter is Coming…

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Winter is indeed just around the corner. With winter comes the New Year and the bulk of the annual reports are due. It is very important that you start looking at your State and Federal reports right now to find inconsistencies.

Winter To-Do List4-ways-to-rock-your-to-do-list

  • Search all pending records and make sure you close out all patients that are not in your care.
  • If your state has a state report, make sure you can access it and that it is working. It is found under “Quick Links”, “Reports” If you do not see a state report for your state, please send us a blank copy ASAP so we can get it into the system. We believe we have them all, but if we don’t we would appreciate your help.
  • Make sure mammals, birds and herps are where they belong in the report. Sometimes if a species is changed in the Cage Card it does not fully update, we can not find any reason why it does this, but we think it happens by not clicking update. It will change the species name but not the species info behind the scenes.
  • Identify unidentified species. It is very common to have several species that are not identified correctly. If someone just types is swallow instead of selecting Barn Swallow, then the database does not recognize that screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-1-42-37-pmanimal. The database is pretty smart, but not that smart. My hope is that this week we can create an easy way to fix the unidentified animals through settings. Until then, the easiest thing to do is search all 2016 records, Export Records, select the Common Name and all the Taxonomy and export. This will give you a list you can compare common names entered and the animals taxonomy. If it says unidentified in all the taxa, you know it is an unidentified animal. The Case # is the ID and you can go back into WRMD and fix the info.

Suggestions and Ideas

Throughout the year we get many new suggestions, ideas and possible fixes. We always look at these, filter through what can be done and can’t be done and put them on a priority list. I would like to invite our users to make any suggestions and ideas they would like to see in the New Year. We have many items on our lists, but we would like to see what is more urgent for our users. Please email me at [email protected]. I will do my best to reply quickly on if it is something will can do and also the status of that suggestion.

We are particularly interested in ideas for analytic and reports you would like to see more of. Feel free to repeat yourself if you have already sent me ideas in the past.

Bugs, Fixes and Features

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We wanted to give some insight into how we receive and act on the comments and suggestions you send to us. To get in touch with us, I know that many of our users use the In-WRMD messaging system and some prefer email.  All of the messages go to the same place, so please use whatever works for you. It is our goal to answer every message within 24 hours, so if you do not receive some sort of reply in less then 48 hrs, please feel free to message us again.

Screen Shot 2016-04-29 at 2.28.33 PMThe bulk of our correspondence is question based. We are usually able to respond to most questions fairly quickly. Some questions may take a little time and research before we can answer. Currently we are in the process of redeveloping our Help Section which we hope to make more useful. Most of the common questions we get asked can be found in our FAQ’s, tutorials or in our Blog.

Much of the other correspondence we receive is related to “something went wrong” and “how do I fix it?”  In these cases, we need to ask for exact details. While troubleshooting the issue, we try to recreate the event so that we can determine whether we need to fix something or if it could have been user error. In the case that it is an issue with WRMD, we will fix it, but first we prioritize it. We prioritize generally on the ease of the fix,  then on the vitalness of the item that needs to get fixed.

It works like this: a bug that is not allowing you to print a record or duplicate a record, we make a high priority. If the bug is an inconvenience that can be lived with for awhile then it will be prioritized and fixed as soon as we are able.

Another type of inquiry we get is about requests for new features. A new feature is an add-on to the program, such as a new report or an idea for an additional extension. Features are usually added when all the bugs are fixed. An appropriate field that has been asked for many times and or just seems like a good idea will be developed more quickly. If it is a neat idea but will take a lot of work, well… that may not get done within 6 months to a year, at least this year due to WRMD 3.0 still getting off the ground.

We value all of your comments, and take all of your comments seriously. The most difficult part for us is notifying you when your issue or suggestions has been completed. While we do tryScreen Shot 2016-04-29 at 2.24.54 PM to notify individuals, it does not happen all the time. The best option is to keep checking every once in awhile to see if it has been done. Generally in Blogs, we try to notify everybody of minor changes and additions to WRMD, but sometimes we miss something.

Most recent updates:

  1. Important: When you transfer animals the system is currently sending 3 messages out for one patient. We are working on this but it is still happening. So, be very careful when you accept patients and don’t accept the same patient number more then once. We will try to resolve this ASAP!
  2. Time is now being printed on the Treatment Log
  3. Fixed and fixing the formatting when Paper Forms are printed
  4. We are test driving a Prescriptions Due Today by Location report
  5. Thrombocytes were added to CBC’s in the Lab extension
  6. Intracardiac was added to Prescription Route

Note: Keep in mind every time we add something new it might itself be slightly buggy. You are our eyes in WRMD and we rely on you guys, our community, to tell us when something needs to get fixed.

On our list of things to do (not exactly prioritized):

  1. Finalizing Import: working out all the kinks, we do not want to screw this upScreen Shot 2016-04-29 at 2.43.29 PM
  2. Batch Update: as important as this is, it is a huge amount of work, so we are getting there
  3. Print Custom Fields
  4. Search Lab Values
  5. Print out a Necropsy Report
  6. Donation amount to be exported when you export Donors
  7. Multiple Autocomplete phrases in one field
  8. In “People” Rescuers need to have their patient #’s associated with them

Discussions we have had and decided against changing:

  1. When and animal is Dispositioned out of pending it will still show up on Rechecks: Yes it will do this because many times carcasses have rechecks, if we defaulted to no rechecks for non-pending you could never have a recheck on a carcass. Just end the recheck if needed.
  2. Notes about rescuer always repopulate when you choose an existing rescuer: Yes it will do this because these are notes about that person not about anything that has to do with the patient or its release. With that said, we do agree we need to have a better way to identify rescuers that want to be part of release, it should not go in Notes though.

That’s about it for now! Thanks for your support!

 

Features and Upgrades Planned for WRMD

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First off, we would like to thank all our users and their flexibility in adapting their organization to use Wildlife Rehabilitation MD. From our travels to other facilities we have seen many different ways to record and disseminate information. It is not easy to change procedures within any wildlife rehabilitation organization, yet our users have done it! Wildlife will benefit greatly, from your actions.

One of our goals has been to incorporate the best ideas from what individuals and organizations have shared with us, and to add them into WRMD. We want to share with you what new features and upgrades are planned for WRMD. Below is our to do list for the next year. Our list is endless, but we are trying to keep to a development plan. Our hope  is to have accomplished many of the items before the end of 2014. Some features will be added very soon. Others will be added during the 2014-2015 change over.

Features and Upgrades to Come Sooner Than Later

  1. Add the ability to choose which fields you see in the “List Records” screen (done).
  2. Allow users to log into multiple accounts with the same credentials (done).
  3. Allow users to search for records across all years (done).
  4. Add Lab and Prescription rechecks which will show up in the recheck reports.
  5. Create a more useful husbandry extension.
  6. A complete redesign of the analytics section with more user control of what data is being reported.

Features and Upgrades That Will Occur at the End of the Year

  1. Add the ability to identify siblings and/or foster families.
  2. Add the ability to transfer records to another facility.
  3. Allow homecare users, sub-permitted and satellite rehabers to login and only see their records as well as allow other accounts to see and collaborate on their records.
  4. Update how enclosure’s are recorded to better track where an animal is and where it has been.
  5. Add the ability to identify feathers and anatomical locations of concern on body map images.
  6. Update the age terms to standardized terminology.
  7. Adoption of the Clinical Wildlife Health Initiative terminology.

Many of the above features will require user input before being adopted into WRMD. As we begin to work on a new feature we will be reaching out to our users for their input as well as presenting our ideas of how a new feature might work.

We continue to appreciate feedback from our users. If you think you have an amazing idea that would benefit WRMD and our community please do not hesitate to let us know.