Customise Client Details Forms

The Client Details layout screens can be customised to suit your practice needs. This means that additional data can be collected, or fields can be renamed to something more meaningful.

Before you start

Customisation requires an awareness of who will be entering data, what permissions users will have, and the type of data collected. The sections below provide an introduction to customisation.

If you are planning to heavily customise your Client Layout, Best Practice Software recommend discussing your plans with our Support team. Best Practice Software also provide a customisation service by our development team for more complex requirements. Please contact our Sales team for details on this.

What fields to use

There are three types of fields available within the customisation of Bp Allied.

Consultation fields are fields which are tied to each appointment date and must be applied in the Consultation section of the layout. When a new appointment is created, a blank set of Consultation fields are generated which record details against the appointment date. Consultation fields are prefixed by the letter 'C', for example, CText1, CNumeric1..

History fields are static fields that don't change with each appointment. These can be used within the History sections of the layout (i.e. the parts not related to an appointment date). History fields are prefixed by the letter 'H', for example, HText1, HNumeric1.

Client Custom fields are a limited number of ClientCustom fields that can be used for adding custom fields into the Contact Details or Referral tabs. These fields can be updated by any user that can edit a client’s demographic information.

In the Psychologist layout, the field ClientCustomCheck1 is used to indicate 'Case Closed'. This field changes the background on the Client's name to orange and disables the ability to add a client to an appointment with the following warning "Case Closed – Cannot create appointment".

IMPORTANT  DO NOT USE History (H prefixed fields) or ClientCustom fields within the Consultation section. The consultation fields will become enabled, even though an appointment date has not yet been selected. The record can not be saved and this can result in data loss or creating a new record.

Invoices Screen

The size of the Notes and Private Notes fields seen on the screen can be customised like fields within the Client Details. Notes and Private Notes are the only fields within the Invoices screen that can be changed.

Permission to access custom fields

Consultation and History fields can only be edited by a role with edit access to these sections of the Client record. The Reception role has no access to these fields by default, and should use the Client Custom Fields if you do not wish to adjust Reception permissions.

Use the new fields in letters and reports

A custom field will be automatically available in a letter template with the following limitations:

• Maximum field name length is 95 characters including spaces. Any more and the field will not be able to be merged into a letter or other document template.
• The font size and style can’t be changed.

A custom report needs to be created to output information in a report format or other bulk format, e.g. a CSV file or Excel spreadsheet. Please contact our Sales team for a quote on the cost of creating a custom report.

Add new fields into Client Details

Additional standard fields are sometimes made available for use in Client Details in new releases of Bp Allied. Existing Bp Allied users need to manually add these new fields to their Client Details files.

Details on how to add a new tab, add a new field or change the width for field name and wrap the text can be found by following the links. There is also a video that shows how to drag and drop fields into the layout.

View new fields with Layout Types

Two types of layout file to present standard and custom fields are available.

Practice layouts

A Practice Layout is a layout that has been developed specifically for a Practice and is used by all users of Bp Allied. This file is saved in a central location where all computers can access it. If your Practice has its own layout, any changes to this need to be saved into the master copy of this file. You must be a Bp Allied administrator to do this.

• Master Practice document location can be found in System > Options > Documents - Server (Shared Documents).
• The Practice Layout file is called PracticeClientDetailsLayout.xml
• When it is copied into the User’s numbered folder, it is called tmpPracticeLayout.xml

Personal layouts

A Personal Layout is specific to an individual user and computer. Any changes made to it will only be seen by a user with the personal layout file in the location below. A copy of this layout can be manually transferred to another user or computer.

• The personal layout file is called ClientDetailsLayout.xml.
• Stored in a User ID numbered folder.
• The default location is C:\Users\Public\Documents\myPractice\[UserNumberFolder]

User ID Folder

This folder stores client layout files used by Bp Allied for a specific user, and allow a user to make personal client details changes. Each user has a numbered folder:

• The default location is C:\Users\Public\Documents\myPractice
• Your folder number is the number in the UserID field, which can be found in System > Options > User Administration.

Remove a field no longer required

If a customised field is no longer required, drag the field off the client details screen in Customisation mode to remove the custom field. However, such custom fields will still be viewable in the letters section and in Print Client, History and Consultation details. If these custom fields do not need to be viewed, remove custom fields by changing their names back to their standard database names.