This article includes the questions asked by Bp Premier users during the BeInTheKnow in Partnership with Halo Connect: Unlocking the Gateway to Tomorrow session delivered by Best Practice Software on the 27 June 2023.
If Halo Link is installed multiple times on separate VM's pointing at the same database, all but the original installation are registered as non-authoritative and cannot be queried. If you need to switch which copy of Halo Link is authoritative, for example, due to a server migration, please contact support@haloconnect.io and we will manage the switch.
Restoring from a VM backup on a separate VM (i.e. cloning) will create another instance of Halo Link with an identical GUID, which will cause a conflict between the two instances that requires manual intervention by the Practice. The unwanted copy will need to be uninstalled first, and then the Service on the wanted copy should be stopped and started again to open a new Session. Full documentation on this is available at https://docs.haloconnect.io/Support/Known-issues/.
As third-party integrators migrate over to using Halo Connect instead of their current local connector over the next 18 months or so, they will let you know when it's ok to remove their current database connector.
Halo Connect monitors site connectivity and will proactively contact your Practice if we notice there is an issue with the Halo Link Service. In most instances, this is because there has been an internet outage or the Practice has migrated servers. Many issues with third-party software are unrelated to site connectivity, and the Practice should contact the third-party integrator for support in these instances. If you are unsure, it is best to contact the third-party integrator first. Both third-party integrators and Best Practice Software can escalate support issues to Halo Connect if they believe it is an issue related to site connectivity.
Cubiko is the first third-party integrator to utilise Halo Connect for their database connection. We currently have more than 15 other existing Bp Premier integrators who have a test subscription so that they can develop their integration via Halo Connect.
Halo Link does require an active internet connection to install and to retrieve and execute queries. Slow internet connections, particularly slow upload speeds, can impact a third-party integrator's ability to execute large queries. However, through our testing in the last six months, we have made improvements to our queuing to better support Practices with particularly slow internet.
Third-party integrators will request your Bp Site ID during their onboarding process, which can be found in the Practice Details screen within Bp Premier. Using this ID, a third-party integrator can retrieve the unique Halo identifier for that Practice and will use that identifier to route queries to your Practice.
Halo Connect is the name of the Company and an overarching name for our Product which is made up of two main components - Halo Cloud, which is our Azure-based cloud infrastructure and APIs, and Halo Link, which is the local database connector that gets installed on the Practice server.
There are a number of digital health companies and products that have expressed interest in integrating with Bp Premier now that Halo Connect removes many of the pain points. The Bp Partnership team and Halo Connect have been working with these companies to onboard them via existing Bp processes for screening and approving new partners. Practices should expect the number of digital health tools that are integrated with Bp Premier to continue to expand.
Last updated: 28 June 2023.