Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Default Imported Items behavior

We have been using AC now for 6 months, and I am starting to get concerned about Imported Items.

v6.5 will keep the folders closed until opened as desired, that's an improvement as II fills up.

What else I want is for the items in each folder to open in reverse chronological order. I want the most recent item on the top. I rarely need to do research on what happened last year. I am always wanting to review with the patient the last thing done.

I have not found a way to reverse the sort order, so inform me if it's possible. Otherwise, does anyone have a problem with wanting items to sort by most recent on top?

This is a request to AC that should take 1 minute of a programmers time. Just change the SQL Order By statement to Descending from Ascending. Or give us a way to change the default preference

Thanks. I needed that laugh.

So what happens if you are wrong and the ORDER BY claus isn't the answer?

In fact, I can all but guarantee you that you are wrong. I'll explain why later.

JamesNT

If I'm wrong then hopefully I will learn something.

When I was new to private practice, I was in a meeting with a practice consultant and the tech for my inexpensive PM. My consultant wanted several reports that the PM couldn't provide. My PM tech started to explain how much work it would take to get these reports with Crystal Reports. The practice consultant didn't care. You could do it or you need to be replaced. The health of the practice shouldn't be dependent on what is easy. Other practices had this data, and we needed it.

Well, I don't need reverse chronological order. But, I want it since I will open a folder and don't want to have to scroll down to the bottom of the list when it could be at the top like the other document management programs I've used.

If someone can explain why the current chronological order is better for their practice, then I will gladly be willing to scroll to the bottom for the last added document in each folder.

Thanks in advance for your info James.

Imported Items in Amazing Charts is a mess. The items that I have imported are ordered chronologically, earliest on the top of each file. The lab items imported by interfaces with LabCorp or Quest are reverse chronologic order, in the same folder. If you have 100 lab items in a file, it is very unwieldy, especially when the ordering system changes for half the items. This is just sloppy.

The items that I put in can be reordered by editing the date, so someone created an ordering method that responds to user input. As Dan points out, users don't care how hard it is to fix it the right way. It doesn't make sense to leave it like this for the sixth major software version.

I'm on board with Dan and John.
The control used is a treeview control in geekspeak. Either populate is with a SQL statement that includes " order by [item-date] Desc" or set the sort property of the control to reverse.
I am very heavily data dependent, and just don't use II. I created a viewer link which is added into II to launch an external viewer where I sort to my heart's content.
I believe Bert has produced something call FileApp Pro that addresses this deficiency as well (but I am assuming perhaps too much here).

When I write software to use in my office, and I pay the staff to use it despite its issues, then it is ok for me to say " it is too much of a problem to fix that; learn to live with it." The moment I try to market it, and accept money for it, however, I cede that right. The only acceptable response is "yes Sir/Ma'am. " I don't get to complain that it will be difficult. That is the difference between a personal hobby project and a professionally marketed product.

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone participating in this thread. You guys are asking the right questions and are truly showing a willingness to learn. Believe me, that is truly rare. Software development is clearly a different animal from any other production or service most of us are used to. It can be understood, but it does take some work to understand it and it takes a willingness to question facts and beliefs we have all had for a long time that may or may not apply.

OK, let's try to sort this out. First, my reply to Dan.

So we are talking one line of code, right? Well, let's see. We first need to realize that the code behind this process may not have been seen by the developer that wrote it for quite some time. Or, it may be assigned to a developer that has never seen it before. Either way, it's going to take some time for our developer to familiarize himself with the code behind our process. So already we have a time commitment of at the very least a couple of hours and all we've done so far is make the decision to do this feature.

Next, we have to apply our critical thinking skills to the feature request. Question: Is anyone out there dependent on the behavior as it exists presently? There may be other clients who want the tree to list items the way it does now. It is viable to assume some clients may want the tree in ASC order, while others want it in DESC. Some may even want to switch between the two depending on what they are doing. At this point, we may think it wise to include a feature to switch the view from ASC to DESC and vice versa. Perhaps a radio button that would toggle the view back and forth.

But we aren't done yet. My incredible*** critical thinking skills are telling me that we have created a mild annoyance in our quest for fortune and glory. The problem is that our radio button will require a default value. But that default value of, say, ASC may not be what others want. They may use DESC more often. As the signature of a prominent board member says, we should "eliminate mouse clicks." Maybe we should save the last choice made by the user so the system will remember it for next time and thereby order the tree properly when the user goes to Imported Items. We could save that setting in the Windows registry (queue Indy going nuts at the mere suggestion of this) or we could save it in a config file in the Amazing Charts directory.

After all this is done, we still have one more thing to do: Testing. Our testing team will need to evaluate this new build of Amazing Charts to ensure quality and usability.

* Does the new feature crash?

* If the new feature is functional, does it behave as expected?

* How long does it take to refresh the tree if the other button is chosen?

* Have we placed the radio button in a good place as to be intuitive but not be a nuisance?

So, with that, our single line of code has turned into a day's worth of research and programming and probably one more day of testing.

By the way, I totally left out one very important thing. Let's see if you guys can catch it.

Indy and Sandeep: Keep your mouths shut.

JamesNT

***I expect no less than five cool points for avoiding using the word "amazing."

Ryanjo,


It does if:

* No one has ever asked for this to change before.

* Other, more important feature requests took precedence (e.g. meaningful use, SQL 2012).

JamesNT

Very true. The issue is that each feature request has to compete for available developer time and resources. Features that benefit the most clients at one time (e.g. they get the most requests for it) or features that are mandated (e.g. meaningful use) or features that are for compatibility (e.g. Windows 8 and SQL 2012) will always be nudged to the top.

JamesNT

Remember what I said about competing for resources. Vicki just posted this.

http://amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/53510/Wish_list_for_6_5_3#Post53510

JamesNT

I'm not going to try to address the nuts and bolts or time required for changing AC programming. I hope that there are no union issues involved in changing the order by part of an SQL statement that is already working well.

I have two problems with Imported Items as anticipated in v6.5.

First, by adding the feature that folders will close by default, AC is adding another click. This is worthwhile with reverse chronological listing of items because you know that your next click is only millimeters away almost all of the time. If AC keeps the chronological listing for all imported items, then you still have to scroll after you click the folder open. What's wrong with an extra hundred clicks a day for us professional clickers.

Second, Imported Items needs batch processing. I don't expect this feature any time soon. For years I have had document management software that allows my staff to browse to a folder with hundreds of items and transfer them all into the software with one click. All you have to do is label each item with whatever chart number you use, and each import is of the same type, as in authorizations or prescriptions. Having to import each item one at a time is sooooooooooo much slower. I am having to pay overtime to try to keep Imported Items up to date. I am right now trying to make the decision on going back to my old document management software, which also allows me to sort and filter in any way I want. Just as with the PM, two best of breeds can be better than a mutt.

It hurts me to discover that not only didn't AC notice my whiney posts about Imported Items for the past 3 years, but you didn't either!

Seriously, I understand priorities. But I don't understand leaving stuff broken either.

Once you have a default value, you probably want to put it in preferences or in the admin section. Are we saving the config file on the local computer or the server? Will the changes be global to all computers or local to one?

It would need to be evaluated whether the upgrade would cause any problem with people upgrading from more ancient versions of AC such as 4 or 5.

Of course once the beta has been evaluated, a final version would need released, emails would need to be sent. Any quirks noted on upgrading would need to be sent out to the help desk.

To get to the point where the programmer has been assigned the task, it would have required a management decision that would have required probably several meetings where it was put on the agenda, fleshed out as the priority and estimated completion. Decisions would need to be made whether it was consistent with the longer term plans of the import item area. You have now added multiples of time involving more people.

Not sure if any are the ones that you were intimating, but these are some of the other areas I could see additional work needing to be evaluated.

James, while I may love you like a brother, seeing as how I was writing mainframe code before you were a twinkle in your Mother's eye, I reserve the right to hold forth whenever I deem it appropriate.

That said, we have a client who has 160+G of imported items, with some patients having over 220 entries *each*. they have some very distinct opinions about II, and how they should behave.

Working regularly with hundreds of Doctors and Providers, I know quite a bit about what they would like for a design and functional perspective. As a long time developer, I know quite a bit about the how, why, and the where; I just don't hand out that insight for free to corporations.

Thus, I responded to the thread in part because I don't brook un-merited imperatives. Explains why we contract with large corporations, but I'm not an employee.

Ask any successful Integration/Professional Services company, and they will tell you the answer is always "Absolutely!" It's just a matter of time and money. Folks have more of one, and less of the other, and those facts determine the project.

Alright, based on Indy's response, I need to clarify that I meant for Indy and Sandeep to not answer the question I posed since they would know the answer. Poor wording on my part.

Wendell,



This is so close to the answer I was looking for, I'm giving it full credit.

What I was looking for was whether to make this setting global for all users or for each individual signed on user. Of course, each individual user means more programming work.

JamesNT

OK, now we know how hard it is to reverse an SQL order by statement. I'll have to be more careful next time.

More importantly, does anyone need it to stay as it is now with chronological ordering (newest item at bottom of list)?

I would like reverse chronological with the newest item at the top of the list, for reasons mentioned above, but not unless it is unanimous. Anyone want to keep the status quo, and why?

And if someone coded the sort order correctly, why do the manual imports sort chronologic and the lab interface imports reverse chronologic? I don't see a priority issue here. I see sloppy work.

This might be a time to ask "why did they set it up that way?" but some people say we shouldn't ask that question...

I would agree that reverse chronological order (newest at the top) makes the most sense, but even if some disagree with that, I think we can assume unanimity on the idea that items imported and items brought in via interface should flow in the same direction.

Dan,

Don't take offense. While I was pointing out that nothing is ever as simple as it seems (years of being a doctor should have taught you that), I was also hoping you would see my comments as a way to grow your idea into something EVEN BETTER than what you were proposing.

Isn't that what developers should do? Isn't practicing medicine or developing software about that very thing - moving to the next level?

JamesNT

Good question John.

I'm not a professional programmer, but I own stock in Intercontinental, which owns Holiday Inn Express, so I get some benefits from that. One thing I've learned from programming for the office is that there are lots of ways to do things, and I'm not good at picking the best practices or the most elegant way.

My guess is that the lab interface reports and the regular imports are stored in different tables. When a patients chart is opened a temporary table is made. A query appends the lab interface data for the patient and that query has descending ordering, so newest on top. Then another query appends the patients other data to the table, and I'm guessing there is no sort order so newest on bottom. It really doesn't matter the order of data in a table, but i'm guessing this is how you get your II chaos. There is another query to display the contents of the temporary table, and this query sorts by type, but not by date added, so it doesn't correct the divergence created in the temporary table.

If the final query will add a secondary order by for date added in descending sort we will both be happy.

Anyway, whether or not I'm right on the code, I'm putting you down as wanting newest items on top, right? I want to respectfully keep this matter in AC's attention.

None taken James, and I know I could not support my family as a programmer, which you are, so my hats off to you.

I want to thank you and Indy, and Sandeep, and Bert, who can do both, and Roger, and others for their much needed computer help on this forum.

Dan,

You're certainly welcome. We're all in this together. My goal is to help you guys state your case for what you need to get your jobs done and to help you understand why things are the way they are. We are, of course, ignoring one serious elephant in the room but I'll get to that in a bit.

For what it's worth, I could not make my living as a doctor. I can barely handle my boss calling me at 10am, giving me some 2 minute description of a report he needs, and then telling me to have it ready by 2pm because he's on his way to the client's office now and 2pm is about when he should arrive. There is no way I could tolerate an athlete or ballerina with a hurt toe or sprained ankle coming in and telling me they need it fixed by tomorrow's competition/event (assuming I was a podiatrist).

JamesNT

Hi James,

One advantage we have is that many of our patients' problems get better on their own, given time.

I don't think that's true in your field!

Gene

When I was training members of my crew doing client-server development in the 90s, the mantra I came up with was make a sort-controls group for all displayed tabular data when you build the display. Do it once and be done. We would then hide all but the primary sort control.

Many of our clients were deliverable contracts with limited fix-it budget allowance. We got paid when deliverables were completed and accepted, but the users were always wanting a sort control, different layouts, or [my "favorite"] different colors. So, at progress meetings we would focus on deliverables, and the users would obsess about their tweaks. The compromise was if they took the time to review, test, and accept deliverables as they were completed, we would in turn complete some of their tweaks without charging their fix-it line item. Our team would spend hundreds of hours developing everything needed to complete a milestone,and then an hour or two making some sort controls visible. We went to the progress meeting, we focused on getting milestones completed, and the users were delighted that we got them the tweaks wanted.

This was before Project Managers were trained on this "new" concept of 'managing expectations'.

Based on memory limits of SQL Express, my guess is that the results set is passed back to the client as an array or ordered list. Someone from AC can weigh in as they see fit.

Yes, I'm for newest on top.

I also like those waffles at Holiday Inn Express, by the way.

I'm bumping this thread to see if anyone wants to keep the Imported Items as it is, newest item on bottom, since I want AC to switch to newest on top of each folder in v6.5

Anyone for the status quo?

Maybe I've started this too late in the beta, but hope springs eternal for our causes in life.

AC, I also want to suggest that when I am signing off items that are going into Imported Items, I want to be able to open that patient's chart with one click. As it is now I get a choice to open their health maintenance, but it is their chart I need to take care of abnormal test results. I would really like that, pretty please

I happened to be discussing this with the CIO, of the hospital for which I am the CMIO. He could not believe that thee was an electronic medical record would not list lab results in reverse chronology. To quote from a cult classic Inconceivable!

Dan,

What's wrong with my idea of having the option to sort either way using a radio button?

My feelings are hurt.

JamesNT

I would be perfectly happy with a radio button, James, as long as my preference was retained. All I hope is that this could be accomplished in a late beta update to v6.5, whether it is always reverse or a preference.

What I have chosen in my previous document management software is sorting only by date added. The type of item is listed, but I don't use it to sort, because then everything since the last visit is always on top together. No scrolling to a closed folder farther down the list to see if there is something new in it.

Anyway, I don't see that happening in v6.5, and people used to AC are used to folders, so I'm not making a cause out of getting rid of folders.

Back to my cause. Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top! Newest on top!

Dan, my experience with reforming the Imported Items folder by requesting changes on the user board is disappointing. I think we might do better by showing up at the next Primed and chanting "Newest on top" during the AC sales presentation. Bring money for bail.

That's right John! I'll bring some cold waffles for you.

How about writing "Reduce Clicks" on our chests and going topless for more news coverage?

If AC is already in beta with 6.5, it is unrealistic to expect them to include this change in this version. The purpose of beta is to flesh out bugs and ensure stability. Not add new features.

JamesNT

Adding items chronologically is a very old bug, as John has said.

Doable. I will need a few weeks to work on my tan.

John, sounds like we have a good candidate for leadership in the IIMSCS (that's Imported Items Must Stay Closed Society, for the uninitiated). I am thinking "Chief of Public Activism".

Jon, you are so right. We need a man of deeds, not words. Dan, you're in.

I advise AC HQ to move to Defcon 4.

So true, but he is good with words, too.
I am thinking that could be the group's motto.

Actually, I'm the newbie here, you guys have been at this for a long time, and I doubt man-boobs are enough of a qualification for real responsibility. It didn't work on Putin.