Digital Interface From Order Entry
Beginning in version 6.45.00, it is possible to communicate directly with a digital calculator from Order Entry, instead of waiting for the job to be handled by the Digital Processor. Previous versions of Rx-Universe always used the Digital Processor to communicate with digital calculators.
The advantage of communicating with digital calculator(s) directly from order entry is that the user can see the results of the digital calculation directly from within order entry, and the work ticket that is printed, from OE, includes the results of the digital calculation.
The dis-advantage of doing digital calculations directly from Order Entry is that the user must wait for the communication with the digital calculator to finish before being able to finish entering/modifying the order. For a digital calculator that is located locally, this should be a short wait of, at most, a few seconds, but for a web-based digital interface, it could be many seconds, or even minutes.
The "mode" of communication can be set on the Digital Type setup for each manufacture. Note that this option affects only manually entered orders in Rx-Universe - orders sent electronically will still be processed by the Digital Processor.
When the "Interface at OE" is checked, digital jobs will communicate directly with the LDS calculator from order entry, and the digital processor will NOT process these jobs. The Digital Processor will, however, continue to process any jobs being received electronically from other systems.
The "Timeout for LMS files in OE" specifies how long, in seconds, the order entry session should wait for a response from the digital calculator.
Within order entry, when a digital job is entered, and the "F9/Calcs" button is pressed, the connection to the calculator is initiated. A series of messages will be displayed showing the progress of the communication.
Once the communication is complete, and results received, the results are available just as for a toric (non-digital job). Clicking the device icon will display the calculation results screen:
If results are not received back within the timeout period, an error will be raised:
An appropriate error will also be saved as the "digital status" of the job:
For Zeiss digital jobs, if the option "Print Zeiss Digital Ticket at Digital Processor" on the Digital tab under System Parameters is checked, then the Zeiss Digital Ticket will be printed when the LMS file is received back from Zeiss (within Order Entry).