Lab to Lab Order Transfer

Owned by Pat Gauvin
Last updated: Oct 28, 2024
9 min read

Overview

Rx-Universe provices a method of transferring orders from one Rx-Universe system to another.  Rx-Universe allows labs to automatically send jobs to another lab based on a set of rules.  The Order transmitted can also be modified before being sent to the remote lab, without affecting the order in the originating Rx-Universe system.   Rx-Universe provides the lab with several different communication methods to send their orders to another lab.


Setting up the System Parameters

The system parameters that control the remote ordering system are contained in the ROE tab of the System settings maintenance program accessed from the Main Menu in Rx-Universe and selecting System Parameters/System Settings.  The Specific fields that control the remote transfer behavior are:

  • Prompt for transfer after job entry – This flag is used to control whether or not you want to transfer jobs during the order entry / maintenance functions.  This is a system wide setting and can be overridden if a specific remote transfer lab has it’s “Send Selection” flag set to one of the following “Prompt to send after every job” or “Do not prompt, automatically send after every job”.   (See Setting up the Remote Labs below)
  • Save Duplicate Orders – This setting controls whether duplicate orders will be saved.  When checked, a duplicate order will be saved as Unvalid and the original order will be placed on Hold.  When un-checked, the duplicate order will be discarded and the original order will be placed on Hold.
  • Transfer by routing rules active - When checked, this will allow orders to be transfered based on the Routing Rules, if a routing rule is for an “Out to Lab” job station. 
  • Transmission Level – Allows the lab to select when and how transfers will be accomplished.
    • Transfer the orders – Set the transmission-status flag in the Order Transmission screen to “Y” when an order requires to be transferred to another lab.
    • Do NOT transfer the orders – Set the transmission-status flag in the Order Transmission Screen to “N” when an order requires to be transferred to another lab.
    • Never transfer the orders – Turns the order transfer function OFF.


Setting up the Remote Labs

An entry must be created in the Remote Labs database for every lab that you want to send orders to electronically.  The remote Lab database is accessed via the “Main menu” in Rx-Universe, select “Remote Order Entry”, and then select “Remote Labs”.  This is a standard Rx-Universe database maintenance program that allows you to add, modify or delete the remote labs as well as browse through the available remote labs.

 The maintenance screen appears as follows:

 

The maintenance window is made up of several tab screens.

General Tab

 The "general" tab contains information regarding the lab you will be sending an order to.  Enter the lab’s name, address, and contact information in the fields provided. The other fields on this tab are:

  • Lab Type – there are 2 settings for this field.  Select “Outside lab” or “Head Office”.  Setting the lab to “Head Office” means that the lab will complete the job and send it out to the customer.  If “Outside Lab” is selected, the job completions are not reported to the lab by the remote lab.
  • AR Envelopes – these settings control how AR envelopes are printed if this lab is used as an AR lab.  You can have the AR envelopes printed with a sequential number or with the invoice number.
  • Lab Account # - This is the account number that identifies your lab on the remote labs LMS system.
  • Job Station – This is the job history station that a transferred job will be set to after a transfer to this lab.
  • Default Drop Ship – When the order is being sent to another Rx-Universe LMS, and your system is set as a branch system, selecting this check box will have the shipping address of the order set to your labs shipping address when it’s processed at the remote labs Rx-Universe system.  Rx-Universe is setup as a branch or retail system when it is first created and cannot be changed.
  • Send Selection – This setting controls the order transmission screen when doing order maintenance functions.  It controls whether or not the transmission screen pops up when you have finished entering or modifying an order.
  • Communication setups
    • Local – creates a copy of the order in VCA format on your local drive.  The location of the file is determined by the entry contained in the “Local / FTP Path” field.
    • FTP – creates a copy of the order in VCA format and sends it to the FTP address contained in the “Local / FTP path” field.
    • Acuserver – creates a copy of the order in the native Rx-Universe record format and sends it to the Rx-UniverseTX folder of the server identified in a flat file called “EGWHOST.INI”.
    • VisionWeb – transfers orders to a remote lab via the Vision Web Remote Order processor function.  The VisionWeb Lab-to-Lab module must be installed for this selection type to be active.  See the QRG - Vision Web for more details.
    • Do not transfer – no file is transferred.
    • Method -   Select one of the available transmission methods for the orders. 
    • Local / FTP path - Enter the path where the local file will be copied to, or enter the FTP address of the server that the file will be sent to.
    • FTP Lab Login – When the FTP method is used, this allows you to enter the FTP login name required by the remote lab’s server.
    • FTP Lab Password – When the FTP method is used, this allows you to enter the FTP login password required by the remote lab’s server
    • VisionWeb Supplier-ID – When the VisionWeb method is used, this is the identification # of the receiving lab within the VisionWeb system.  This Identification will be supplied by VisionWeb.
  • Bill to – This field is only used by the Local and FTP transfer methods.  It controls whether the order should be billed to the customer or the lab sending the remote order. 

 

Order mods tab

 

The “Order mods” tab controls what order information will be changed before the order is transmitted.  These changes are not saved on your system. 

The following order information can be modified:

  • Send patient name – When checked the patient name will be sent as part of the order.
  • Send ship-to information – When checked, the ship-to information is sent as part of the order.
  • Send general comments – Determines whether to send the order comments as part of the order.
  • Send frame information on Full Service jobs – Allows you to control the sending of the frame information (name, manufacturer, color, etc) when the job is sent as a full service job.  Uncut jobs never send frame information.  This does not affect the sending of the frame pattern.
  • Frame Status – this allows you to fine tune the various frame status flags. 


Tint Mods Tab

 

The “Tint mods” tab controls what tints you want to send to the outside lab.  The Tint settings only apply to jobs sent as UNCUTS.  The only exception to this is if a pre-treatment is sent on an UNCUT job, then the Tint is also sent.  The tints are controlled via a list and to make it simpler for the lab, you can chose to send all tints in the list or send all tints except those in the list. 

The “Add” and “Delete” buttons allow you to maintain the contents of the list.  Pressing the “Add” button pops up a list of available tints, use the arrow buttons to the side of the list to navigate the list. Highlight the desired tint and click the mouse to add it to the list.

To delete a tint from the list, highlight the tint and press the “Delete” button, a confirmation message appears asking you to verify the deletion.


Treatment Mods Tab

 

The “Treatment mods” tab controls what treatments you want to send to the outside lab.  The Treatment settings only apply to jobs sent as UNCUTS.  The treatments are controlled via a list and to make it simpler for the lab, you can chose to send all treatments in the list or send all treatments except those in the list. 

The “Add” and “Delete” buttons allow you to maintain the contents of the list.  Pressing the “Add” button pops up a list of available treatments, use the arrow buttons to the side of the list to navigate the list.  Highlight the desired treatment and click the mouse to add it to the list.

To delete a treatment from the list, highlight the treatment and press the “Delete” button, a confirmation message appears asking you to verify the deletion.


Addon mods Tab

 

The “Addon mods” tab controls what addons you want to send to the outside lab.  You can control what job type that an addon is sent with.  You can also translate your addon code to a value that the other lab will recognize.

All addons on a job will be sent to the remote lab.  This addon list allows you to control any exceptions you may have.   You can further control the addon by setting the “Uncut”, “Full” and “AR” flags. The flags require a “Y”es or “N”o entry and control whether the addon is sent if the job is an Uncut or Full Service job.  The AR flag allows you to override the UNCUT/FULL flags if the job requires AR. 

The translate field allows you to modify how the ADD is sent to the remote lab.  Any entries in this field will replace the Addon code when it’s sent to the other lab.

The “Add” and “Delete” buttons allow you to maintain the contents of the list.  Pressing the “Add” button pops up a list of available Addons from all your price lists, use the arrow buttons to the side of the list to navigate the list.  Highlight the desired Addon and click the mouse to add it to the list.

To delete an Addon from the list, highlight the treatment and press the “Delete” button, a confirmation message appears asking you to verify the deletion.


Transfer Methods

There are currently two transfer methods that can be used when selecting orders to be transmitted to another lab.

  • Lab to Lab Transfer Rules - This is the older of the two methods.   Note that this method will be removed in a future version or Rx-universe.  This method allows you to control the transfer of orders to another lab by Account #, Lens Style, Material, Tint, Pre-Treatment and Addon.
  • Routing Rules- This is the newest method to control the order transfers.  It gives the lab more flexibility in deciding why an order should be transfered to another lab.  A routing rule becomes active as a transfer decision by placing an "OUT-TO-LAB" job station in it's job station routing field.  


Setting up the Transfer Rules

The transfer rules are checked when an order is being entered or when a remote order is received through the remote processor.  The rules control whether or not an order needs to be transferred to a remote lab.  The Remote Lab Transfer Rules database is accessed via the “Remote” menu.  This is a standard  database maintenance program that allows you to add, modify or delete the Transfer Rules as well as browse through the available lab transfer rules.

 

There is a lot of flexibility built into the transfer rules by allowing you to select a certain field for transfer or use a wildcard for all fields.

  • Rule - You can base a transfer on Account #, Lens Style, Material, Color, Pre-Treatment or Addon, or any combination of the above.  For example, to transfer all jobs from one account to a remote lab, you would enter the desired account number and set the remaining Rules fields to wildcards (ZZZ...).  A browse feature can be accessed in each rule field by pressing the “Browse” button or the F7 key.
  • Job Type - With each rule you can determine how the Job Type will be transferred. You decide whether to send the jobs as Uncuts, Full Service or unchanged, which means the jobs retain their Job Type.
  • Destination Lab - Enter the destination lab where you will be transferring the order to.  This entry is validated against the Remote Lab database.
  • Description – Enter a text description describing what the rule is for.


Remote Transfer processing

 When an order is entered in Rx-Universe, either manually or remotely, the order is checked against on of the available "transfer" methods to see if it needs to be transferred to another lab.  If the order needs to be transferred, and there was a hit in both the "Routing Rules" method and the "Lab-to-Lab" method, the "Routing rules" method will be the one used.  If a transfer rule causes the order to be transferred, it is flagged as needing transfer and depending on the settings of the transfer flags the order can be transfered immediately or as a batched session depending on the lab in question. 

Manually entered orders can display an “Order Transmission” screen where you can decide if you want to modify the transfer, this screen will only appear based on the following

  • The system setting "Prompt for Transfer after job entry" is checked 
  • The order is saved when editing and a transfer record was created when the order was created

The order will then processed through the labs conversion rules and then it will be transferred based on the settings for the lab in question.

 

After saving the Order Transmission screen, a question “Transmit order to lab now?” could appear depending on the transfer flags in the System settings ROE tab and the Remote Lab settings.  Answering “Yes” to this question will trigger the “Batch Order Transmission” program.     


Batch Order Transmission

The Batch Order Transmission program can be accessed when adding or modifying and order, or by selecting the “Transfer Orders” from the “Customer Service” screen pop-up menu (right-click on customer service browse grid).

 The Batch Order Transmission program will scan the order transfer database and transfer all the orders whose transfer flag is set to “Y” and the Labs Communication setup is set to “Local”, “FTP” or  “AcuServer”.  The “VisionWeb” transfers are handled by the Remote Order processor.

 

All orders that require a transfer will be display one at a time at the top of the screen, and when all orders are transmitted, a summary will be displayed at the bottom of the screen indicating the lab where transfers were done, the number of jobs transferred and the status of the transfer.


Order Transfer Report

The order transfer report will give a listing of all orders that are waiting to be transferred to another lab.  It is accessed via the Customer Service pop-up menu ( right-click on the customer service browse grid).  The order can be printed or displayed on screen.