This release includes a number of further small enhancements, that will improve the user experience. One notable change to mention, is the new setting which has been introduced as part of the diary, allowing you to set your own preferred view. The new setting allows you to view the day you were previously looking at, alongside the current setting which defaults to the current day. Other changes include ‘diary lock scroll bar’, further enhancements to reporting, plus others and bug fixes. Read on or watch the short video enclosed to find out more… 

Small Enhancements

 

Preferred diary default view setting by user (either set to ‘today’ or ‘the last day that was viewed’) 

A new setting within the User Profile called 'Diary Default View' has now been added. This enables the user to select their preferred diary view which can now be set by default to either:  

• Always display the current day
• Always display the day that was last viewed 

This new setting ‘always display the last day that was viewed’ improves the user experience - by allowing the diary user, upon returning to the diary after undertaking another task, to continue viewing the particular day they were previously working on.  

To set up: 

•  Upon logging in and visiting the diary a pop up will be displayed where you can select either setting - ‘always display the current day’ or ‘always display the day that was last viewed’, this will initially set the diary view to your preferred choice.  
• If you want to reset, go into utilities, then user profile, select ‘diary default day’ and press the button on the bottom right-hand corner to reset. By resetting, upon returning to the diary, you will then be displayed with the pop up again, where you can select your preferred choice. 
  

Please note – Upon resetting the diary view in utilities, user profile, there is a setting called ‘diary date selected’ – please do not select this as a preferred view setting (this is for data storing purposes only and does not reset).  

Also note - this release only allows for the new setting to work, when a date is viewed in the future. If a date is viewed the past the view will default to the current day. However, in the next release, this setting will also include dates viewed in the past.  

Make clear SMS message limits for charging + UI optimisation

We have now added a warning message below the SMS messaging text box, which highlights the 160 SMS character limit, so it is clear how much content you can add in one single message and easier to know when you have exceeded the limit and will be charged for more than one SMS message. 

Diary Lock Position

Enhancement to the diary screen. When the "Lock Scrollbars" checkbox is checked, then an additional scrollbar appears on the left of the screen. All calendar columns will then scroll together* rather than individually.  

Hide Unused Payment Methods

You are now able to select payment methods you would like displayed in Merlin payment screens, making it easier to find and select relevant ones.  

You can do this by going into Administration > Accounting > Payment Methods library. Once in the library, within the new column called ‘Hide’, select which payments methods you do not want to be displayed. This will then update payment areas within Merlin so that only the methods you actually use will be visible. 

Patient Pop-up- notifications

A new Patient Pop-Up note feature, similar to, and working in parallel with, Client Pop-Up notes, enables a pop-up note to be added to patient specific notes. This gives you the ability to display very important patient detail which needs to be immediately highlighted to a clinician, such as dangerous animal notifications etc. This pop-up when enabled will ‘pop-up’ every time the patient details are selected. 

Flags to enable this feature:

• Enable Patient Popup Note Features - under Administration/Settings/Treatments globally enables the Patient Pop-Up features. 
• Enable Patient Popup Notes Entry - under Administration/Settings/Treatments enables the Patient Pop-Up Notes section on the patient notes screen. 
• Enable Patient Popup Notes Popup - under Administration/Settings/Reception enables a pop-up if notes are entered in the Patient Pop-Up Notes. 
• Show Patient Popup Note In Booking- under Administration/Settings/Diary enables any notes entered in Patient Pop-Up notes to appear in appointments on the diary screen.

Report Wizard - Filter out Archived Codes from Code Selection
Whilst in the report wizard and filtering by treatment codes, you are now able to select to hide archived codes. This improves the user experience as you will only view the treatment codes that are currently in use.

Daily Sales - Outstanding Debt report available as CSV

Within Finance, Daily Sales, you can now export a debtor report into either a CSV or PDF export. A CSV file gives you the ability to extract and manipulate the data if required. 

Data Validation of Email & Mobile Number

In this release, data validation of client email address and mobile numbers (including a fix of the cut and paste bug) has been added to improve data integrity. Data will now be validated even if pasted into the fields and an error message will now be displayed listing any mobile numbers or email addresses that fail validation. 

• Mobile numbers will be validated based on a standard approach, also allowing for a "+" prefix for international numbers 
• Email addresses will be validated based on a standard approach

Other Improvements

 

‘Client prescription home deliveries – delivery date’ Report – Enabling you to easily repeat a home delivery 

You are now able to generate a report that displays the date when clients received their last home delivery prescription. This feature allows you to easily repeat a home delivery for these clients with accurate and up-to-date information.  

To further enhance usability, Merlin provides an "Export to CSV" button that is enabled when viewing the prescription list. You can conveniently export this data in CSV format for additional analysis or record-keeping purposes.

You can generate this report by: 

• Logging in to Merlin and navigating to the Delivery List module. 
• Once in the Delivery List module, set up the desired date range and site parameters based on your requirements. 
• Check the "Last order" checkbox to indicate that you want to view prescriptions that represent the most recent delivery for each patient within the specified date range. 
• After selecting the Last Order checkbox, Merlin will display a list of all prescriptions that qualify as the last order for each patient within the defined date range. 
• To download a report - click ‘export to CSV’ button  

 

Clinical history – clickable external links (accessible with VetCheck integration which is coming soon)

It is now possible to click on links to external sites within entries in the clinical history to automatically go to the site. These entries can be created via certain 3rd party integrations. 

To access external content for integrations such as VetCheck (coming soon)

• Go into Merlin ‘clinical history’
• Click on the external link item corresponding to the desired entry to instantly view the associated content from the external system, this will open in a new tab.

We have also fixed

 

• Double clicking save in labs results no longer causes duplications
• Double clicking save and OK in the Surgeon List results no longer results in duplicated treatments
• Incorrect warning message now removed from valid phone number entries
• Debtors email attachments no longer opens blank in the browser from the Merlin link
• Emails with attachments in Merlin, will now include the attachment when viewed in the communication tab
• Setting 'Convert attachment letter to PDF' is now working
• Caching Issue fixed - Libraries are now refreshing after change
• Patient Details - Subsidy notes are now showing correctly for charity mode only
• Misleading error message rewritten for Client Communication Type
• New role ‘Accounts - Edit Discount VAT’ created to fix the error that was impacting discounting VAT
• Diary view now defaults back to the logged in site
• Abaxis integration document upload has now been fixed
• Report Wizard issue now fixed – patients are no longer listed multiple times on the ‘Active Patient Report’
• Drag and drop to assign a postcode license now correctly saves to that user