Open Dental Forum

I've been tossing the idea of implementing a "Wizard" for the letter merge creation process around in my head lately. This would, I think, make creating and printing letter merges much simpler and more approachable for the end user.

My main grief with the system now is that it is extremely technical, presenting the user with file paths and template names, etc. This could be replaced with a wizard that asks for a unique name and autogenerates the template and export file names and creates the template document without asking. Next it would let the user select the merge fields to use, and on the last page it would have an option to edit the template immediately. If the user declines, there would still be an 'Edit Template' button in the main merge window so they can edit it later. The technical details could still be made available if the user explicitly edits the merge definition.

Any thoughts?

We are actually just getting away from letter merges as much as possible and leaving them as a last resort for power users. We are instead focusing on enhancing sheets. In version 6.3, sheets replaces quick letters and also allows some very cool possibilities. With version 6.4 (not released), you can pretty much do everything in sheets that you can do with letter merge except multiple pages and special fonts. And once we get the patient images feature working on sheets, it will definitely be more powerful than letter merge.

I understand. I do have a question about the sheets though: how easy is it to add new fields to a sheet "type"? That's the main drawback I can see, is that you're limited as to what fields you have available.

The new in-line fields are common to all sheet type. There aren't a lot of fields, I think around 15. But we added all the ones that we though people would use, and I expect to be adding more as users request them. It's just as easy for us to add fields to sheets as it is to add them to letter merges. In fact, a little easier since we made it a little more elegant in sheets.

Jordan

Just got the hang of the letter merge too---oh well---I like it though.
Could you possibly add The referral name of a specialist, address, city etc.... to the merge fields for us, it would be nice for envelopes and letters we send to different specialists we do business with. As it is now it is only functional to send to patients.

That is in 6.3, in the referral letter.

fishdrzig wrote:Jordan

Just got the hang of the letter merge too---oh well---I like it though.
Could you possibly add The referral name of a specialist, address, city etc.... to the merge fields for us, it would be nice for envelopes and letters we send to different specialists we do business with. As it is now it is only functional to send to patients.

Ha. Me too! Thank goodness I read these boards because that means I'm going to have to set aside a good chunk of time to make a "sheet" for each of my Letter Merge templates that I currently have. (That's quite a lot.)
At least Sheets has many more variables compared to Letter Merge so there will be capability of more automation of data.

wait for 6.4 b/c you can copy customized sheets.

Dr. Sparks: I would very much like to still go ahead and create the merge wizard. I like the new sheets system but I do not see letter merges going away any time soon and still believe the "wizard" format would be better. I will try and make the changes as limited as possible. Please let me know if you would still have any objections to this.

I personally hate wizards. So power users can still avoid the wizard, right? The wizard will be an alternate option, not a replacement of existing functionality, right?

I would suggest making it an option. Make the manual setup the default, but provide a checkbox to use the wizard instead. After creating the merge through the wizard, it can be edited using the same interface now.

I'm not sure where you would put a checkbox. Wouldn't a "Wizard" button in the Letter Merge or in the Edit Letter Merge window be the way to handle it?

That would work. The important thing to keep in mind is that the wizard is just another way to get the same result - a merge "definition". So I think you're right, a "Wizard" button would do the trick. So novices could push that and more experienced users could just add the merge manually.