02. Document (Needs updating)

Introduction
Generic Document Items provide a way to securely store file types not handled by other SOAPware document items. Although we make every effort to support common files types with specific document items, it can be difficult to keep up with the wide variety in use. Generic Document Items fill as much of that gap as possible.

Paper Connection
Patient information comes in many forms. For a paper chart, it would be necessary to print out documents to store in the chart, which might not be possible for some types of multimedia files. Those types of information can now be stored in SOAPware in their original format.

4.x Differences
SOAPware 4.x had little support for binary files other than images and IQmark files, so there is little direct comparison with any 4.x features.

Functionality
To add a Generic Item to a document, click and drag the file from your computer to the document items tab area in the current document. If that file type can be stored in SOAPware, the cursor will change from a not-allowed circle and slash to an icon representing a file with a plus sign next to it.

After a generic item has been added to a document, it will be represented by a page with the file type displayed at the top and a button in the middle. Click the button to view the file.

When you click the View File button, the file should open in whatever program is associated with that file type in Windows. If there is not one, you will be prompted to specify how to open it, exactly as if you had double-click the file in Windows.

If the file is currently open by another user, or the document has already been signed off, you will be notified that no changes can be saved back to SOAPware.

The file can remain open as long as the document containing it is open. You can close the viewing application at any time. If SOAPware needs to close the document while the file is still open, you will be prompted to save any changes and close the viewing application. After 20 seconds, the application will close automatically, and any changes will be lost.

Since the viewing applications are not directly controlled by SOAPware, you should be aware that auto-logout may not close the application. Also, possibly even files in documents that have been signed off may be saved to another location, although doing so will not affect the copy in SOAPware's database.

Conclusion
In this section you have learned how to use SOAPware's Generic File support to store and manage file types not handled by other document item types in SOAPware.