In this release, we have added the ability to view selected attachments directly in Recordbase, simplified the creation of direct relationships and improved activity navigation.
Viewing attachments
Recordbase lets you store documents that are related to the person you are supporting, so that all information about a person is in the same place. One thing that many of you have asked for is the ability to view these documents directly in Recordbase. This is both a time saver and a way to reduce the security risk of files being downloaded to insecure computers.
In this release, we have enabled in-app viewing of specific document types.
This new functionality will be available as part of the standard release and will not require any configuration to be enabled.
Changes to the list screen
As part of making it possible to view an attachment directly in Recordbase, we have made a change to the buttons that appear on the list screen.
The View button will directly open the attachment within the application, so you no longer need to download the file first to view it. Previously, the View button would open the attachment details; it is still important to be able to do this, so we have added a new button, Details, for this purpose. The Download file option has been moved to the attachment view screen.
Viewing an attachment
Not all document types can be easily viewed. As part of this work, we have targeted the most common file types—PDF, Word, Excel, and images.
Recordbase supports viewing the following image types: JPEG, PNG, and GIF.
Now, when you go to the attachments screen, you will see the View button next to any attachment of the appropriate type. If an attachment is not viewable, it will not have a view button.
When you click View, a read-only view of the attachment will be displayed. Some file types will load faster than others; PDFs and images can be viewed natively, so they will be loaded quickly.
Word and Excel files require conversion to be displayed, which may result in a slight delay when viewing these attachments.
Editing and attachment
If you want to modify an attachment, you still need to download a document first and use the applications on your computer. You can do this by clicking Details next to the file you want to modify, then clicking Download file.
Direct relationships
Direct Relationships provides a way to record details about people who are not directly referred to a service. This works well for capturing detailed information about these related people; however, many of you have told us that some of the requirements are too strict.
In this release, we have addressed one of those, and you now have the option to specify an Age rather than a Date of birth.
This new functionality will be available as part of the standard release and will not require any configuration to be enabled. If you would like to enforce the collection of the date of birth for direct relationships, please contact Wild Bamboo support.
Adding a new direct relationship
Now, when you add a new direct relationship, you will be given the option to specify if you know the date of birth.
By default, the screen will still prompt for a date of birth, as this is the most accurate information we can gather. If you don’t have access to that level of detail, you can specify “No” for Is the date of birth known?, and the Date of birth field will be hidden, and an Age field displayed.
Behind the scenes, we will record a proxy date of birth created by using the age, and this will be used to ensure the age remains correct over time. Recordbase will only display the age and not the proxy date of birth when the age has been specified.
If an Age is specified for a person created as a Direct Relationship and is later referred to a PRIMHD service, their actual date of birth will need to be manually updated.
Editing a direct relationship
When a person has been created using an Age, it is still possible to specify an actual date of birth if it becomes known.
Once an actual date of birth has been specified, it is not possible to revert to an age.
Activity navigation
Recordbase can now enable navigation buttons on the activity view screen. These controls are intended to make it easier to quickly review a person’s recent case notes.
This setting is not enabled by default; additional links will appear at the top right of the activity view screen. These links will allow the user to click through activities in chronological order. The links are labelled as View newer activity and View older activity and allow the user to quickly navigate from the currently open activity.
It is important to know that there are a few limitations on the behaviour of these links.
- Group activities will be skipped
- At this time, group activities exist in a window outside of an individual client. Due to complexities with this architecture, group activities will be skipped when using view older and view newer activities.
- Travel activities are skipped. These are attached to the “main” activity anyway.
- Legacy activities will not behave as expected.
- Legacy activities are those created using the old activity screen. Customers were moved off the legacy screen over 5 years ago.
- There should not be any recent legacy activities, so this has been decided to be acceptable behaviour.
If this sounds like something you would like enabled, please reach out, and we can give you some more guidance on how this works. Alternatively, please reach out to Wild Bamboo support, and we will get it set up to meet your needs.
Appendix I – Minor changes
As part of our continuous improvements, we have made the following notable bug fixes and minor enhancements:
- Primary Ethnicity and Gender have been added to the Iwi affiliation report
- The MSD Vocational Services Extract has been updated to reflect the latest reporting specification
- Referral status report now includes Comments
- The Activity By Attendee report has been updated to include Other Participants
- Deceased Date has been added to the column picker for people reports
- Outbound referral report now includes the outbound Referral Status
- The Person Task report has been updated to include the task Due Date and also to exclude historical referrals
- The Group Activity Summary report now includes the Group Activity ID
Appendix II – Browser versions and devices
Wild Bamboo strives to support the platforms you use, but maintaining backwards compatibility with legacy browsers would mean severely limiting the future improvements we can make in Recordbase.
We recommend keeping devices updated to the latest version and changing to a supported browser such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, not just because Recordbase will perform better, but because almost any web app will. As with most technology, browser security advances in leaps and bounds every day. Using a modern browser will keep you and your data safer.
Please see the full list of our supported platforms on our website.