Looking for Visual Signature Capture? We have now rebranded this product as CareLynks.
Q. What type
of licensing is available for VFE and can it be transferred?
A. All of our licensing information can be found on our Licensing Page.
Q. How can I transfer a license?
A. We do allow transfer of a license to another user in the organization if someone leaves the
organization or roles change. We require that any installation with the previous individual's
licensing information be uninstalled and we receive email notification of the transfer so that
we can issue new licensing information to the user that is receiving the license.
Please email support to and confirm the prior Licensed user's installation has been removed and
provide the licensed user as well as the new users name and email.
Q. Where can I find my License information?
A. You can always retrieve your current License credentials by logging into the website here.
Q. Can multiple users share a License?
A. No. All Visual Form Editor Licenses are single user licenses and must be registered in the name of individual.
Please note that, in addition to use of the software by two users being a violation of the licensing agreement,
if two users are working on developing forms with the same license this can cause conflicts and erratic behavior if the forms
they develop are used in a single update within the EMR.
Q. Can a license be in an organization name not an individuals name?
A. No. We require the license to be in the form developer's name. The EULA that is agreed to when
the software is installed it is an agreement that the user is the designated and assigned user. Use
of the software by any user other than the licensed user is a violation of the licensing agreement. We
feel that having a named individual helps us in tracking licensing and providing software updates/support.
That said the license is owned by the organization not the individual.
Therefore we do allow transfer of a license to another user in the organization if someone leaves the
organization or roles change.
Q. Why am I receiving an error message at startup stating that the database can not be accessed?
A. Visual Form Editor is designed to automatically load active observation terms from the EMR database
and will attempt to load these terms during program initialization for reference later. It can be configured to
load these terms from the single-user training database (MLW_TUT), the network training database (MLO_TUT) or the
live network version (MLO_).
By default the database used for determining active observation terms is the single-user training database. This
can be changed in the Options dialog under the Tools pulldown.
NOTE: If the single-user and network versions of athenaFlow® are installed in different directories there can sometimes
be problems with accessing the single-user database. This is because the path which is registered for the single-user
database with the ODBC administrator is changed when the network version of athenaFlow® is run. In this case an error message
will be displayed by the ODBC administrator when Visual Form Editor attempts to initialize the observation terms at startup.
There are two possible workarounds for this problem. The first is to connect to one of the network databases (MLO_TUT or MLO_).
The second is to run the single-user version of athenaFlow®, in order to reset the registered paths, just prior to running Visual Form Editor.
Q. How do I connect Visual Form Editor with Oracle EMR?
A. Visual Form Editor is designed to automatically load information from the EMR database. Information
which is loaded from the database includes: observation terms, problems, medications, flowsheets, custom lists,
form names and directory information. It can be configured to load this information from the single-user Oracle
training database (MLO_SUTUT, used in athenaFlow® EMR 2005 release and later), the network training database (MLO_TUT)
or the live network version (MLO_). Visual Form Editor accesses databases for reading only and will not alter the information
in the selected database.
By default the database used for retrieving this information is the single-user Oracle database (MLO_SUTUT). This allows development of forms on a computer that is not attached to the network. If the single-user database is not installed or does not have the most current information, another database should be selected. It is recommended that a network database be used if retrieval of diagnosis and medication codes is anticipated as these are not kept up to date in the single user version. The Advanced Database Options dialog allows more flexibility in setting up the database configuration. However, in most cases, it is not recommended to use the advanced options.
If the database cannot be accessed at startup to load the observation terms, a dialog will be displayed prompting the user to enter a User ID and Password. In this case press the Cancel button and configure a different database to be used as described above.
NOTE: If the single-user and network versions of the EMR are installed in different directories there can sometimes be problems with accessing the single-user database. This is because the path which is registered for the single-user database with the ODBC administrator is changed when the network version of the EMR is run. In this case an error message will be displayed by the ODBC administrator when Visual Form Editor attempts to initialize the observation terms at startup. There are two possible workarounds for this problem. The first is to connect to one of the network databases (MLO_TUT or MLO_). The second is to run the single-user version of the EMR, in order to reset the registered paths, just prior to running Visual Form Editor.
Q. How do I connect Visual Form Editor with CPS?
A. Please download a helpful guide that will walk you through the Visual Form Editor CPS configuration here. If you cannot view that guide the following is a simplified set of instructions:
Q. What do I enter for the "key" at startup?
A. A key is required in order to continue to use Visual Form Editor after the trial period is over. This
will be supplied when a license is purchased. If additional time is needed for
evaluation of the software, please contact support through our
contact page.
Some early versions of the software also requested the key if the User Name or Product ID were entered incorrectly during installation.
Q. Where can I find data symbols?
A. If the data symbols help file (symbols.hlp for Logician® 5.6, symbols.chm if
using Centricity Practice Solution®, emr_help.chm if using athenaPractice®/athenaPractice® 9.x or later) is
installed on the computer where Visual Form Editor is being used,
Visual Form Editor will be able to provide context-sensitive help on these
commands from within the Function View or the Function Library dialog by pressing the F1 key.
To configure your help file so you have access.
After this you should be all set and have access to the data symbols help file from within Visual Form Editor. This should only have to be configured once.
Q. Can I use Visual Form Editor to modify my existing forms?
A. Select Import from the File menu and select the appropriate FD file. The FD and FS file
saved by Encounter Form Editor must exist in the same directory. The FD/FS files will not be
overwritten unless you later choose to export the form back to this format.
Q. Why am I receiving a
message stating that visibility regions are not supported when importing a form designed with the GEMS EFE?
A. Although Visual Form Editor supports visibility regions, there are some situations which it can
not currently handle. In particular it does not support visibility regions that span multiple sections.
It also does not support visibility regions that begin or end in the middle of a multi-item row.
These will be lost during importing and a message will be displayed notifying you that this has occurred.
There are ways to work around this limitation. Sometimes an item can be moved to another line.
In cases where visibility regions are used to conditionally display two overlapping action buttons the
conditional statement can often be included within a MEL expression in the action button. If no other
work around can be found two overlapping multi-item rows can be created that contain duplicate items.
Q. Why does it seem that I am receiving unrelated
observation terms when I use the search feature?
A. Sometimes when searching for a short string there will be many terms with keywords that contain the desired text.
You can either add a second word that helps to clarify the meaning of the term or try searching on another keyword.
(e.g. When searching for "ear" any observation term that contains includes "heart" or "smear" as a keyword will be
displayed. This can be changed to "ear exam" or "hearing" to view a shorter list if one of those would be appropriate.)
Q. How do I create multiple "columns" within my form?
A. Visual Form Editor allows you to place sections horizontally adjacent to one another giving the effect of multiple
"columns" of items. First create two sections on the page where you would like to have two columns. It is easier
to manipulate sections if there is at least one item in them so you might want to add at least one item to each section.
Next select the section that you would like to be on the right side of the form by clicking within its borders, but
outside of all of the items contained within it (usually along one of the edges). After doing so, the section should
be surrounded by small rectangles indicating that it is selected. (All of the items included within the section will
also be surrounded by rectangles.) Once the section is selected it can be dragged so that it will be positioned to
the right of another section by placing the top left corner in the right hand side of the other section. This can
be performed with multiple sections. Please also see information in the Reference manual for more information on
selecting items and positioning items.
Q. How do I change an existing item from one item type to another
(e.g. dropdown to listbox)?
A. Select the Convert Item option from the Tools menu.
Q. How do I place the translation
for multiple items on the same line in the final note?
A. Alter the cfmt() expression within the item translation to remove the newline character
and replace with a space (" "). See Updating the Translation in the tutorial.
Q. How do I place existing items in a new visibility region?
A. To move items into a visibility regions simply select the items and drag them into the visibility region. Because it
can be difficult to drag items onto an empty visibility region, it is sometimes easier to create a "dummy" item in the region first.
For example, use the following steps:
1. Create the new visibility region.
2. Type the MEL expression to control the visibility region and press the OK button to accept changes.
3. Add a new text item and press OK to accept the default values. This item is just used to create a larger "target" for moving other items.
4. Select the item(s) that should be in the visibility region.
5. Drag the desired items and drop them so the anchor is on top of the text item within the visibility region.
6. Delete the initial text item after the new items are placed.
Note: When a visibility region is selected, any new items created are automatically added to it (except sections).
Q. Why aren't my custom observation terms appearing in Visual Form Editor?
A. Visual Form Editor retrieves observation terms from the configured database. By default this
is the single-user WATCOM database. If custom observation terms have not been loaded into this
database you should open the single-user database and import the clinical kit with custom observation terms.
Alternatively, you can configure Visual Form Editor to use one of the network databases. The clinical kit with
your custom observation terms can be obtained from GE Medical Systems.