Update, Monthly, Missed

[Revised Sep 08]

The monthly updates are incremental and are part of a scheduled maintenance and upgrading system so it is important not to miss any month. You can download a monthly update by going from the RxOne Start Menu to Tools, Update, Download Monthly Update.

It is only necessary to put updates through the Master... The Slaves will update themselves down the network next time they are started. This can also be forced.

Cause of missed updates

- Everyone in the pharmacy thinks that someone else must have already put the update through.

- Or the disk gets buried in the mail and appears weeks later... has it been done?

Correction.

--- If you know that an update was missed.

Put it through a.s.a.p. Them immediately put through again any later updates again.

Eg, if you discover in May that the March update has not been put through, put 'March' through then immediately follow with 'April' and 'May' again (even if you know that 'April' and 'May' were done). The updates are incremental so the sequence is important.

--- If you suspect an update was missed but are not certain.

- If more than a few months old, unless you have discovered many incorrect prices it is unlikely that it was missed, so do nothing.

- If more recent, treat as a known 'missed update' and put it plus all subsequent updates through.

Prevention. Make it one specific person's task to do the update, OR make it a rule to write "Update put through [date]" on the disk label when it goes through.

Symptoms and Diagnosis of problems caused by 'Missed updates'

Data. Any drug which had a price change in the missed update will not have the price touched again until it changes again, which may be a long time. Meanwhile it will keep the old price. Diagnose by looking at several drugs; if some are up to date and some are old, a missed update is likely.

Database. New fields (spaces for data) are sometimes created by an update, to allow for future functions. Without this the new functions will fail when introduced.

A specific sign of this is that when some scripts are edited, all fields will be blank and all check boxes ticked.

Programs. A module may be upgraded one month, that has changes needed by another module upgraded next month. The second module may not work properly as a result.

Maintenance. Apart from updating work, the monthly disk carries out maintenance checks on the computer and database. It fixes potential problems before they cause problems, and if necessary advises the user to call for help. Missed updates lead to problems appearing at user level and are a relatively common cause of apparent bugs.