In the Main Menu, click Setup, Program Links. Double-click on Dexis.

Dexis is imaging software. Website: http://www.dexis.com.

To enable the bridge:

1. Check the Enabled box.
2. Verify the Path of file to open.
3. Double-click on Additional Properties to change settings.
   1. Use the PatNum (enter 0) or ChartNum (enter 1) as the patient ID.
   2. Verify that the InfoFile path is a full file path.
4. Set up a clickable bridge button:
   1. Under Add a button to these toolbars, highlight where to display the button.
   2. Enter the Text on button.
   3. (Optional) Import an image to show on the button (22 x 22 pixels).
5. If using clinics, click Hide Button for Clinics. Select which clinics the button should display on.
6. Click Save.

Technical Data

The bridge sends patient data from Open Dental to the specified text file. Example file:

Mouse, Mickey 02/24/08 (17)

PN=17

LN=Mouse

FN=Mickey

BD=02/24/08

SX=M

Open Dental then launches Dexis, passing the file name as a command line argument. Example:

The patient number is the only required field in the text file. This means that Dexis likely organizes everything by patient number, and that patient numbers must be identical with those in Open Dental. This is not a problem for new setups with no patients entered in Dexis yet. But it may present a problem if there are already a number of patients entered in Dexis before beginning to use Open Dental. The solution is to change the patient IDs in Dexis to match those in Open Dental.

Conversions

If Dexis was used in stand alone mode, and/or the patient IDs do not match between the Dexis database and the Open Dental database, then contact Dexis to have them renumber the Dexis patient IDs. Dexis usually renumbers patient IDs for their customers for free (or at a nominal price). In order for Dexis to renumber the patient IDs they request a spreadsheet containing certain patient information (patient ID, last name, first name, middle initial, and date of birth). Open Dental can provide this spreadsheet.

Troubleshooting

Error: Could not access C:\DEXIS\DEXIS.EXE

Possible Solutions:

• Usually this means that Dexis is not installed in the location specified for Path of file to open.
• If it is properly installed in the location and can run outside of Open Dental, usually the issue is that the current user has permission issues on the directory containing the file infofile.txt. The default location for this file is C:\Program Files\Open Dental. This can be resolved by setting the InfoFile path to blank.
• Open Dental may need to be to set to run as administrator for the Dexis bridge to work if the path to the Dexis.exe file is already correct. Alternatively, try moving the data file (InfoFile.txt) to a directory that does not require administrator level permissions (something like @C:\ProgramData\Dexis\InfoFile.txt).