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No more Internet Explorer; Change to reporting and groups in multi-project systems
Internet Explorer no longer supported
Internet Explorer is being retired: Microsoft is in the process of ending support for it now. We’ve decided to stop supporting Internet Explorer because its support for modern cryptography standards is weak. Supporting Internet Explorer means our servers need to be able to communicate in less secure ways than they can with modern browsers like Edge, Chrome, Firefox and others. Specifically, we’ve stopped supporting TLS1.0 and TLS1.1.
Reports and groups of shared activities
The way that Lamplight treats activity records which have been shared with other projects has changed. Previously when creating groups, data views, or reports, activities that had been shared with the current project would be excluded. Feedback was that this was not what you’d intuitively expect or need. We’ve now changed this so that shared records will be taken into account.
My User restrictions; Reporting zoom call
Update to ‘My User’ restrictions on activity records
We’ve updated Lamplight to make it clearer how Lamplight restricts access to activity records when you’re using the ‘my user’ restriction on profiles. System administrators may want to review global settings > security to check the restrictions.
There was previously some ambiguity about whether an activity record should be visible when an operator had access to some but not all of the profiles listed on it. This has now changed, so that an operator will now see records only if all the profiles are accessible (including the operator themselves).
There are some options to control exactly how this works in global settings, so we suggest system administrators do review these.
Come and See – Reporting Codesets – modifying your data for particular reports
A number of customers are starting to need to produce Mental Health Service Data System (MHS DS) reports, which require data in a particular structure, and also particular formats. For example, you have have to report a gender of ‘female’ as ’01’ and ‘male’ as ’02’. You obviously don’t want to have to enter data like that, so you need to be able to transform the data held in Lamplight into the formats and structures required.
So we’ve been working on ‘Report CodeSets’ and some related functionality that will allow you to do this. You define the transformations you need, and then use the Codeset alongside a group and data view.
This is still a work in progress and not generally available while we learn with a few customers that need this. But we think it’s going to be pretty useful for lots of customers even if you’re not required to do MHS DS – have you ever come across different funders with different ethnicity categorisations, for example?
We’re holding a Zoom call on Wednesday where we’ll show where we’ve got to so far, talk about what more we’d like to add, and hear from you how you might use it and whether you’d need anything more. The call’s at Wednesday 26th May at 10 – 11 a.m. BST – if you’d like to join, just drop us a line. After the session attendees will be able to try out codesets in their own system if they’d like to.
An update – new ‘profile diary’ tab, and templates for printing profile details
We’ve added a couple of new features we wanted to tell you about – profile diary tabs and templates for printing profile details.
You may have noticed a new ‘Profile diary’ tab has appeared in the last week. This is something we’ve added so that you can find a person’s appointments easily in diary format. Just open their profile and click on the tab. If you can’t see it, then you can switch on the tab in your ‘personal settings’ in system admin.
If you are someone who frequently prints out information about individuals from their profile, we’ve also introduced another update which will help you. It allows you to create a template of the parts of individual profiles you want to print – whether that’s information from profile tabs or activity records. You can save your choices so that the next time you need to print this information, the template’s all set up and ready to go. You can also add your logo at the top, plus a header and footer for the printout, if you’d like to.
If you’d like to know more about either of these updates, we have a short video which shows you how to set these up and use them in Lamplight.
Update to tasks / messages
We’ve reworked the way tasks (or messages) are handled behind the scenes in Lamplight, which has allowed us to make some small improvements:
– On the diary you’ll see incomplete tasks have a small tick box on them. Tick this and the task will be updated with todays date and shown as complete.
– On the listings of tasks (e.g. on the home page or in a profile) you can see if a task is linked to an activity, and click on it to see the activity detail.
Linking your Lamplight diary with other online calendars
For anyone who missed our video chat on how to link your Lamplight diary with another online calendar such as Google or Outlook, you can catch up with it here!
Do you want to know how to link your diaries? Come to Zoom on Wednesday and see!
If you’ve ever wanted to link your Lamplight diary to Outlook, Gmail, or another online calendar, we can show you how.
We have a Zoom chat this Wednesday, 20th January, at 10 a.m. We’ll show you how it works, and you’ll get a chance to ask us questions.
If you’d like to join, just drop us a line and we’ll send you the link. See you there!
New Bitesize Training Dates Added for 2021
Fancy brushing up on your Lamplight skills? We’ve added some bitesize training dates for the new year. These sessions will cover reporting, creating groups/lists and data views. You can find more details of what each includes on our website. They last 2 hours, take place via Zoom, and cost £40 + VAT per person.
The first dates for 2021 are:
Thursday 21st January, 1 p.m.: Basic Groups/Lists and Data Views
Monday 25th January 10 a.m.: Reporting
Thursday 28th January 2 p.m.: Advanced Groups/Lists and Data Views
There is a maximum of 4 participants per session, so do book early to avoid disappointment!
New Groups/Lists and Data Views Bitesize Training Date Added!
We’ve added a new bitesize training session on Friday 11th December, from 10 – 12.
Do you want to make more use of the information in your system, but you’re not sure where to start? You can use groups/lists in Lamplight like saved searches: you enter what you’re searching for (e.g. ‘postcode starts with N1’) and Lamplight searches for everyone that meets the filters that you’ve chosen. You can then add a data view to this if you want to see more information. For example, you may want to be able to view the demographic information or contact details of the people on your group. The data view will show you these extra details in columns next to the names in your list.
If you’d like to learn more about how to set up and use groups/lists and data views in your system, why not join us?
We look at what groups/lists are in more detail, and how you can set up a new one based on information held in your system’s profiles. You can use demographic information, support needs, interests, membership information — whatever personal details you capture in a profile. We then introduce data views to you, and show you how to use them.
The training will be via Zoom. Places cost £40 + VAT and include an individual half hour training follow-up call. You can find more details on our website.
If you’d like a place, please contact us. If you’re interested in coming to this training on another date, please get in touch and we’ll let you know about future sessions.
Improvements to reporting and groups
We’ve improved the reporting on custom fields and made it more consistent. All non-free-text custom field types can now be used in report filters and row/column grouping.
There are some additions to grouping on cases (your terminology may vary) too. You can now create auto groups based on whether a case was open during a period, and also on the duration of the case in days.
Data views showing detailed information about referrals can include some referral specific information, such as referral direction and reason.
And finally, you can now associate custom tabs in activity records with particular work records. These tabs will only be enabled if you select the relevant work area when creating the activity. This will make creating activity records easier by making it clear which custom tabs relate to which workarea. System admins will need to set this up in ‘Manage custom tabs and fields in work records’.
Lamplight updates 12th Nov
We made a few updates to the system last night…
Convert auto groups (/lists) to manual groups
When you view all groups (you may call them lists or something else), the menu for auto and merge groups allows you to ‘convert to manual group’. This will run the group, and then create a new manual group with the current membership of the group. The auto group will still update as normal, but the newly created group will be fixed. This may be useful if you have larger/slower auto or merge groups for your reporting, as manual groups are much quicker to use.
My user restriction now limits editing of waiting lists and manual groups
If you are only able to see ‘my user’ profiles, you won’t be able to edit waiting lists or manual groups. This is because you will remove anyone from the list who is not one of your ‘my users’ without realising it (because you can’t see that they are on there, and they are not shown as members when you edit them). If you need to add one of your ‘my users’ to a waiting list or manual group you can go to their profile and in the relevant tab click ‘add’ to add them to the list. They can also be added via referrals as normal too.
My user restriction now limits access to mail merged files
If you are only able to see ‘my user’ profiles, you won’t see files that other people have generated if they might include mail merge details from those profiles. This prevents potential information leaks from documents other operators have created. The file hiding is conservative, so it errs on the side of caution when deciding whether to show a file or not. Files are visible to higher access level operators who can see all profiles.
Visual changes to the contact details profile tab
We’ve made the contact details action buttons a bit bigger and clearer, and they also now all show or hide depending on the permissions set below.
Minor fixes
- Creating a profile from a work record is now working properly if you have essential fields set for other profile types.
- Updates to the costing module to resolve an issue with location charges and display.
- Sorting tables or profiles by alternative name now works as expected
- Opening the rich text editor adds a bit of space below so that other fields are not hidden by the editor
- Monthly recurring work records would incorrectly set the recurring pattern to ‘2nd Monday of the month’ on particular days.
- The file type is set properly so that the help manual download will now open in Word correctly