Links (bridges) to Other Programs 

In the Main Menu, you can select Setup | Program Links to activate links to various other programs. Also known as bridges, this allows Open Dental to interact with many of the popular imaging programs.

All the programs links you see listed above are included with the program, and you can double click on them to edit settings. Do NOT use the add button to activate the included links.

The best way to link the imaging program to Open Dental is with a bridge.  This is a simple link which lets you avoid having to enter the name of a patient twice. It also allows you to have single button access to the images from the Chart module. Here is some specific information about some of the existing bridges.

Apteryx
AFP Imaging
Camsight
Cliniview
DBSwin by Duerr
DentalEye
Dent-x ProImage (see AFP Imaging)
Dexis
Digora Soredex Optime
Dolphin
Dr. Ceph
DXIS
Eva (see AFP Imaging)
Ewoo EZDent
Gendex VixWin
Image FX (see Patient Gallery)
Kodak
Lightyear (see Apteryx)
Lightyear SpeedVision (no longer sold)
Mediadent
Mountainside
Owandy
Patient Gallery
PerioPal
Planmeca
PreXion
Prof Suni (see Apteryx)
ScanX Visix (uses Tigerview bridge)
Schick CDR Dicom
Sirona SIDEXIS XG
TigerView
Trophy (See Kodak)
UAppoint
Vipersoft (now Dentrix Clarity. No longer sold)
XDR

Check the Enabled box.

At the left, you can see that ChartModule is selected.  So the new button will show at the top of that module.  You can also have it show at the top of any other module.

Each included program link has different setup options and you can read the notes at the bottom of each for help or call us for unique setups.

Adding a custom link

The instructions above are for enabling the standard links. But occassionally, a power user will want to add a bridge for their own purposes. In this case, instead of just enabling an exisiting link, you would add your own.

If you add your own program link, it can be used to launch any other program. For instance, you could create a link called Outlook with a path of outlook.exe to launch Outlook each time you clicked on that button in the toolbar. You could even add a command line argument such as [PatNum]. You would have to create a macro in Outlook to recognize the command line argument containing the patient number. The macro would open up the patient in your contact list.

Other possibilities include bridges to Excel or to your own custom program. You might have a web-based program, for instance, that you use to build special customized treatment plan layouts. Your program could take the PatNum, and use queries to load all the other necessary info. Your program would then function like an extension of Open Dental. It would be seamless.

We have only scratched the surface of the many exciting ways that you can use this feature.