Yesterday you were happily using your patient list to enter visits and payments. This morning you open ShrinkRapt, ready to start your day and instead of seeing your patient list you see this:
As one of my favorite toddlers would say; “Oh No! Where did it go?”
What happened?! In this post we will explain what happened, why it probably happened and how to fix it/get back to your patient list.
First, what happened?
To help you better understand why this dialog appeared instead of your patient list you need to understand these three things:
- ShrinkRapt is a software program that requires a data file (a document) to work. This is similar to the relationship between the software program Word and a letter (a document).
- The information you enter in ShrinkRapt is saved in that data file. To continue with the previous analogy, the words you type in Word, are saved in the letter.
- When you first open the ShrinkRapt data file, ShrinkRapt records where the data file is located and then automatically goes to that location and opens it when you open ShrinkRapt.
With this knowledge can you guess what happened that caused the “no data file found” dialog to appear? Yep, ShrinkRapt was not able to find your data file and open. When this occurs, the dialog box will appear asking you to locate the file.
Why couldn’t ShrinkRapt find the data file?
The simple answer, because the file was moved from where it was the last time you opened ShrinkRapt. Here are the most common events that we hear about when a file has been moved:
- A tech worked on my drive and…
- I moved things around on my computer and …
- I got a new computer and …
How do I fix this?
The good news is getting back to your patient list really is quit simple. All you need to do locate the file and open it.
First, you must find the location of your data file. After you find the file, click the open button on the open data file dialog box (shown above), navigate to the file, select the file and open it.
The Mac and Windows operating systems offer tools to help you locate the ShrinkRapt data file. In these short video we show you the steps to follow to locate your data file.
Finding your data file on a Mac
Finding your data file on Windows
Remember, when you use ShrinkRapt, you always have your patient data because ShrinkRapt is not a cloud application. You never have to worry about someone telling you they have deleted all you patient information because…
In a future blog we will discuss some backup strategies that will make sure your patient date is safe and sound even if you computer crashes.