BT themselves market this upgrade under their ‘Infinity’ label but you do not need to move to BT Broadband to obtain this new service. It is available via all Service Providers (Zen, Tiscali, BT Broadband etc) provided your exchange has been upgraded by BT Openreach. A list of currently-equipped exchanges can be found here :-

http://www.zen.co.uk/business/broadband/fibre-broadband.aspx?page=10151

If you are approached by your Service Provider  to say that they can carry out this upgrade and you decide to proceed, please advise our Support Desk as soon as possible and at least 7 days in advance of the planned upgrade date. 

BT Openreach will fit and maintain an XDSL cable modem to your line as part of the on-going broadband provision but the Netgear DG834 series ADSL routers which many Practices have fitted are NOT fibre-compatible and will need to be replaced. The Draytek series of routers which we have been installing on new and upgraded multi-site  systems for about six months ARE fibre-compatible but will still need re-configuring to accomodate the change.

If you wish Teleos Support to aid  in any problem-solving of outgoing broadband connections or incoming remote connections to Teleos, please DO NOT purchase a different model of router from your Service Provider (or any other source) that is not a current, unmodified, Draytek model. If you have multiple sites using Teleos connected together then routers MUST be upgraded to the Draytek 2830 model specified by Teleos.

Finally, moving to fibre typically carries a £99 installation charge – to cover BT Openreach visiting to alter the wiring and fit the XDSL cable modem. It also usually means signing a new minimum twelve month contract with your Service Provider along with a slightly higher rental per month although exact terms vary by Provider. Please check your provider’s exact terms  before agreeing to proceed.

Please contact us if you have any further questions.

Many thanks

Teleos Systems Support – 11:50 on 18th May 2012

We are extremely encouraged by everyones comments and the number of new sales leads which this year’s show has produced. Teleos remains committed to providing cutting-edge services to individual and private practice groups and we intend to maintain our continuous development of the Program to achieve this end.

Thankyou, again, for your continued support.

Teleos Systems Ltd

Most Practices now use direct broadband ordering when requesting supplies from their wholesaler. As this facility is available from all wholesalers, the decision has been taken to remove support for ANALOGUE ordering (Dial-up using ‘Kermit’) from 1st January 2012. If you are unsure as to whether your Teleos system still uses analogue modem ordering or not, please contact the Support Desk as soon as possible. Any existing systems that do still use this communication method will not stop working on 1st January but the module will not be included in any future releases of Teleos.

Normally, this changeover involves your wholesaler making a small change at their end so you will need to advise them that you wish to change your method of ordering.

Please contact our Support Desk if you have any questions regarding this change.

Many thanks

Teleos Support

Since the introduction of 2D (datamatrix) barcodes (as opposed to the old linear barcodes still widely in use in supermarkets) there has been a complete lack of any cross-reference of the manufacturer barcode to the wholesaler product code. This has applied to ALL wholesalers and all requests for this information have been met with the response that the wholesalers did not have this information themselves.

Primarily for this reason, we  introduced a ‘barcode learning’ process into our Quick Price Check some time ago to allow those Practices who had purchased 2D scanners to actually be able to use them. Immediately prior to this, they were unable to be used for anything meaningful other than for the ‘tote’ single-click re-stocking barcode (which is only available to Centaur customers anyway).

Datamatrix barcodes are capable of storing much greater amounts of data than the traditional linear ones and their initial use was triggered by the last BSE crisis. After this, legislation was brought in requiring manufacturers of any drug potentially affecting the food-chain to be barcoded with additional information to enhance traceability. In the veterinary market, this covers all POMs and is essentially to incorporate batch information and an expiry date. Unfortunately – as with many ‘new standards’ – the manufacturers have implemented this legislation in slightly differing ways resulting in the information contained within the barcode not being stored in a consistent order (this was not defined in the legislation). In addition, certain manufacturers have used inappropriate colouring for their barcodes and even inverted the normal colours causing the scanners to be unable to read them properly or, in some cases, at all !

NVS have spent the last year examining every barcode that has come through their warehouse building up, in the process, a comprehensive cross-reference table of manufacturers codes and how they translate to the NVS product code. For their customers, this information will be incorporated automatically within their Teleos system and it will be dynamically updated – initially on a weekly basis but eventually daily. This should mean that NVS customers can fully implement barcoding stock control with the minimum of Practice input in the near future.

Hopefully other wholesalers have been working behind the scenes in a similar way to NVS although – to date – we have no further information from them.

As regards barcode scanners themselves, NVS will not – as a matter of policy – be recommending any hardware to Practices. The commonly-held view is that you get what you pay for with 2D scanners in terms of their ability to read the many variations of barcode quality being produced. To date Teleos has been supplying the Symbol DS3408 (wired) and DS3478 (wireless) units and, whilst cheaper units are available, we have no immediate plans to change this.

If any Practice wishes to consider barcoding and stock control via any wholesaler please contact Support for the latest information.

Teleos Systems Development Team (13:10 on Fri 5th August 2011)

We are now able to offer a semi-automated connection to the Menarini ‘Menavet’ in-house lab equipment.

The Menarini system controller is already a pc network-capable device but it needs to be connected to your existing Local Area Network. This can be achieved by the use of a cat5 wired network point, a pair of mains networking adaptors or a pair of bridged wireless access points. Please contact the Teleos Workshop (workshop@teleosvet.co.uk or on +44 [0]121 288 0110) for further help with this.

When results are received from the Menavet machine, a window will appear within Teleos containing the name of the client and animal as stored in the Menarini database. Clicking on this line will then search the Teleos database for possible matches and you will need to select the correct one to store the results against. This connection behaves in much the same way as the IDEXX Serial Connection whilst not being as completely automated as the IDEXX ‘Interlink’ version. This is due to the fact that we are unable to request Menarini tests from within Teleos but this arrangement will still save a lot of time and prevent transposition errors overall.

Please email menavetsetup@teleosvet.co.uk to register your interest in using this link. We can then provide you with the ‘export path’ that Menarini Support will need in order to activate the link from their end.

Visbion VPACS system

VPACS now integrates seamlessly with the Teleos System. All digital images that are acquired within the Practice are stored within VPACS, and are also made available from within Teleos. The images can be accessed using a standard web browser in two ways:

1. Clicking on the URL stored in the clinical history within Teleos which will display the image at the maximum resolution capable on the local terminal.(This option can be used to view the image from within the same building as the VPACS but also remotely from anywhere on the web)

2. Using the VPACS display itself to show the image at full diagnostic-quality

Your VPACS system will need to be configured to export to Teleos. Please contact Teleos Support in order to obtain the communications folder address on your server that Visbion will require to enable this function.

Teleos Systems – staying ahead of the field

1. There are TWO different  types of connection – serial and network (Interlink)

2. SERIAL – allows a stand-alone 8008 analyser to transmit basic information to Teleos provided that a spare port is available on the unit. Please speak to our Workshop on 0121 288 0110 to establish the situation with your equipment. IDEXX Support will supply a self-install serial connectivity kit free-of-charge but it is important that our Workshop let you know in advance exactly what to request from them. IDEXX will also send out their field staff if the situation regarding your equipment is unclear.

3. NETWORK (known as ‘Interlink’) – allows fully-automated generation of test requests from within the Teleos software and fully-automated return of results directly to the animal’s record. This requires the IDEXX VetLab Station (IVLS) and an available RJ45/cat5 network port. Again, please contact our Workshop on 0121 288 0110 to discuss the best setup for your Practice.

Important note: An ongoing maintenance contract with IDEXX is a pre-requisite for this type of connection – please speak to them directly if you are in doubt about this. You will also be asked by IDEXX to sign a form accepting the terms and conditions associated with this connection.

4. Installation – There have been a number of instances where Practices have gone directly to IDEXX (without Teleos being aware of their intentions) and a field engineer from IDEXX has come along and installed a serial connection on an IVLS (intelligent network-capable) setup ! We are working hard with IDEXX to prevent this happening but provided anyone planning to connect their equipment notifies our Workshop at the outset this should be avoidable.

5. Teleos costs – There are NO additional Teleos setup costs associated with acquiring either link. They are both provided FOC – provided your normal monthly Support payments are up-to-date. There may be some additional costs for cabling or wireless connectivity which the Workshop can advise on.

Teleos Systems Ltd

(extracted from the Company’s Press release)

We are delighted to announce that Zen Internet has been awarded PC Pro Best ISP for a fantastic seventh time at this year’s PC Pro Reliability & Service Awards held on 29th September.

These awards are the most comprehensive guide to customer support and product reliability in the UK and Europe and are compiled from the UK’s largest independent survey of IT customer satisfaction.

On collecting the award at the ceremony, Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing, Zen Internet, said:

“We are delighted to have won this award for an amazing seventh time, it’s fantastic. We are so grateful to all of our Customers for their continued support, especially those who took the time to vote for us.”

“It has been an incredibly busy year for Zen. In the last 12 months we have transformed our broadband portfolio with the introduction of “up to 20Mbps” broadband, the launch of our telephone lines service and now Fibre Broadband. Our continued success in the PC Pro awards is amazing and results from the commitment of the entire team at Zen, especially our Technical Support and Customer Services teams, who all support our mission to provide the best ISP service in the UK.”

This week we announced the availability of our new fibre optic broadband packages. These superfast broadband services will offer download speeds of “up to 40Mbps” and upload speeds of “up to 10Mbps”.

In the summer Zen announced its new telephone line services, Home Talk and Business Talk

For more information on PC Pro and the other awards, please visit: www.pcpro.co.uk/awards2010

This increased functionality has, inevitably, brought with it an increase in the number of calls to our Support Centre. We currently have six full-time staff on front line support augmented by additional staff from our programming and workshop areas as the need arises. Even with this level of resource, the number of requests covering issues – many of which are peripheral to the main Teleos program itself – has dictated that further provision needs to be made. Accordingly, the Directors have appointed a further person to our support staff and they take up their post later this month (further details will be announced at that time).

In order to achieve the most efficient operation of our Support Service, we would ask you to use the following guidelines when contacting Support.

1) If the matter is an emergency situation involving a critical system failure please call us on 0121 286 9990 (UK), 01 442 9867 (Ireland) or via Skype.

2) If you are not experiencing a critical failure, please use the T-mail system to contact us with as much detail as possible about the problem -  including return contact details should you need to discuss the issue you are raising. You can now target specific departments separately within T-Mail (support, workshop and sales) once you have selected to send a message to Teleos. (Should you receive a message indicating that the T-Mail send failed, please contact Support by fax on 0871 253 1993 detailing this and the function will be enabled).

3) For all quotations involving hardware, system software, licensing, upgrades and branch additions please T-Mail the SALES (HARDWARE) option.

4) For all consumables (labels, toner etc) please T-Mail the SALES (SOFTWARE) option.

As always, we are happy to offer help and/or direction on all areas of your IT requirement – whether or not they fall within the remit of our Software Support Contract. However, we do ask that you adopt the procedures outlined above in order for us to be able to keep increases in our costs (and therefore what we need to charge in support fees) to a minimum.

We are about to install a high-performance leased line cable connection in our Fort Dunlop Support Centre (supplied by Virgin Media Business). On the back of this we plan to offer additional facilities such as a remote backup service for Practices who are on the “up to 20Mb” (ADSL2+) broadband services on the new BT 21CN network structure (please note: these higher speed services are available through most ISPs – including Zen Internet – and not just BT Broadband).  Please T-Mail SALES (HARDWARE) for further details and to register an interest in this.

We appreciate your help in adopting the above procedures and anticipate that this will enable us to service all of your needs in the most efficient manner in the future.

Many thanks

Bob

Bob Clarke

TELEOS SYSTEMS LTD
Support & Technical Services Director

Email: bob.clarke@teleosvet.co.uk Skype: teleos.bob.clarke

Phone: +44 121 286 9909             Fax: +44 7053 487625

Are you registered and using Vet Envoy for submitting eClaims to Pet Plan and Pet Protect or receiving central lab reports from IDEXX and NWL ? If not, why not ?? Please go to www.vetenvoy.com to register. Registration is entirely free – as are the first 60 submissions or 90 day usage period. eClaims then cost 25p for an entire claim – less than the cost of a second class stamp !

Teleos Systems Support