Converting and importing data from another dental program

[grantd]

I'm just getting to grips with OD, and liking it... I had hoped I'd be able to find simple tools - or at least guidelines - for importing data from another practice management system, but if it's there I haven't found it.

I know there are bits... I've found the XML structure to import a patient record; helpful references in the Programming Resource page to grouping family members... Oh, and the statement "The only code we might be interested in paying for is tools that help us convert user's data from other dental programs" on the PR page. But no definitive guide on what MySQL tables I can fill to jumpt-start the conversion process.

Is there any information I'm missing? Anyone started to document this? Help would be most welcome...

[jordansparks]

Have you seen the database documentation here?:
http://www.open-dent.com/manual/programmers.html
Basically, the process is fairly straightforward if you stick to just the patient table. But once you start moving beyond that, it's just too complex to explain on a web page. We have full time staff and huge complex programs that deal with the conversion process. We have written and refined these conversion programs over the course of many years. How can we explain thousands of pages of if-then-else loops? How can we explain that even our complex programs fail at least 1/3 of the time and require human intervention and more refinement. The human intervention draws on skills obtained after years of working with our specific database structure. So instead we offer this expertise as a service, our paid conversion service.