Tricks of the Trade: Using NPR to Save Time on Repetitive Tasks (Meditech Magic)

By: John Sharpe, President, Comstock Software, Inc.

Sally is a Meditech BAR Analyst and already it has been one of those days. She opens her email and finds a message from Sharon at the Business Office.

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Sally,

Please look in BAR for the account balances on these accounts.



I know you are busy...but if possible, please get me this information before the 3:00 p.m. meeting.

Thank you,
Sharon
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Good thing Sally has been brushing up on her Meditech NPR skills. Looking this information up by hand would have been a nightmare.

Reviewing the BAR.PAT.zcus.account.info report below, we’ll look at one way Sally might have retrieved the necessary information. We’ll also look at a free NPR Report Writing Utility named List Builder that you can use to speed up NPR Report Development for these one off audit type reports.

Here’s a quick overview of the NPR setup.

NPR Report Writer - Page 1 - Setup:

NPR Report Writer - Page 2 - Setup:

Instead of using a SELECT Prompt of ‘Accounts:’ and entering the accounts 1 by 1 at report run time, we’ll populate the /ACCOUNTS list using an AL START macro.

NPR Report Writer - Footnotes - Setup:

NPR Report Writer - Start Macro - Setup:

Here instead of typing by hand, Sally might have copied the list of accounts from the email into the List Builder.

Next … paste the list of /ACCOUNTS into the AL START macro.

NPR Report Writer - Start Macro - Setup:

By using the List Builder for MEDITECH NPR Macros in conjunction with an AL START macro to populate the /ACCOUNTS array; the list could easily scale from 20 or so accounts to 500 or more with hardly any additional effort on the part of the NPR Report Writer. If, on the other hand, even 50 accounts had to be entered by hand into the NPR Select at Report Run time, the process would be less than satisfying.

NPR Report Writer - Page 3 - Setup:

This report is built in a DOWNLOAD format, which means you can print to the printer named DOWNLOAD. Printing to DOWNLOAD allows you to save the file with a .CSV file extension. Microsoft Excel is a great application for opening and analyzing files in the .CSV file format.

If you have ideas on free report writing utilities such as the List Builder, email John at jsharpe@comstock-software.com.

John Sharpe is President / NPR Consultant at Comstock Software, Inc. Learn more about NPR Report Writing at the MEDITECH NPR Report Writing Blog.