QOF Assessor Reports Generation Project

QOF Wizard Operating Instructions

Only when the practice or the QOF Assessor wishes to view or e-mail the QOF reports is it necessary to use these instructions for the QOF Wizard.

These instructions will guide the user through the process of running the practice QOF Assessor Validation Reports using the QOF Wizard and then forwarding the results by e-mail to the QOF Lead at the PCT. They will also cover how to view the resultant reports and data.

The QOF Assessor Validation Report Generation software is loaded onto a single workstation at the practice and not onto the clinical server. It has been fully virus checked by Apollo Medical Systems and is virus free.

It is suggested, in the install instructions, that when the software is installed the Practice Manager’s or Practice IT Manager’s workstation is used.

When the Apollo QOF software is first installed by the GP practice the initial automatic reporting window is set to 9am to 7pm every Sunday. Depending on run times for reports, if any reports are not run during this window, the outstanding reports will automatically be carried forward to the next day and will be run between 2am and 7am. This process will be repeated until all reports have been run successfully. When requested, the reports generated can be forwarded to the QOF Lead at the PCT using these instructions.

For non-EMIS GP practices the selected workstation and clinical server must be left switched on and logged in to Windows at all times, including weekends, to ensure the QOF reports are able to run automatically. To maintain security on this workstation, a password-protected screensaver can be set up.

When the software has been downloaded and installed the practice need do nothing more, until they are required to forward the reports to the QOF Lead at the PCT as shown in these instructions.

If the practice or the QOF Assessor wish, they may use the QOF Wizard to manually run or re-run any or all of the QOF Reports at any time and these instructions will guide you through the process of doing so.

Various factors influence the performance of the reports, hence the reporting window for the auto running of the reports. If a report seems to be taking longer than expected to run please do not interrupt the process without speaking to the Apollo helpdesk first.

To start the QOF Wizard, from your desktop select “Start”:

Then select “Programs”, “Apollo Medical Systems” and then “Run QOF Wizard”

The following screen will be displayed:

The use of the QOF Wizard is driven by using the “Commands” options on the left of the Wizard screen. To select a command, simply single left click on an item in the commands list.

When using the Wizard, as each screen is displayed, a hint will be displayed in the “Hint” window on the top left of the Wizard Screen offering advice on what action to take.

To start using the Wizard, select “Start wizard” from the Commands list as shown above.

To exit the Wizard, select “Close wizard” from the Commands list as shown above.

Whilst using the Wizard, if you would like to see “pop up” hints on each area, hover over the text with your mouse pointer as shown below:

A single left click on the “question mark” at the bottom of the Wizard turns this functionality on or off.

After selecting “Start wizard” from the commands list, the following screen will be displayed while the Wizard initialises:

When the Wizard is working, as shown above, the SQL icon will flash red. When the Wizard has initialised, the screen below will be shown. This should take approximately one minute.

This screen shows a list of all the QOF reports. If, following installation, the reports have had the opportunity to run automatically (every Wednesday morning between 2 am and 7 am) icons will be displayed against each report showing there are results available.

The only exception to this is the “Preliminary Report” as whilst this is run first to pre-gather data for the other reports to speed up the process, it does not produce data for viewing so remains blank as shown above.

If you are accessing the QOF Wizard before the auto schedule has had chance to run any reports, no icons will be shown as no data will have been collected. Please refer to the Running QOF Reports section below to run reports manually.

The screen below shows further detail for each of the reports in the list. To switch this preview on or off, single left click on the “Detail” icon.

For further information about a specific report, highlight on a report and select “Report info” from the Commands list as shown above. The screen below will be shown. To return to the list, select “Back to list”.

To view report results from pre-run reports (ie run on a Sunday, automatically between 9am and 7pm), select the relevant report from the list and click on “View Spreadsheet”.

After reviewing the spreadsheet, simply close the spreadsheet to return to the report window above.

Email client users (e.g. Outlook and Outlook Express)

To e-mail pre-run reports, either all together or individually, select the “Just show files” command. This will show all the report results together as shown below:

If you use an e-mail client for your messages (ie Outlook or Outlook Express), open a new message from within your e-mail client as shown below:

With the e-mail message open, click on the QOF Wizard to bring it in front of the e-mail message as shown below:

You may now drag and drop the reports directly into the e-mail.

To drag and drop a report, left click on the file, whilst holding down the left mouse button, drag the file into the body of the e-mail and release. It will then be attached to the message. Repeat the process for as many files as necessary.

When finished, address the e-mail, usually with the e-mail address of the PCT QOF Lead, and click “Send”.

Webmail users

If you use Webmail for your e-mail messages, open up your Webmail client and select to compose a new message, an example is shown below:

As Webmail clients vary, your view may look slightly different to this, however, the functionality will work in exactly the same way.

To attach reports to the e-mail, click on “Browse” and a box will appear, similar to that shown below, asking you to select the location of the reports you wish to attach:

Double click on “My Documents”

Then double click on “SQL Suite Wizard Files”

Then double click on “QOF Assessments”

This will show a list of the reports:

Highlight the report you want to attach to the e-mail as shown above by single left clicking on it and then select “Open”.

This will return you to your Webmail window:

When you return to the Webmail screen at this stage the “Attachment” field will be populated with the location of the file you are attaching. Select “Add” to add the selected file to your Webmail message.

To add further files repeat the Webmail attachment steps above.

When all required files are attached, enter the address of the recipient, usually the QOF Lead at the PCT, and send the message.

As already stated, after downloading the QOF software, it is automatically scheduled to run, with no intervention, every Sunday between 9am and 7pm.

It is also possible to manually run reports either individually or all together using the QOF Wizard. If a practice or QOF Assessor wishes to run an individual report before the software has had the opportunity to run automatically at least once, then the practice or QOF Assessor must first run the “Preliminary Report”. The Preliminary Report is used to “pre-gather” data for use by the other reports when they are run and speeds up the process of data collection.

If the “Run all reports” option is selected, the Wizard will automatically run the Preliminary Report first.

If you try to run an individual report, without first running the Preliminary Report, (or the Preliminary Report held on the system is older than 1 week), the following error message will be displayed:

If you encounter this message, select “Cancel” and then “Exit”. This will return you to the reports list where you can select and run the Preliminary Report.

To run all reports in one go, simply select “Run all reports” from the report list screen as shown below:

The following screen will be displayed:

Click "Next” to begin the reporting process. All reports will now be run in turn. If you wish to stop the process at this stage, simply select the “Stop” button.

To run an individual report, highlight the report by single left clicking on it and then select “Run selected report”.

(Note: If you wish to run the “Get Record” report, please see How to use the Get Record Report section below).

The following screen will be displayed for the relevant report:

Select “Next” to start the report running.

After selecting to run one or all reports, progress on each will be displayed as shown below while they run:

This step may take a few minutes for some reports, however, the Preliminary Report may take over an hour, depending on the size of the GP practice database.

When the progress bar reaches 100% the report may take several minutes to compile the spreadsheet.

For the next step please go to the section on Viewing and emailing manually run reports below.

The “Get a record” report enables you to choose an individual, anonymised patient and run a more detailed report which gives you the last 2 years (default) entries from the GP clinical system. It is presented in ‘journal’ view.

When running the “Get record” report you will be asked to enter certain information prior to the report running.

Open a spreadsheet for one of the report areas already run and decide which patient you wish to gather information for. In this Excel spreadsheet, select the cell showing the encrypted patient ID so the cell is highlighted as shown below:

Next, on your keyboard press and hold the “ctrl” key and then press the “c” key to copy this data.

Close the spreadsheet and move to the next step below.

Next, select the “Get a record” report from the Wizard list and click on “Run selected report”

Select “Next” from the next screen that appears and the following screen will be displayed:

With the cursor flashing in the “Value” box, press and hold the “ctrl” key again on your keyboard and then press the “v” key. This will paste the patients encrypted ID into the Value box.

Select “Next”

The following screen will then be displayed:

The “Years” value will default to “2”. If you would like to report on more/less years simply change the number in the “Value” box and select “Next” to start the report running.

The progress bar will then be shown as the report runs and, when the report has finished, you can progress to the instructions on Viewing and emailing manually run reports below.

When the report(s) have finished running a screen will be displayed to enable you to view/e-mail the results.

If you selected “Run all reports”, or selected to run the Preliminary Report on its own the first screen presented will be:

There will be no spreadsheet associated with this screen as the Preliminary Report is for gathering data only, so simply select “Next” to move on to the next spreadsheet for viewing/e-mailing if you selected “Run all reports”.

If you selected to run the Preliminary Report on its own, select “Next” and then “Exit” from the next screen that appears. This returns you to the list of reports so you may run your next report by repeating the steps above.

If you ran a single report, (other than the Preliminary Report) you will not see the above screen and will be taken directly to the viewing/e-mailing screen for your report as shown below:

To view the report results either double click on the spreadsheet, or highlight the spreadsheet by single left clicking on it and select the folder icon.

To e-mail the spreadsheet, ensure it is closed and select the e-mail icon.

The following screen will be displayed:

First, change the encryption key to say “no encryption” as shown above by selecting this option via the drop down arrow. The spreadsheet data is already encrypted so no extra encryption is needed via this window.

To email the document, if you are using an e-mail client (ie Outlook, Outlook Express etc), select the “E-mail” tab and the spreadsheet will be attached to a new e-mail generated from your e-mail client (see next page if your GP practice uses Webmail):

To send this e-mail, simply complete the e-mail address, usually with the name of your PCT QOF Lead, and click “Send”. Repeat this process for each report if “Run all reports” was selected.

If the practice uses Webmail for e-mail rather than an e-mail client, please follow these steps from the e-mail screen:

After selecting “No encryption” from the drop down list as detailed above, select the “Webmail” tab.

Next, click on the “Folder” icon to save the spreadsheet to a location on the local PC ready for e-mailing.

The following screen will be displayed but with a list of your local locations. Select “My Documents”, “SQL Suite Wizard”, “QOF Assessments” and click “OK”.

The above step will only need to be done the first time this Webmail option is used. For subsequent use, the selected path will be remembered (see below).

Select “OK” and this will open two windows; one showing a browser opened to the location of the spreadsheet and the other is a text file reiterating the Webmail process as shown earlier and repeated below.

Webmail attachments

After saving your report to the QOF Assessments folder as detailed above, open up your Webmail client and select to compose a new message, an example is shown below:

As Webmail clients vary, your view may look slightly different to this, however, the functionality will work in exactly the same way.

To attach reports to the e-mail, click on “Browse” and a box will appear, similar to that shown below, asking you to select the location of the reports you wish to attach:

Double click on “My Documents”

Then double click on “SQL Suite Wizard Files”

Then double click on “QOF Assessments”

This will show a list of the reports:

Highlight the report you want to attach to the e-mail as shown above by single left clicking on it and then select “Open”.

This will return you to your Webmail window:

When you return to the Webmail screen at this stage the “Attachment” field will be populated with the location of the file you are attaching. Select “Add” to add the selected file to your Webmail message.

When you have finished with the e-mailing process after manually running reports, select “Next” from the e-mailing window

Then select “Exit”

To exit the Wizard select “Close Wizard”