Hello all you wonderful people! Today is a very exciting day for me — as the changes we've been working on for the last few months have been released! I'm excited to introduce to you — Finger-Ink version 7! 🎉

This release is all about the iPad and the Kiosk. What exactly has changed? Let's find out.

Hosted kiosk actions pages

In a previous release, we allowed you to define a custom "actions URL" for the kiosk. This would result in a button being displayed on the initial kiosk screen which would redirect to that URL.

Well, starting from today, we'll host that page for you! Here's what it looks like on the iPad:

That hosted page looks great on the iPad during kiosk mode, and on a patient's mobile (if they scan the QR code instead).

If you want to know about all the ins and outs, the different options, and how you can still use a custom URL if you want to — check out our article on offering actions other than check-in.

Kiosk setup has moved to the Portal

Previously, kiosk setup was performed on each device. This meant that if you wanted to change anything (like a form requirement), you needed physical access to the device.

New in version 7 — configuration is now within the Portal itself. There's too much to show you here, but you can check out the article on configuring the kiosk to learn the ins and outs.

Label the iPad and change the passcode from the Portal

Ever forgotten your passcode? Not sure which of the authorised iPads you are looking at? Problems of the past with version 7!

You can now give each iPad an alias, and change the passcode, all from the Portal itself:

Bonus forms feature

Still reading? Bless you ❤️. As a thanks — I'd love to let you know about a new feature that allows you to skip the appointment linking when Finger-Ink creates a treatment note.

The result is that the appointment won't get a little treatment note icon and clutter up your already chock-a-block calendars! You can change this behaviour in the form editor, down the bottom:

Don't forget to publish!

That's all I've got to tell you about for now. We'll have lots more announcements in the very near future so watch this space. Thanks for being awesome!

Hello superstars! Brendan here, back with an update to kiosk mode. This one significantly increases the usefulness of kiosk mode. Let's dive in.

Not here to check-in?

Not a problem.

You can now define a custom URL for "other actions" during check-in. Tapping this button will pop up the URL, right inside the app. Here's an example with an URL I've prepared earlier:

One of the cool things about this pop up is that it will automatically close, but only after 25 seconds of inactivity. So, it keeps it open if someone's half way through contacting you, but closes it if they walk away so the next person just sees the main kiosk mode screen!

What can I use it for?

As the URL goes to a page you control, you can literally do anything with it! But our favourite uses include:

• Linking to your online booking page
• Offering a way to leave a message
• Offering a page of frequently asked questions

If you're wondering how to set it up, please visit our article explaining the ins and outs.

That's it for now. As always, keep being awesome!

Happy Wednesday awesome people! ✌️I'm back again for the second day in a row to let you know of some new stuff we've released — custom check-in logos on a per-iPad basis! 🎉

What?

Do you run multiple brands under one the Cliniko account? Did you try to smoosh all your logos into one image to use during check-in? Did the clumsiness of it all bring you near to tears, just a little bit? This one's for you.

How do I custom logo?

Each iPad now has it's own page that can be accessed by clicking on its name in the big list 'o iPads in the Portal:

Once you're on the specific page for the iPad, just scroll down to access the settings and set your logo for only that iPad:

☝️This logo will only apply to check-in, and any forms that use the default theme.

More on the way

We like the idea of being able to control more of each iPad from the Portal, keeping things centralised. So you can expect to see more on this page in the near future. But that's all for now!

As always, thanks for being awesome 🥹

Hey again awesome human 🥳 Did you notice our sign-in system change not too long ago? It was a subtle change, but one that brings great improvements. Let's dive in!

Two-factor auth

Two-factor auth (or 2FA for short) is the term used to describe using a second "something" to authenticate yourself, other than just your email & password.

I'm excited to announce that we recently added the ability to enable 2FA in Finger-Ink. Enabling this will require a time-specific one-time-code to be entered on every sign-in.

☝️ To enable 2FA, visit your profile page and follow the instructions. It is highly recommended to enable 2FA as it greatly increases the security of your account.

Keep me signed in

An oft-requested feature is now here! Tick this box during sign-in to stay signed in for up to 60 days.

☝️ If you are going to enable this, please ensure that you always lock your computer when you're away from it as you're essentially allowing anyone who uses it to view patient data.

Session visibility

Ever wanted to know how many times you've signed in, and from where? Now you can by viewing your sessions on your profile page:

In addition, you can also remotely sign out any other session with the big red button:

That's it for this one — more announcements coming soon. Thanks for reading 🙏

Hey everyone! 👋 You may have noticed that Finger-Ink has seemed even more response than usual in the last few months. Why? Read on!

New infrastructure

We recently migrated to a different hosting setup. It's still hosted on AWS, still managed via HealthcareBlocks, and still HIPAA compliant. But, it's given us more fine-grained control and visibility over our systems — and a chance for an upgrade...

Bigger servers

As part of the migration, we're now running on more powerful, faster servers. This means faster load times for pages, quicker syncing, and generally just a good time overall.

And more of them

We've also doubled-down: adding same-size backup servers, in different availability zones, on standby in case of any issues with our servers or our primary zone.

With smoother updates

We're always working on improving Finger-Ink. When we add new features, the final step is bundling them up in a release, then releasing this to the live server.

Prior to this migration, these releases could cause minor service degradation as the new code was booting up on the existing server.

With this new multi-server configuration, we never deploy to the current live server, and ensure that all servers are fully booted before we switch over.

All this means is that you'll hardly notice when we do future releases, unless we change the user interface in some way.

That's all for now, but I'll have another update for you shortly due to this one being a little delayed. 😅

Header image via Unsplash.

Hello awesome humans! 👋 Brendan here, bringing you the details of our latest updates that improve your lives, and the lives of your patients. Let's dive in!

Version 6

Version 6, released at the end of 2023, represents a huge leap forward in the capability of your Forms. There's too much to mention here, so check out the
​What's New in v6 article, or check out the video below for the highlights:

Print blank forms

Ever had the internet go down and been unable to use Finger-Ink? Or a patient who refused to use an iPad to fill out a Form?

We know how much effort you've all put into designing your perfect Forms within Finger-Ink — so we put some effort into giving you a "print preview" of your Form. Access it through this new button in the Form editor:

We do our best to ensure your visibility conditions are followed — obviously we can't show or hide questions on paper as the pen is writing, but we do try to label anything with a visibility condition appropriately — so they're answered only when required.

Print preview is a "beta" feature for now as there may be some rough edges. Please let us know if you find any. 🙏

Web Form improvements

Better sidebar for smaller resolutions

When Forms are filled out on a laptop or desktop, we show a sidebar. This sidebar shows your logo, clinic & Form name, and the sections contained within the Form — among other things.

The sidebar now displays more easy-to-follow progress as you move through the sections:

It's also resized in a smarter way: the logo is no longer hidden, and if the list of sections is too long, a scroll bar for the sections appears and is moved as you progress through the Form.

Logo displayed on mobile devices

Previously the logo was only displayed on the sidebar. Now, we also display the logo prominently on mobile devices:

Required fields are more obvious

Previously, we placed an asterisk next to a field to show it was required. We've now introduced a much more obvious "required" label, which changes to a tick once the field has been filled:

(note: this tick also appears when an option field is filled)

Multi-line text fields auto-expand

Multi-line text fields now automatically expand when more text is entered than the box originally allows for:

That's all for now! Enjoy the updates, and thanks for reading 🥳

Hello to all you fantastic people, happy Friday! 🤩 Today I bring you news of good things that have recently made their way to Finger-Ink. Onward!

Autosave

This is something that's actually been "live" for about 3 weeks, but we just didn't say anything about it. 😅

Well here's the scoop: web forms now keep track of where you are, and what you've filled as you go through the form, with Autosave:

Autosave is enabled by default, but it can be disabled by clicking the autosave button in the sidebar — the one that changes to indicate changes are saved:

If the form is accidentally refreshed, or left in an open tab for a few hours then revisited, progress won't be lost! 🎉

Note: if the tab is closed, then any progress is removed for privacy reasons.

Improved connectivity

Ever had your iPad just stop receiving appointment updates? Or stop sending filled forms to the portal? Like it decided to ghost you?

This may have happened occasionally in the past, but it's now a thing of the, er... past. 😁

A process now runs on the server that detects the problem, and fixes it — no more ghosting!

Version 6

Some of you astute individuals may have noticed that we just ticked over a major number: the portal is now running v6.0.0! That's because we're getting super close to releasing the new form editor, complete with all it's lovely goodies.

We'll be sending out further communication about this in the coming days/weeks, but if you'd like to get in early for a sneak peek, do let us know and we'll enable the beta for your account!

That's all for now. As always, if you have any questions about anything at all, don't hesitate to reach out. 🥳

Hello you awesome humans! We haven't shared much news recently, and yet somehow we've gone from versions 5.31.0 to 5.39.0. How did that happen?

Well, the culprit is our new form editor (currently in beta). It expands greatly upon the existing capabilities of our forms, and we hope to release it to everyone within the next month.

Until then, please feel free to check out the new editor changelog, which I'm updating as new features are added.

If you'd like to get access to the beta, do let us know.

A new date picker

This has actually been around for a little while now, but we're only just reporting on it.

Our date picker has evolved to be more usable on the web — dates can now be entered with a keyboard, or via a dropdown menu:

Even more capacity

In other news, we increased our server capacity over the weekend — we're now operating at 2x our previous specs so everything will feel even snappier than usual.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading! 👋

Hello to all you fantastic people! Our latest 5.31.0 update brings news of some tweaks we've been doing to improve our web forms experience. Let's dive in.

A new loading indicator for forms

When a form URL was visited, a "skeleton" page is displayed while the connection is made to the form — after which the welcome screen is displayed.

Previously, a blank screen with the usual green background would be displayed while the connection was made. Most of the time this didn't matter as forms load pretty quickly — but on a mobile connection this could take a few seconds.

So, we've introduced a new loading indicator that is displayed as soon as the page is loaded, while we wait for the connection:

A new "please wait" page

We do a lot behind the scenes to make sure that our forms feel as snappy as possible — including caching our forms.

This simply means: instead of having to go to the database each time someone requests a form, we get them all from the database when the server boots — and keep them in a place that can provide them quickly upon request.

If someone happened to be requesting a form immediately after the server booted (for instance after we deployed a new version) — it used to display a "form not found" page:

The patient would thus think that the form URL they were sent was incorrect, and would have to go back to the clinic to ask for the "right" one. That was extra work and frustration that wasn't needed.

With this new update, we now direct patients to a waiting page if form caching process hasn't yet completed:

This page automatically reloads when their form is ready — meaning no extra work and frustration.

While this wasn't a common occurrence, it did occur occasionally and was worth sorting.

More modern browser requirements

Browsers are getting better and better at keeping themselves up-to-date. With each subsequent update, bugs are fixed, security is improved and new features are added.

We had previously tried to maintain compatibility with very old browsers. This meant having to convert a bunch of the new code we were using into code that was compatible with these older browsers. This increased both the surface area for errors to occur, and the download size of each of our form pages.

As the vast majority of our users are using quite recent versions of the major browsers, we decided it was time to support a much more modern stack.

If you, or one of your patients, is running a browser that is out-of-date, they will be notified and won't be able to fill out the form until they switch to a more modern browser. We support pretty much everything released in the last couple of years.

That's all for now, but we've got lots more on the way in 2023 so watch this space! 😊

Cover image by Caleb Russell.

Heya party people! This is a tricky bit of news to share, but it needs to be done.

We had some down-time

If you're not in the UK you probably didn't know but, two weeks ago, we had some down-time. 😬 This was our first significant period own down-time in the history of Finger-Ink. The entire platform was unusable for a number of hours.

Even worse, a couple of days later there were further issues for the same group of customers. Web forms were still available, but a large part of Finger-Ink's functionality was offline for a number of hours.

I've heard from many of you as to how frustrating this was. To everyone who experienced this outage — I am truly sorry.

It's been sorted

As of writing this, all major issues having a hand in this have been addressed, and Finger-Ink is in the best shape since our introduction of the portal.

If you're interested in understanding what went wrong, and what's been done to address this, please read on.

The first outage

Occasionally, the servers that run Finger-Ink need patching. Security and stability updates are released, and these need to be applied in order to ensure our servers are not vulnerable.

Our hosting provider ensures that our servers are up-to-date. They do this by applying these patches for us, as required. At the time, however, it also meant that our servers would be restarted automatically after these patches were applied.

Prior to this event, all patching had been done during Finger-Ink's office hours (or close enough to them). This was important because, when our application came online, there were some manual steps that needed to be performed in order to make sure that our encryption module comes online. This encryption module is used throughout Finger-Ink — nothing can operate without it.

Unfortunately, on this day, the patching and restarting was done well outside of our regular hours. When the application came back online, and sent a notification that the manual steps were required, no one was around to receive it. This meant the encryption module remained offline, until I checked in on things at 5:30am the following morning, and brought the encryption module online.

The second outage

Following the first outage, on that same day, we deployed a change to ensure that the encryption module could come online all by itself — without requiring any manual steps.

This ran well until another patch was applied a day or two later. The server was restarted again, after hours. The encryption module came back online, as intended, but the key server (our new fancy tech that ensures API keys aren't removed immediately after being told they're invalid by the Cliniko API) did not, due to it running into database connection limits.

While the portal remained usable, web forms couldn't match to patients, and workflow couldn't run.

Getting it sorted

Since then, our top priority has been making sure that this does not happen again. In addition to ensuring that the encryption module always comes back online, we've also taken further steps to improve reliability.

Regarding unplanned patches & server restarts:

1. Patches are now only applied once per week, rather than daily.
2. Server restarts after patching need to be initiated by Finger-Ink, they will no longer happen automatically. This ensures we will be there to make sure everything comes back online, just in case.

Regarding database connectivity & capacity:

• Our database connection limits have been increased 3-fold.
• We've optimised our database connection configuration to ensure that waiting for the database a little longer than usual doesn't cause errors.

Other things we've done:

• Optimised our start-up procedures within the app to reduce initial load on the server during boot.
• Reduced unnecessary load on the server
• Fixed an issue which, due to server load, could have caused appointment syncing (from the iPad) to pause until the next launch of the app.
• Implemented a more thorough monitoring system for our platform.

Going forward

All is going well thus far. The new connection limits have increased the overall snappiness of the portal interface, and we haven't had any further issues.

There are some additional changes coming the platform, which will reduce memory usage even further.

Thank you all for your continued support. 🙏

Cover image by Ian Taylor.