Lab work orders

Manage the work with your dental lab: create orders, track them through their stages and, if you want, give the lab its own login so it sees only its orders.

Available on every plan. Creating an order is clinical work: the Doctor, the Assistant and the Admin create them. Front desk doesn't create orders, but it does authorize them.

Create an order

1. Go to Lab in the menu and press ＋ New order.
2. Choose the Patient and the Doctor who needs it.
3. Pick the Work to be done from the catalog, or type a new one with "➕ Other".
4. Choose the Lab (or add a new one).
5. Set the received date and the due date.
6. In Notes write the color or shade, the material and the instructions.

Each order gets a yearly folio (for example OL-2026-0001).

There are no separate "material" or "color" fields: those details go in Notes.

The four stages

An order always moves in the same order, with no steps skipped:

Received → Authorized → In progress → Delivered

The buttons are ✔ Authorize, ▶ Start fabrication and 📦 Mark delivered.

Who moves each stage depends on the lab:

• In-house lab: Front desk authorizes the order; after that the lab puts it in progress and marks it delivered.
• External lab: the supplier has no access to the system, so Front desk moves every stage.

Authorizing takes two things

An order doesn't go from Received to Authorized until it has the doctor's clinical signature and payment. This is a requirement of the order, not a matter of rank: it applies to the Admin too. Authorizing without the signature would leave the lab fabricating with nothing to back it up.

When something goes wrong

Anyone in the flow — doctor, assistant, front desk or lab — can request a hold or raise an incident. An incident can be canceled, which writes the order off, or replaced, which also creates its replacement.

Orders that leave the flow (incidents and withdrawn ones) are visible to the Admin only: they no longer move forward and can't be edited.

Delays and printing

If the due date passes and the order hasn't been delivered, it's flagged in red as overdue. Each order can be 🖨️ printed on a sheet with your clinic's logo, the details of the work and a received-signature line.

Give the lab access

Create a user with the Lab role: they'll see only their own things — inbox, orders, their calendar and security — and nothing else in the system. See Users, roles & permissions.

Recommendation

Record the actual due date agreed with the lab: that's what makes the board warn you about what's coming due before the patient turns up for their appointment.