Dental lab — Dentora user guide

The lab board

Open Lab in the sidebar. Here is every case you send to dental labs, such as crowns, bridges, veneers and dentures, from sending to fitting.

Four cards sit at the top: Open orders, with how many are at the lab and how many wait to be fitted, Due this week, Overdue and Lab costs this month.

Below them you filter the orders by status, doctor or lab, or search by patient, lab or tooth number. Late orders come first, then the soonest due.

The lab board: the four cards, the status, doctor and lab filters, and the orders with their next-step buttons

Lab orders on a phone as cards, each with its status, due date and next-step button

Recording a lab order

Record the order on the day the impression or case goes to the lab, to follow its status, due date and cost.

Click New lab order on the Lab page, or in the Lab tab of the patient’s file.
Choose the Patient and Doctor, and type the Lab name or pick one of the labs you used before.
Under Work requested choose the Type of work, then the Shade from the VITA guide, and the Material, such as zirconia or e.max.
Click the teeth included in the work, or Upper arch or Lower arch to take the whole arch. Leave the teeth empty for full dentures and night guards.
Under Dates & cost, Sent on is today and the Due date is 7 days later. Change it, or click +5 days, +7 days, +10 days or +14 days.
Type the Lab cost, link the order to a planned treatment in Link to a treatment plan item if you wish, add Notes for the lab, then click Save order.

The New lab order window: patient, doctor and lab name, type of work, shade and material, and tooth 16 selected

The Dates & cost part of a lab order: sent date, due date, quick day buttons, status, cost and the treatment link

Following an order to fitting

An order moves through Draft, Sent, In progress, Received and Fitted, and may become Remake or Cancelled. Each row has a button named after the next step.

When a draft goes out, click Send to lab. If its sent date is empty, today is recorded, and an empty due date is set 7 days later. Dates already filled in stay, so correct them with Edit if needed.
When the lab starts the work, click Start work.
When the work arrives at the clinic, click Receive. The received date is recorded and, if the order has a cost, the cost goes to your expenses.
Once it is fitted for the patient, click Mark fitted.
If the work needs correcting, open the ⋯ menu and choose Send back (remake). If the due date has come, a new one is set 7 days ahead, and the Receive button comes back on the row.
To stop an order, choose Cancel order in the same menu. It stays in the history as Cancelled.

Lab rows with their next-step buttons: Receive for work in progress and for a remake, Start work for a sent order, Send to lab for a draft

Good to know

The same menu also has Print lab slip, Edit and Delete. You can also change the status directly in the Status field of the edit window.
On receipt, the Lab cost is recorded as an expense in the “Lab” category, dated the day received, with the lab’s name, the work, the patient and the order reference, so you never type a lab bill twice. See Expenses.
Change the cost or the lab name on the order, not on the Expenses page, and the expense follows. A remake adds no second expense; cancelling or deleting the order removes its expense, even when the work was already received: if you paid the lab, do not cancel the order, or enter the amount by hand in Expenses.
The Lab costs this month card adds up the month’s Lab expenses, including any you enter by hand. The admin can click it to open the Expenses page.

Printing the lab slip

Send a clear lab slip with the impression: what is needed, for which teeth, in which shade, and by when.

On the order’s row open the ⋯ menu and choose Print lab slip.
Check the sheet: the lab and the required date, the patient and doctor, the type of work, shade, material and sent date, a drawing of the chosen teeth, and your notes for the lab.
Click Print, then sign the sheet where the doctor’s signature goes.

A lab slip: the lab and required date, patient, doctor, type of work, shade and material, the teeth drawing and the signature lines

Lab orders in the patient file

The Lab tab of the patient’s file shows that patient’s orders only: type of work, teeth and status, the lab, material, shade, sent date and cost, and the due or received date.

Open the patient’s file, then the Lab tab.
Click New lab order; the patient is already set.
Click the next-step button to move the order on, or the order itself to edit it.