Using Advanced Templates to Customize Records

Locating and Using Advanced Templates

Advanced templates can be found anywhere you view your Standard and Custom templates, and they are marked with a special "Advanced" badge.

Locating Advanced Templates for Editing Purposes

First, click My Account > Templates from either the web version or mobile version of CoVet.

Once you arrive on the Templates page, you'll see a list of all templates in your account. If you haven't already, please check out our article on how to organize your templates as it will help make the ones that are important to you more visible here.

Also, if you'd like to view only the Advanced templates you can do so by hitting the filter icon on the right, and then clicking on the "Advanced" badge.

Selecting Advanced Templates When Generating a Record

To generate a record using an Advanced template you follow the same basic workflow that you would while using any Standard or Custom template. For a full overview of that process, please check out this article.

Advanced templates will automatically appear in the list of available templates, with the most recently used ones at the top. To view only Advanced templates, you can use the filter button as pictured in the Locating Advanced Templates for Editing Purposes section directly above this one.

Customizing Advanced Templates

You can customize Advance templates in many ways, just keep reading below to explore all of your options.

When you arrive at any Advanced template builder screen it will look like this:

Settings That Affect the Entire Template

There are four icons at the top of the page, immediately to the right of the template name that allow you to change settings for the entire template.

	The star icon allows you to favourite this template. Check out more about this feature in our article about organizing your templates.
	The page icon allows you to preview what your Advanced template will look like with all of the customizations you've just made.
	The gear icon reveals the additional template options pictured below:

Personalize - This allows you to type additional instructions that CoVet will apply to the entire template, but are not able to achieve the editing tools in the Advanced template builder. 

Enable/Disable Default Normals - Use this button to toggle on or off the feature where CoVet inserts pre-set default normal text after a specific label in the absence of contradictory or additive information. This button simply turns the feature on, or off, but keep in mind you can actually modify the specific default normal text - see the Modifying Elements section for more details.

Enable/Disable Bold Abnormals - Use this button to toggle on or off the feature where CoVet automatically bolds anything in the Objective section of Advanced SOAP templates that differs from the default normal text. This really helps those important parts of the physical exam stand out!

Reset Entire Template - Click this button to reset everything in the template to default settings. Read more about this in the Resetting Something You Have Modified section below.

Press to Hide/Show Template - This affects how this particular template appears in anywhere you view templates in CoVet. Check out this article for more on how to organize your templates.

Set As Default Template/Current Default Template - This allows you to mark or unmark this specific template as your default template. Read more about how this helps set up a handy short cut here.

Lastly, the question mark icon will open a window with some helpful hints and tips... but you won't need that because you're reading this article, right? ? On top of that, the question mark icon also gives you access to the "Suggest Element" button where you can let us know about other elements you'd like us to add to the Advanced template builder - we're always looking to improve!

Rearranging the Order of Sections, Subsections and Elements

You can use the Advanced template builders easy drag-and-drop interface to rearrange pretty much everything in the template so everything appears in the order you prefer for your final report.

To move anything, look for the icon composed of two horizontal lines (looks like an equals sign) towards the right side of the page:

Click and hold that icon, and you'll be able to drag the associated section, subsection or element up or down the change the order in your template.

There are actually 3 levels of these icons - the image below should help guide you to which icon moves what. Better yet, try experimenting - you can always move things back!

Modifying Elements

You can edit each individual element within an Advanced template in multiple ways. To start this process, click the down arrow on the right hand side of any section within the template - this will expand the section to reveal subsections and individual elements.

When you hover over any given element, you'll see an two icons appear

The blue toggle on the left will hide or reveal that particular element in your final reports. Keep in mind, this hides both the label and any associated content for the element. Don't need a line about Muscle Condition score in your final reports? Hide it using this feature. Alternatively use it to reveal elements you like that some other veterinarians may not use.

Clicking the pencil icon to the right of the blue toggle will open up a new editing menu that looks like this, and it contains several features:

Label - Changing the text here affects how the element appears in your final record. Not that you cannot change the actual element name at the top of the screen, but if you change a label from "Eyes:" to "Ophtho:", for example, only "Ophtho:" will appear in your final reports.

Remove entire line in final report if there is no associated content - This hides the element in question from your record, but only under very specific conditions. When this box is checked, the element will continue to appear in your final records if there is any associated content, whether that content be something you said during your consultation, or default normal text. That being said, when neither relevant content nor default normal text are present, this element will be hidden, which makes for a nice concise record that automatically shortens when some information is not touched on.

Default normal - This is where you can edit the default normal text that will appear after a label in the absence of contradictory or additive information. CoVet will always add relevant content when available, but editing here allows you to get the exact wording you want when a specific element isn't mentioned during your consultation.

More on your ability to edit both labels and default normal text this using bold, italics or headings here.

Modifying Subsections (and Subsection Headers)

Hover in the area of any subsection and a pencil icon will appear.

The following editing tools appear when you click that pencil icon:

Name - Entering a name will give this subsection a title, or "header" that will appear in your final reports. By default, these are blank, but if you'd like "Vitals" above your vital section and "Physical Exam" above the physical exam this is the place to enter them. More on your ability to edit this using bold, italics or headings here.

# of blank lines between elements - This controls the number of spaces or blank lines that will appear between elements within that subsection.

Modifying Sections (and Section Headers)

Hover in the area of any section to reveal two icons on the right. The "Preview" icon will give you a visual preview of that section with it's current set-up when clicked. 

Alternatively, click the "Edit" pencil icon to reveal the following editing tools:

Name - This allows you to rename the header that appears above each section in your final report. More on your ability to edit this using bold, italics or headings here.

# of blank lines between subsections - This controls the number of spaces or blank lines that will appear between subsections within that section.

Using Rich Text (i.e. Bold, Italicize and Headings)

Whether you are modifying an element, a subsection or a section, you can use rich text to get the formatting options you want.

This functions similar to formatting features you are used to in other software like MS Word and Google Docs. Just highlight the text in question and click B to bold (or unbold) it, and I to italicize (or un-italicize) it.

Also, don't miss the drop down arrow next to the word "Normal". It will allow you to chose from normal text and 3 different sizes of headings, which effective changes your font size for the highlighted text. Heading 1 is the largest font size, and Normal text is the smallest.