🚀 We’re thrilled to share our first update for the new year! Our product team has been working hard behind the scenes to review user feedback to bring feature enhancements and new ideas to life.
From improved features to fresh tools, this release is all about helping you achieve more with ease. Continue reading to explore what’s new—we are eager to hear your thoughts!
Our team values your feedback and insights. Often, we operate in an iterative fashion, which means we will release a core version of a feature or change and continue enhancing it for the next several updates. We operate in this way to ensure our users do not have significant delays in feature access. If you are curious if further enhancements are planned, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team to inquire or submit feature feedback directly to our product team.
New Features 🆕
Bundles Exclusive Items | Hide from Treatment Search
Within your product settings, it is now possible to mark an item as bundle exclusive. When an item is marked as bundle exclusive, the item cannot be searched or invoiced independently, and can only be administered or invoiced through the inclusion of a bundle where the item is present. If you accidentally remove the hidden item from your invoice or treatment plan, you will need to re-add the bundle to access the item again.
You will find the new setting titled 'Hide from Treatment Search' under your Product Price Settings within each product's details. Learn more in our bundle help guide!
Production | Prescription Production User Field
To better support variable production assignment workflows in relation to prescriptions and prescription refills, we are introducing a customizable production user field within your prescription details. By default, the production user will be the prescribing doctor of the prescription when production tracking is enabled for the prescribing doctor. If no production tracking is enabled for the prescribing doctor, the production user will remain unassigned, awaiting manual specification. Learn more about production in our help guide!
Additional production enhancements are planned to assist with more easily reviewing all production user assignments from within a SOAP and immediately updating any assignments requiring modification. You will also shortly see updates to the production report itself to assist with bringing these production features changes full circle from beginning to end.
Reminders | Enhanced Visibility
To enhance the access to patient service reminders, we have newly included them in several key pages. No setting adjustments are necessary for this change to take affect.
Patient services reminders are now visible when creating or updating an appointment or boarding reservation, as well as within the SOAP signalment header.
As a part of this change we have also enhanced the yellow coloring of reminders expiring in the next 30 days for better visibility. Depending on your monitor display settings - you may appreciate a variation in outcome. Adjusting your contrast or brightness settings may assist with better visual accessibility.
Feature Updates 🛠️
Boarding | General Enhancements
Our boarding calendar features have several updates in this release. The boarding calendar now supports navigation by 2 week periods. As well as a return to today button. Additionally, you can now schedule multiple reservations on the same day for the same boarding resource or kennel area. You'll want to hover over the top row of any resource row to activate the +Add action. Learn more about our boarding features in our help guide!
Additional changes to our boarding features are planned. We will be introducing boarding wards in an upcoming release. This will help with organizing boarding resources into key areas for easier visibility and overview. We will also be introducing a boarding focused report.
Please let us know if you are interested in seeing any other boarding calendar enhancements that you feel would add value to your existing workflows!
Inventory Lots | Serial Number Visibility
Based on user feedback, we have expanded the lot details visible when administering products or managing inventory items. When viewing lot details, serial number details are now also included to easily recall lots where the serial number is the key available identification.
Patient | DOB Updates
The patient date of birth (DOB) logic has been extended to supports birth dates as early as 01/01/1800.
Prescriptions | Chronic Toggle Behavior Update
In our recent prescription table updates, we recognize that any prescriptions marked as chronic were not included within the primary prescription list displayed as a default. We have corrected this behavior so that all prescriptions regardless of chronic status now display as a complete list. Enabling the chronic medication toggle will filter the prescription list to display only chronic medications from the larger complete list.
Prescriptions | Status Enhancements
We have improved the status logic and options for prescriptions. Statuses update automatically but with added options such as expired - you can now more easily recall the status of the prescription without any uncertainty.
Prescriptions | Rx Valid Thru Phrasing
To improve clarity in prescription expiration date understanding, we have updated the phrasing relating to the prescription validity period. Formerly the prescription's expiration date was recognized under 'Refills Valid Thru'. This has been updated to 'Rx Valid Thru'.
Prescriptions | Rx Creation Date
In our recent prescription table updates, we recognize that the prescription creation date was not included in the initial release. We have expanded the included columns - and the original prescription creation date is now visible under 'Rx Creation Date'. Learn more about prescription features in our help guide!
We will be continuing to enhance the prescription features on the patient page. Please check our roadmap feature portal for proposed change examples. You can vote on your preferred designs and share feedback to any other changes you would appreciate our product team to consider!
Whiteboard | General Updates
Our whiteboard features now support adding and reviewing patient vitals directly from the whiteboard page. You can also search for treatments by keywords. Learn more about our whiteboard features in our help guide!
API Updates 🤖
OpenAPI
Our clinic-accessible OpenAPI features will transition into a paid feature with this release. If OpenAPI features are currently enabled, practice owners and admin users will see an acknowledgment modal the next time they log into Shepherd. This modal must be reviewed and accepted before OpenAPI features can be restored to an active state.
OpenAPI access will incur a $35 monthly fee, which will be automatically added to the Shepherd subscription upon acceptance.
If you do not wish to continue using OpenAPI features, you can decline acceptance of the subscription fee.
Updated terms and conditions for OpenAPI usage will also be presented for review and confirmation.
API Endpoint | General Updates
Beta Feature Updates 🔧
TranscribeAI
TranscribeAI features will remain in beta testing for a short while longer - but in this release significant changes were released. We are working diligently to ensure TranscribeAI features are available to all users as soon as possible.
TranscribeAI now supports AI Insight engagement, which means you can request for your transcription to be translated into Spanish, prepared in a bullet point format alternatively, and much more!
You can also customize if you prefer for physical exam template engagement to maintain a default of 'normal' values even if a specific value was not mentioned, or default to a 'did not examine (DNE)' default. The new AI feature related setting can be found by following: Admin -> Clinic Settings -> Settings -> General -> AI Settings -> Default to normal Physical Exam Template values
Again, the TranscribeAI features are still in beta testing so we are looking for engaged feedback from our beta users with this release. If you are interested in beta testing, please contact AIfeedback@Shepherd.Vet - you can also learn more about TranscribeAI in our help guide!
Vetcove Ordering Integration
While the Vetcove ordering integration is still in closed beta testing - we recognize that our users appreciate visibility into progress towards full launch! In this release we have enhance the disabling behavior to reduce any complications if you decide the integration is not a good fit for your account or inventory management style. We also enhanced the item linking and unlinking behavior if you need to make any changes. Learn more about our Vetcove Ordering Integration in our help guide!
Please note - Shepherd also supports a Vetcove Home Delivery Integration which is separate from the Ordering Integration.