Launching Display Screens

Overview

One of the most useful ways of making use of the data that PTS collects is to output the progress of ongoing prescriptions to external display screens, also known as status screens. The types of display available are Outpatient, Dispensary and Delivery.

Setting up the appropriate user views is outside the scope of this guide but the user views are set up almost exactly like a normal home page user view, however the Type of View setting should simply be set to Outpatient Display, Dispensary Display, or Delivery Display instead of Standard View. Make sure the user view is the default, or ideally the only user view for the user account in question. It is strongly recommended that you set up dedicated user accounts specifically for this purpose as the username and password will need to be shared around. You should create a user account for each screen you want to set up. Consider locking down the user permissions so the accounts can do very little else.

Setting up a desktop shortcut

Next you will set up a desktop shortcut icon that directs to the newly created view.

The shortcut will be constructed like this:

"Path to web browser application" --kiosk --window-position=HorizontalOffset,VerticalOffset "PTS URL with login parameters"

Path to web browser application

e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe"

The physical path to the chosen web application executable. In the example, Microsoft Edge is selected, but Chrome is also supported. Internet Explorer probably won't work.

If the PC hosting the screen will also be used as a normal PTS terminal it's a good idea to use a different web browser application for this so the two sessions don't conflict with each other.

Kiosk and Window Position arguments

e.g. --kiosk --window-position=1921,0

Including --kiosk instructs the application to load the web page in full screen.

--window-position is the pixel offset from the top left corner of the primary display where the status screen will appear. The default is 0,0. For our purposes this can be used to open the page on a secondary monitor; this is done by specifying the horizontal offset to be one pixel greater than the horizontal resolution of the primary monitor. For example if the primary monitor is a 1920x1080 display, specify --window-position=1921,0 to open the page on the secondary monitor.

If you have a more elaborate monitor arrangement you should still be able to get the status screen to appear where you want it to by experimenting with both of the window-position values.

Either set the value to 0,0 or omit the parameter entirely to have the screen open on the main display.

PTS URL with autologin parameters

e.g. "http://prescriptiontracking.co.uk/?User=OUTDISP&Password=pharmacy&IgnoreWindowsUsername=True"

This is the URL to your PTS installation with the username and password passed through as a query string along with a command to ignore the Windows username.

1. User
   The username of the display screen user.
2. Password
   The corresponding password.
3. IgnoreWindowsUsername
   Set this to True. This instructs PTS not to attempt to login based on the Windows user account, like it might do normally.

Completed shortcut example

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --kiosk --window-position=1921,0 "http://prescriptiontracking.co.uk/?user=OUTDISP&password=pharmacy&IgnoreWindowsUsername=True"

Now that you have your shortcut path constructed, simply right-click on the desktop, go to New > Shortcut and enter the path into the Location field and then give then shortcut a name and save it. The name of the shortcut isn't particularly important. Double click the file to verify that it opens up in the way you want it too.

If kiosk mode prevents you from closing the page back down, either Alt+Tab or Ctrl+Alt+Del to move away from it.

Getting Windows to load the shortcut automatically when any user logs in

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