ScriptBase

ScriptBase is suitable for a wide range of services, ranging from a single GP through to large, multi site drug services with a thousand prescribed clients. How you install ScriptBase largely depends on where you sit on this spectrum. The following is general guidance, please get in touch if you want to talk through your options.

We will divide the options into four types of installation of increasing scale and complexity:

• Single machine for a single prescriber.
• Local Area Network (LAN) for a small team within a single building.
• Wide Area Network (WAN) for large teams with IT team support.
• Client / Server installation on Wide Area Network (WAN) for large or multi-site teams with IT team support.

Single Machine

This approach is suitable when one person is responsible for managing prescriptions, or at least where you are happy to always use the same computer for this task. We would also usually recomend this approach when you begin your 60 day trial because it keeps things simple and you can move the database to one of the more involved installation types below if you decide to keep using the software.

This installation is very straight forward. Just download the installer and run the executable file. This will ask for admin permission for the computer and then install the program in the standard location proposed by Windows.

You then run the software from the Windows start menu. When first run, ScriptBase is unable to find a database, so offers to create one. You are required to enter some basic information about your clinic (get this right, it cannot be changed later) and ScriptBase will then create the database in the default location: on recent versions of Windows this is C:\ProgramData\ScriptBase

That's it, you can now use ScriptBase. If you use this with 'real' clients, you should make sure that you are taking a regular backup of the database and you can confirm the location of this from within ScriptBase by clicking Help menu, then About, then 'Location of database'.

Multiple users on Local Area Network

In this scenario, we are assuming that several or many members of staff need to use ScriptBase from different computers, but these are based at a single site.

What you will need is a place to store the database that can be accessed by all the users who need to use ScriptBase. Ideally, this is a network share on an offsite server which is regularly backed up. At a pinch, you could set up a share on one of the machines in the building and set up permissions so that all the computers in the building have access to the shared folder. The important thing is that your ScriptBase users are using Windows login accounts that have full Read / Write permissions to use this folder.

You then need to install the ScriptBase executable so that users can run this on the individual workstations.

Download and run the ScriptBase installer as described in the single machine option above. On the first workstation, select to create a new database, but use the 'share' location for the database, so it is stored there rather than on the local machine. Then, for the other workstations, install ScriptBase, run and on the wizard choose to use an 'existing' ScriptBase 4 database and pick the network location.

This approach works well, but has one drawback. When you want to upgrade ScriptBase, you need to do so on every workstation. If this is a concern, you might consider the next option.

Wide Area Network

This takes the LAN approach a littler further and is suitable where you have remote servers, IT team support and the ability to use Windows login to automatically manage user permissions and put shortcuts on user desktops. Most NHS Trust Drug Teams with ten or more staff would fall into this category.

1. Create a network share on a remote server. This needs to be on a fast network link. Create three folders within root of the share: /program /data & /backup
2. Create a permissions group in windows for this installation of ScriptBase. Change the permissions of the /program folder to be read-only and read/write for the /data and /backup folders.
3. Download the Zip archive of ScriptBase files without the installer: and unzip the contents into the /program folder
4. If you already have a ScriptBase database, move this into the /data folder on the server. Make sure that file permissions allow read / write permissions for all users in the ScriptBase group.
5. In the /program folder, create a file called 'localsettings.ini' and add a single value 'DataPath=location' where location is replaced with the UNC directory path to the /data share. It is more robust to use UNC notation rather than relying on drive mapping, though you could use mapping if you want.
6. You then need to add a shortcut to the ScriptBase executable - /program/sbase.exe - onto the desktop of all users in the ScriptBase group.
7. Log on to windows as a user of the ScriptBase group, check the desktop icon works and that you can login to ScriptBase using a ScriptBase user with admin permissions. Under Options | Settings | All computers | Backup. Tick the 'Backup ScriptBase data when you exit the program and put the UNC path to the /backup folder in the 'Where to store backup files'. This will ensure that once per day, ScriptBase will make a snapshot of the database to this location.
8. Finally, check that your main system / server backup regime includes the ScriptBase share, including both the /data and /backup folders.

Although this was a bit of work to set up, this is a very robust way of hosting ScriptBase. When you want to upgrade, you just need to stop everyone using the software and install the latest ScriptBase executable in the /program folder. Everyone then has access to the latest version. Although it is 'unconventional' to store the exe on the network like this, it is not a big file and has a trivial impact on the network. Many ScriptBase customers have set things up this way and it works very well.

Client / Server installation

The most secure, performant and scalable way of hosting ScriptBase is the new 'Client/Server' mode. This involves installing additional software, on a server, which communicates 'between' the ScriptBase executable ('sbase.exe') and the database. This makes the database more secure, because individual users do not need permission to the database folder itself.

Client Server is worth considering if you have large teams and want to increase performance and / or security. It is not particularly complicated to set up, but this is a task for a specialist IT team. When set up, it should require little maintanence, but would likely take a day or two work to put everything in place.

Please see the Technical Notes - Client / Server: for more information.