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Hi Dentally team and community,

Following a recent support exchange, I’d like to propose a feature enhancement that could significantly improve data quality and audit processes for users integrating Dentally data into external systems like data warehouses.

Context:
Currently, TPIs (Treatment Plan Items) assigned via the “Base Chart” tab are not linked to a treatment plan and therefore have a NULL TP ID in both the API and exported data. While this is expected behaviour—as base charting is intended for documenting baseline dental status—it creates a challenge for downstream systems. Specifically, it becomes difficult to distinguish between:

  • TPIs genuinely missing a TP ID due to ingestion or data quality issues, and
  • TPIs that are correctly linked because they were assigned to a base chart.

Feature Request:
Could Dentally consider adding an explicit flag or indicator in the API response to identify TPIs that were created via the base chart? This would allow users to:

  • Reliably filter and classify TPIs during data ingestion
  • Improve audit accuracy and reconciliation of treatment plan data
  • Reduce ambiguity in data pipelines and reporting

Why it matters:
In our current data environment, we’ve observed a substantial volume of TPIs with missing treatment plan references. Without a reliable way to distinguish between valid base chart entries and potential data quality issues, it becomes difficult to confidently assess and reconcile treatment plan data. This ambiguity introduces risk into our audit processes and complicates downstream reporting and analytics.

Even a simple boolean field like isBaseChart: true/false would be immensely helpful.

 

Kind Regards,

Parv

Hi Parv,

We have a `base_chart` attribute shown in the docs here: https://developer.dentally.co/#the-treatment-plan-item-object - is this not working for the use case you’ve outlined? If not, let me know and I can help you look into this further.

Hi Max,

Thanks for your response. You are correct and I will investigate this further to see whether this will help, as it should.

I was misdirected after the Dentally Chat Bot responded to my query with the following:
 

“Yes, it's expected behaviour for treatment plan items (TPIs) assigned to a base chart to have a NULL TP ID. When you use the "Base Chart" tab, items charted there are not associated with a treatment plan - they're specifically designed to document the patient's baseline dental status rather than planned treatment.

The base chart mode is accessed via the "Base Chart" tab on the right of the chart screen. Any items charted in this mode will NOT go onto a treatment plan and instead become part of the patient's baseline chart.

Unfortunately, there's no direct API flag to identify these base chart items. The most reliable way to distinguish them is by checking if they have a NULL TP ID, as you've observed. This is the expected system behaviour that separates baseline documentation from treatment planning.”

Thanks for following up - I’ll flag this response with the appropriate team, I know they are working to make the bot replies as accurate as possible.

No problem Max. Using the TPI base chart attribute is working to identify base chart TPs therefore you can consider this matter resolved.

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