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