Do I need any special computer hardware or software to use PracticeLight?

No.  Member clinics submit data and access their Dashboards through PracticeLight’s secure website.  There is no equipment to buy or maintain, and no PracticeLight-specific software to download, install, or upgrade.  The service is available anywhere you have a modern Internet browser and reliable broadband access.  However, we do suggest that you keep up-to-date with the software that determines how you experience web content and interact with any files that you may decide to download from PracticeLight.  Note that all of the software we refer to in this FAQ item can be downloaded for free from the developers’ websites.

Internet Browsers

PracticeLight’s website has been developed to take advantage of advanced capabilities provided in the most recent releases of popular browsers and compatible plugins.  For the best possible experience, we recommend that you have updated versions of your preferred browser and plugin software installed on your computer.  The table below contains the most recent major browser releases available for the Windows and Apple OS platforms as of July 1, 2011.

Adobe Resources

PracticeLight uses Adobe’s Flash technology to deliver some of its multimedia content.  While having an updated version of Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer is not required for you to access our services, doing so will ensure that you can view this content the way it was intended to be seen.  We also deliver certain documents using Adobe Acrobat’s .pdf format. If you do not already have Adobe Flash Player and Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, we suggest that you download them from Adobe’s website.

Document Files

While Microsoft Office applications have become a de facto standard among most business users, we recognize that not every clinic will have access to the most recent version of this software.  For this reason, PracticeLight tools we produce using Word, Excel or PowerPoint will be compatible with both Office 2007 and Office 2010 releases.  Some tools may also work with earlier releases depending on the complexity of their features and formatting.

Please be aware that most popular alternatives to Microsoft Office applications, such as Google Docs (web-based) and OpenOffice (open-source software) will not generally preserve the appearance and functionality of our more advanced tools.  However, the alternatives listed in the table below may allow Members to access simpler tools and templates.  Keep in mind, though, that PracticeLight does not provide troubleshooting support in cases where native Word, Excel or PowerPoint files are converted to other application formats.

Working with Office Files

	Open-Source	Web-Based	Website Link
Office Live/Office 365			Office Live
Google Docs			Google Docs
OpenOffice			OpenOffice
IBM Lotus Symphony			Lotus Symphony