DF_QCfax
DF_QCfax — Fax or email Query Reports
Synopsis
DF_QCfax
{study}
[-t]
[-f #]
[-F replyto]
[
[-p password]
| [-P]
]
[-r #]
[-d #]
[-q #]
[-A4]
[-font FontName]
[-label SignatureLineLabel]
[-h hostname]
[-w hh:mm]
[
[-u report(s)]
| [-s report(s)]
| [-i name]
| [-b yymmdd]
| [-a ]
]
Description
DF_QCfax converts Query Reports into PDF documents, includes DFdiscover bar coding, and transmits them to the clinical sites and/or other destinations by fax or email.
Often, DF_QCfax will be run shortly after creating a new batch of Query Reports,
to send them to the clinical sites. When this is the case, it is not necessary
to specify the reports to be sent. The default is to send all reports
listed in file reports/QC/QC_NEW,
which is re-created each time DF_QCreports is used to create a new batch
of external Query Reports.
If some of the reports listed in this file have already been transmitted
by a previous run of DF_QCfax they will be skipped, and not sent out again.
When not sending a batch of newly created external Query Reports, the reports
to be transmitted must be specified explicitly using one of 5 options,
only one of which can be used at a time.
The -s and -u options are used to
identified previously sent and unsent external Query Reports respectively,
and the -i option is used to identify internal Query Reports,
whether previously sent or not.
Each of these 3 options must be followed by a space delimited list of
the report names to be transmitted.
The 4th option,
-b, is used to re-transmit the backlog of
transmission failures (if any) from a previous run of DF_QCfax for a set of
external Query Reports created on a particular date.
The -b option is followed by a single report date in
yymmdd format. This identifies the creation date
of the set of Query Reports to be re-tried if they have not yet been
successfully transmitted.
(Note: This is the date included in the Query Report name.
It is the report creation date and may be different from the date
on which the Query Reports were transmitted by DF_QCfax).
This is the option to use to ensure that Query Reports are re-transmitted
to all of the destinations listed for each clinical site in the sites
database. While re-running DF_QCfax with no options will keep trying to
send any Query Reports listed in file reports/QC/QC_NEW
which have not been delivered, it only does this for the primary destination
for each external Query Report. The -b option will do it for
the secondary destinations as well.
The 5th
and final option, -a, is used to transmit
all unsent reports, residing in the QC directory.
Use this option carefully.
Each time DF_QCreports is run, Query Reports are created in the study QC
directory. If any of these reports are not transmitted using DF_QCfax,
or marked as sent using DF_QCsent, they remain in this directory.
Subsequently running DF_QCfax with the -a option will fax
all of the Query Reports found in the QC directory.
This could result in sending old Query Reports that are no longer relevant.
In many cases the -b option will be a better choice.
![[Warning]](../../imagedata/warning.png) | Use of -b |
|---|---|
|
The backlog option relies on finding a record of all previous transmission attempts in file , a journal of Query Report transmissions maintained by DF_QCfax. Thus changes to the sites database to modify or add destinations for any of the clinical sites, will not be used by the backlog option. Only destinations registered in are considered for re-transmission. Changes to the destinations listed in the sites database only become effective for Query Reports sent by DF_QCfax after the changes were made.
DF_QCfax needs to know whether any given transmission is bound for a
primary or secondary destination. Thus when the backlog option is used
it looks for at least one entry in
with the |
When sending external Query Reports to the clinical sites, it is not
necessary to specify the destination fax number or email address
for each site.
By default, DF_QCfax will send the external Query Report created for each
clinical site to all of the fax or email destinations listed in the
Primary Fax field of the sites database
for that site.
This field can contain one or more fax numbers and/or email addresses.
The first fax number or email address in the field is considered the
primary destination for the clinical site and all others are secondary
destinations.
However, it is also
possible to override the destination(s) specified in the sites database
by using the -f option followed by a space delimited list of
fax numbers and/or email addresses.
With this option, each of the specified reports is sent to all of the
specified destinations.
Since there is no site ID automatically associated with internal Query
Reports, the -f option must be used to specify
at least one destination fax number and/or email address,
when sending internal reports.
When sending an external Query Report to multiple destinations,
the first fax number or email address in the list of destinations
is considered the primary destination for that site,
and all others are considered secondary destinations.
This is true whether the destination list is specified explicitly using
the -f option, or is obtained from the
Primary Fax field of the sites database.
On successful transmission of an external Query Report to a primary destination
DF_QCfax runs DF_QCsent which marks all of the queries in the report
sent, and moves the report to the QC/sent directory.
This does not happen on successful transmission to secondary destinations.
Reports which could not be transmitted to their primary destination
remain in the QC directory, and their queries retain their old
status of in report.
If a transmission is successful the report name, date, time and fax number is
registered in with the keyword FAXED,
and if it failed it is registered with the keyword FAILED.
The keyword PRIMARY identifies those transmissions bound
for the primary destination for a clinical site.
| Emailing Query Reports |
|---|---|
|
Due to the limitations of email technology,
it is not always possible to accurately
determine the final status of emailed reports, and thus they are always
considered to have been successful, and are registered in
with the keyword It is recommended that a fax number be used as the primary destination for a site whenever one is available, and email address(s) (and additional fax numbers) be used as secondary destinations. Use an email address as the primary destination when it is the only method available. |
| |
|
Since both DF_QCfaxlog and the |
If transmission is by email, DFdiscover converts the
Query Report to PDF format (if it is not already in that format) and then sends
it as a MIME attachment to the specified email address.
This PDF attachment can optionally be password protected and encrypted using the
-p to specify a password,
or the password-P option to use the user's default password.
When emailing an external Query Report the email return address is taken from the
REPLY TO field of the sites database.
The -F option can be used to override this value or to add a
return address when emailing an internal Query Report.
If a return address is not supplied in either of these ways the email will be
identified as coming from user datafax and any reply sent to
this address will be delivered to the DFdiscover problem mail recipient.
In Query Reports sent via email, the subject line of the email has the
following format:
Query Report for
where studyname: site site #, year/month/day
studyname is determined from
/opt/dfdiscover/lib/DFstudies.db. If studyname
cannot be determined, the subject line of the email has the
following format:
Query Report for
study #: site site #, year/month/day
By default reports are sent immediately.
The -w option can be used to delay transmission to
a specified time. This option accepts the following values:
-
hh:mm: the next occurrence of a specified time (using a 24 hr clock) -
now: transmit immediately (default) -
midnight: transmit at midnight tonight -
noon: transmit at noon
The complete list of values which are legal for this option matches those available for DFsendfax and can be found in Programmer Guide, Delayed Sending.
![[Important]](../../imagedata/important.png) | Sending documents manually |
|---|---|
|
If for some reason you decide not to distribute Query Reports using
DF_QCfax, but instead to send them to the clinical sites some other way,
remember to run DF_QCsent to register these documents
as having been sent.
Otherwise and the queries will not be updated.
As a result, DF_QCfaxlog could not be used to track report transmissions,
the |
Options
-f | Use the specified
destination fax number or email address for all reports. Fax numbers must
be specified as you would dial them from your fax machine (including long
distance and/or area codes where necessary). Email addresses must be
specified in the format
mailto:,
where mailto: is fixed and required, and
email_address is a valid email address.
|
-F replyto | Use the specified
return email address for all reports.
The email return address must be a fully qualified, valid email address.
Do not include the mailto: prefix used with the -f option.
No prefix is required or allowed.
|
-p password | Encrypt the file to be emailed using the supplied
|
-P | Encrypt the file to be emailed using the password specified in
the password file |
-r | Specify the number of retries for each document to send. The total number of attempts is this number of retries plus 1. The default number of retries is 2. |
-d | Specify the number of minutes to wait before retrying a failed attempt. The default delay wait is 10 minutes. |
-q | Specify the outgoing document queue number to be used for sending. The default is to add all documents to the same queue. |
-A4 | Format the output for A4-sized paper. The default is to format for US letter-sized paper. |
-font FontName | Use the specified font, or the default "Courier New" if the specified font is not found on the DFdiscover server. |
-label SignatureLineLabel | Send Query Reports with a customized label for the investigator signature line at the top of each page. Label text must be enclosed in double quotes. Empty double quotes allow the signature line to be omitted from all pages of the report. The default signature line label is "Study Coordinator Sign and Date". |
-h hostname | Specify the outgoing HylaFAX fax server hostname. The default is the HylaFAX fax server on the DFdiscover master machine. |
-w hh:mm | Delay transmission until the specified time (hour and minute) |
-a | Fax all unsent Query Reports found in the
study |
-u report(s) | Fax the specified unsent report(s) (from the |
-s report(s) | Fax the specified previously sent report(s) (from the
|
-i name | Fax the named internal report(s) (from the |
-b yymmdd | Re-send a Query Report to all destinations to which it has so
far failed on all attempts. |
-t | Test mode. Echo what would be done without actually doing it. Use this argument to check that everything is set up properly, and that the desired documents have been correctly identified for transmission. The execution commands from DF_QCfax are displayed as the output, but they are not executed. Each Query Report is identified as to where it would have been sent but not when. |
Examples
Example 2.42. Send two unsent Query Reports, created for sites 120 and 122 on Aug 15/04
-u 120-040815 122-040815Example 2.43. Fax an internal report named test to 555-1212 from dan at 2am
-w 02:00 -f 555-1212 -i test -F dan@hotmail.comExample 2.44. Send an unsent Query Report created for site 123 on June 3/04, retrying once, if necessary, after a delay of 30 minutes
-r 1 -d 30 -u 123-040603Example 2.45. Email a previously sent external Query Report created for site 150 on June 25/04 to
dan@hotmail.com.
-s 150-040625 -f mailto:dan@hotmail.comExample 2.47. Email the unsent external Query Report created for site 123 on August 8, 2010 to dan@hotmail.com with a customized signature line
-u 123-100808 -f mailto:dan@hotmail.com -label "Please review and sign"