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Sharing and referrals

There are two ways to share a case yourself, and they answer different questions. Two more put a case in front of somebody for their advice: a paid specialist opinion — see Specialist opinions — and a supplier’s free recommendation (see How do I ask a supplier about a case? below). On a practice plan your practice colleagues already see the practice’s cases.

Both are described below — the link first, then named colleagues.

A link shows the case as it is now

This is the single most important thing to understand about sharing.

A referral link is a pointer to the case, not a copy of it. Whenever the recipient opens the link they see the case as it stands at that moment — so anything you change after sending the link is what they see next time. There is nothing to re-send.

The plain consequence: a colleague can catch a plan mid-edit. If you are halfway through moving an osteotomy when they open the link, that is what they get. If it matters that they see a finished plan, finish it first, or tell them when to look. On a computer or tablet their view says the case is live and shows when it was last edited, so nobody mistakes a working draft for a considered one. On a phone it does not, so tell them yourself whether the plan is finished.

The recipient’s browser fetches the case once, when they open the link. It does not update while they sit there — they reload the page to pick up your latest changes.

How do I create a referral link?

1. Open the case, or find it in your gallery.
2. Click Send this case — the share icon in the top bar, or on the case card. It opens the case’s Send page, with A specialist, for an opinion, A supplier and A colleague along the top. Choose A colleague.
3. Go to Referral links — beside the people you have shared it with on a computer, below them on a phone.
4. Choose what to include (see below), and optionally tick Require a PIN on the new link (see below).
5. Type your colleague’s email address in the box at the bottom, add a note if you like, and press Send Link. Librevet emails them the link and your note — no patient details, and never the PIN — and their reply comes back to you. If the link should expire, choose 1, 7 or 30 days first; No Expiry is where it starts.
6. To send the link yourself instead — by text message, say, or through your practice management system — type a label in the same box (e.g. “Dr Smith referral”, so you know which link went to whom) or leave it empty, press Create Link, and Copy the link from the list.

The new link appears in the list above the form, and the form says so. Email beside a link sends it again, or to somebody else.

A case can have several live links at once. Sharing the same case separately with two people gives you two links you can label and revoke independently, each with its own PIN, expiry, and choice of what to include.

Only the surgeon who owns a case can create a referral link for it. If a colleague has shared a case with you by name, ask them to send the link, or make your own copy of the case and share that — a link always opens the owner’s copy.

How do I put a PIN on a link?

When you make a link, tick Require a PIN on the new link and the app gives you a 6-digit PIN. The recipient must type it before the case will open, so a link forwarded on, or read off a screen, is not enough on its own. To protect a link you have already sent, press Add a PIN beside it in the list; whoever has the link then needs the PIN to open it again.

Two things worth knowing:

• Only you hold the PIN. The server keeps a scrambled version it cannot turn back into the PIN, so nobody — including us — can look it up. The app shows it beside the link on the computer you made it on, until you sign out there — it will not appear on another machine, a colleague you have named on the case cannot see it, and a PIN cannot be changed. Write it down anyway. If you lose it, the only remedy is to revoke the link and make a new one.
• Wrong codes are counted. After about five wrong tries the link locks for roughly fifteen minutes.

Send the PIN by a different route from the link itself — text the PIN if you emailed the link. A PIN in the same email protects nothing.

What can I leave out of a shared case?

The form for a new link has two tick boxes, both on by default, because a referral colleague usually needs the lot:

• Patient & vet identifying details — the patient’s name, patient ID, microchip, date of birth, the attending vet, the client’s name, the case name (case names very often contain the patient’s name) and the films’ file names, which become Radiograph 1 and so on. Turn this off and the recipient sees an anonymised case instead.
• Attachments — pre-op notes, lab results, and any other files on the case. An anonymised link cannot carry attachments or videos, because a letter or a clip cannot be redacted, so turning off identifying details leaves those out too.

Clinical signalment — species, breed, weight, sex and neuter status, body condition, and the injury history — is always shared. The receiving surgeon cannot judge a plan without it.

These choices belong to the link and are applied every time it is opened, so a link created without patient details stays anonymous no matter how the case changes afterwards. Different links on the same case can make different choices.

Whatever you exclude is named on the recipient’s view, so they can see something was withheld and ask, rather than working from a plan they wrongly believe is complete.

A caution about free text. Your clinical summary, tags, examination findings, notes on other conditions, allergies and injuries, and your report are shared as written, and the app cannot reliably strip names out of prose. If you are anonymising a case, read your own notes through first — owner and patient names have a habit of turning up in them.

What does the recipient see?

• The case’s name
• The clinical record — the patient’s details, history, examination, assessment and plan, as you filled them in under Record — and your own report if you have written one under Specialist report, minus anything you excluded — behind Clinical record at the top of the page
• All radiographs in the case, as they stand when the link is opened
• Your measurements, overlays, implant templates, and osteotomy planning
• Attachments, if you included them
• Who sent it — see Does the vet I refer to see who sent it?
• On a computer or tablet, a line saying the view is live, and when the case was last edited

They cannot change anything, they need no account, and they cannot see any of your other cases — not even your other links to this same case.

Does the vet I refer to see who sent it?

Yes, unless you left out identifying details. Clinical record at the top of the link’s page opens with Sent by: your practice’s logo and name, its address, phone number, email and website, and your own name with your photo if you have added one. The phone number and email are links, so a vet on a phone can call or write straight from it. On a computer the practice’s name and logo also sit beside the buttons at the top of the page.

Your practice’s details are set under Your practice → Practice details, and your name and photo under Account → Profile — see Settings. An anonymised link shows none of it: the practice that treated an animal identifies the case as surely as the attending vet’s name, which that choice already leaves out.

Where do I see the links I have sent?

Referral links (Send this case → A colleague) lists every link on the case. When a case has links open, the top of the Send page also says how many, under Who has it now, and that goes straight there. Each link shows:

• Its label — the address you sent it to, or the name you gave it — and when it was created
• Whether it is active, revoked, or expired
• Whether it needs a PIN — and Add a PIN on a link that has none
• Copy or Email to send the link again, and who it was last emailed to
• The bin, Revoke link, to withdraw it; confirm with Revoke Link

A revoked link stays in the list, marked revoked, rather than disappearing. That way you keep a record of what you sent and when. If revoking fails — usually because the connection dropped — the link stays active in the list and the app tells you it did not work. If a link vanished silently you could believe access had been withdrawn when it had not.

How do I revoke a link, and what does revoking not take back?

Revoking takes effect at once. The next time anyone opens that link they get an access error, with no notification sent to them. If the recipient still needs the case, create the new link before you revoke the old one.

What revoking cannot do is recall a radiograph the recipient has already opened. Their browser has downloaded it, and they may have saved it. The picture addresses the viewer is given expire within about fifteen minutes, so a revoked link cannot fetch the films again — but a copy already on somebody’s machine is out of your hands. Revoking closes the case view: the films, the patient details, the measurements and the plan.

Treat a referral link the way you would treat emailing the X-rays: fine for a colleague, and not something you can take back cleanly.

If a link will not open

Because the case is read live, opening a link goes through the Librevet sharing service. In the rare event that service is down, the recipient is told exactly that — the link itself is fine, and it will work again shortly. Nobody is shown an empty case or a vague error.

How do I share with a named colleague?

Instead of a link, you can name people on the case by email address — up to 25 per case. They sign in with that address and the case appears in their own gallery, alongside their own work. You can name someone who has not signed up yet; the case is waiting for them when they do.

You name them under People with access (Send this case → A colleague), and they are emailed to say the case is waiting. Unlike a referral link, a named colleague can edit the plan, at the same time as you and anyone else on the case. The films stay yours: a colleague cannot add or remove a view, and uses Make my own copy if they need to.

Working on it together

Everyone on a case works on it at once:

• Marks appear as they are made. What a colleague draws on the films shows up on yours a moment later, and yours on theirs.
• Each mark is its own. Two people placing different marks both keep theirs; if two of you drag the same mark at the same moment, it ends where whoever let go last put it.
• Undo takes back only your own work, never a colleague’s.
• Each change is credited to whoever made it in the audit trail and Version history, whichever screen saved it.
• The top bar shows who else is on the case right now, as a coloured initial each, and the Items list puts a colleague’s initials beside the marks they placed.

The record — clinical information, report, medications, lab results, communications — works the same way: writing merges as in a shared document, every other answer is whoever entered it last, and a field somebody else changes lights up briefly.

If a screen’s connection cannot pass changes on as they happen, that screen goes back to one person editing at a time, and the banner says who.

How do I remove someone from a case?

Take their email off the case and their access ends, the same way revoking a link does. There is no notification either way.

Does Librevet remember the email addresses I have used?

Yes. Click any email box on Send this case and the addresses you have sent cases to are listed, most recent first; type a few letters to narrow the list, and click one to fill the box. Nothing is sent until you press Share, Send or Send Link. The list follows your account to any computer. The × beside an address forgets it, until you send to it again.

Where are the cases shared with me?

The Shared location in the gallery sidebar has two tabs, each with its own count, because the two are opposite jobs:

• Shared with me — a colleague’s case, waiting for you. It is also on Home until you file it in one of your folders. It is not yours to delete (unless it belongs to your practice and you are its owner or a manager), but you can take it off your gallery: it stays listed here and opens as before, and Put back on my gallery returns it. Neither changes anything for your colleague — see Working with cases. Its card says who shared it — their name, with their photo if they have added one, or their email address if they have set neither.
• Shared by me — your own case with somebody else’s eyes on it: a named colleague whose access has not ended, or a referral link that is neither revoked nor expired. Practice cases you took off your own gallery are listed here too.

A case that has been shared carries a small badge on its Send this case button counting the shares that are live now — named colleagues, open links and any specialist it has gone to. A link counts once, however many people hold it, and a revoked or expired one is not counted.

A referral link never appears in anybody’s gallery. It opens its own read-only viewer and works whether or not the recipient has an account, so tell them to keep the link — bookmarking it is the only way back to the case.

What does a referral link never show?

• Your other cases
• Your other referral links to this same case, or their PINs
• The colleagues you have named on this case
• Your account details

A named colleague is different: they open the case itself rather than a link, so they can see who else it is shared with. They never see a PIN.

How do I ask a supplier about a case?

Not open yet — we are signing up the first suppliers now. A supplier is already on the Send page, and it says so when no supplier takes cases from your country.

A supplier — a manufacturer or a wholesaler — can look at a case and write back with what it recommends: the implants and sizes, say, or the products and doses. It is called Industry Recommendations, and it is free.

1. Open the case, or find it in your gallery, and click Send this case. Choose A supplier.
2. Pick the supplier. The list is the suppliers that take cases from your country; if Librevet does not know your country yet, the form asks once and saves it to your account. A supplier marked Customers only asks for your account number too.
3. Under What would you like their advice on?, say what you want to know, and press Send to and the supplier’s name.

You can also start from Industry Recommendations in the gallery sidebar: press Send a case for a recommendation, or Ask on one supplier’s card, and pick the case.

Only a case of your own can go to a supplier. On a case a colleague shared with you, A supplier is greyed out: make your own copy first. A supplier’s advice is not independent — they sell what they recommend.

What does a supplier see?

Hide the owner’s details starts ticked. Ticked, the supplier sees your practice, the animal and its clinical record, and the films and videos with your plan on them, but not the owner’s details. The case’s letters and reports go only if you also tick Send the attachments too, which starts unticked because they go as they are, with any names in them. Untick Hide the owner’s details and they see the whole case, with its attachments. Like a referral link, it shows the case as it stands when they open it.

The app cannot strip a name from typed notes, a video, or text burned into the corner of a film, so check them before you send.

Where does a supplier’s recommendation arrive?

Under Industry Recommendations in the gallery sidebar, and you are emailed whenever they answer, decline or write to you. Cases you have sent lists each case with where it has got to: sent, being looked at, answered, declined or withdrawn. Click one to see your question, their recommendation and, underneath, Questions and replies, where you and the supplier can write to each other — no files, either way. Until they answer, Withdraw takes the case back.

Does deleting a case end its sharing?

Deleting your own case ends its sharing for good. Putting it in the bin revokes every link on it and ends every colleague’s access, immediately, and restoring the case brings back neither. The case comes back; the links stay revoked, and each colleague stays listed under People with access as Expired, with the day their access ended — they cannot open the case, and it is not put back in their gallery. To share it with one of them again, type their address and press Share. A specialist or a supplier you sent it to is the exception: they cannot open the case while it is in the trash, and restoring it lets them carry on.

A colleague’s case deleted by your practice’s owner or a manager only pauses its sharing. Nobody it was shared with can open it while it is in the trash, but nothing is revoked, so restoring it lets everyone back in as the colleague left it — links and named colleagues alike, except any whose end date passed in the meantime. So the bin is not the way to take a case away from somebody: to end their access for good, the colleague who shared it revokes the link or takes their email off the case. See Working with cases.