palCentre is the software for entering and managing data relating to PCOC (Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration) . PCOC and PACOP (Palliative Aged Care Outcomes Program).
PCOC is a national palliative care outcomes and benchmarking program. PCOC’s primary objective is to systematically improve patient outcomes (including pain and symptom control). For more information on the dataset collected please see our the PCOC data dictionary. For more information on how the data is used, please see our data policy.The palCentre software is replacing SNAPshot which is the original software used for PCOC data entry.the PCOC data policy.
PACOP is a national palliative aged care program that is dedicated to significantly improving the outcomes of all Australians in aged care homes with a particular focus on those who are approaching the end of their life. For more information on the dataset collected please see the PACOP IT Specifications (link coming soon!). For more information on how the data is uses, please see the PACOP data policy (link coming soon!)
Supported database platform
palCentre uses the industry standard database server SQL Server 2008. It supports SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 , and supports versions of SQL Server and SQL Server Express 2008. from 2008 through to 2016 (This software is not included with palCentre).
For small installations or where your facility has limited IT resources, using a SQL Compact Edition database will may be the best optiondatabase solution. PCOC will preconfigure the database and send to your service. You will be able to can save the SQL Compact Edition database on a shared drive that the user has all users have access to.
Requirement: SQL Port 1433 Open
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palCentre also requires that your SQL Server is configured to allow SQL Logins (as opposed to Windows Authentication). Mixed mode authentication will also work, but palCentre uses SQL Logins to connect to the server.
Creating and configuring the
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palCentre Database
palCentre has a built-in database configuration wizard for creating and configuring the palCentre database in order to streamline the installation process. The installation package also includes the SQL Scripts for creating the database, SQL Server logins, tables and structural table data which you can modify and run manually if you prefer.
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As already mentioned palCentre uses SQL Logins to authenticate to the database. It requires 3 logins to exist, and they are created and mapped to database users in the palCentre database by the configuration wizard. The next table describes the logins, their purpose and the user roles which use them (user roles are explained in the next section – Application Level Security)
Login Name | Example | SQL Server Database Roles | User Roles (Application) |
{prefix}_dbo | palCentre_dbo | dbo | Administrator |
{prefix}_user | palCentre_user | db_datareader db_datawriter | Manager User |
{prefix}_reader | palCentre_reader | db_datareader | Reader |
The purpose of having different levels of users access the database with different SQL Logins is to add security. It makes it literally impossible for a user logged in with the Application Role of ‘Reader’ to alter data, and ensures that only a user logged with the Application Role of ‘Administrator’ could ever make changes to database structure. It also means that from the outset, the business engine of palCentre is designed to be able to be used safely by both a Windows Application and potentially in the future, a web application.
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palCentre stores connection information for client machines in a local settings file. This file stores the database server name, SQL Login names, SQL Logins passwords and the encryption key. The security-critical items in this file (SQL passwords and the encryption key itself) are encrypted with a constant encryption key. This means that people with access to the file system on client machines will not have access to SQL Login passwords or the ‘identifiable data encryption key’.
Installing and Configuring
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palCentre
Installation of palCentre is intended to be simple and safe. The built in database configuration wizard can create and configure the SQL database and logins for you with a bare minimum of customisable data entry. Once the database configuration wizard has been run once, the client configuration wizard can be run to connect a client machine to the palCentre database. Alternatively, the configuration wizards create a configuration file which can be deployed to client machines, eliminating the need for running the client configuration wizard.
Pre-requisites
palCentre uses v2.6.0.0 and later use the .NET Extended Framework v4. Past testing indicates that most Windows XP and 7 machines do not have this framework pre-installed.For reporting, palCentre uses the Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 runtime. Crystal Reports requires that the Visual C++ 2005 SP1 32-bit Runtime and the ATL Security Update for Visual C++ 2005 have been installed6. Windows 10 includes this by default, but older versions of Windows may need to have it manually installed.
If using SQL Compact, the SQLCE framework will need to be installed or palCentre will not be able to connect to the database.
If preferred, prerequisites should be able to be deployed automatically as there are no configuration steps required by them. Some of the prerequisites may already be installed on the client machine and if so, the installer will inform you of this and you can move on to the next step. Depending on which prerequisites are required, and the speed of the client machine this procedure should take between approximately 5 and 15 minutes per client machine.
Note that palCentre is a 32 bit application, as are all pre-requisites. This decision was made to allow support for older Windows XP machines. palCentre and its dependencies have been specifically tested on Windows XP (32 and 64 bit), Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit), Windows 8 (64 bit), and Windows 10 (64 bit).
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