Archived Attachments in emsCharts
- Lindsey Kelley (Unlicensed)
Important Information
On February 8, 2018, emsCharts updated our process for storing chart attachments. The information below describes the change that was made, the reason for the change, and how this affects the attachment retrieval process for our customers.
Contents
Attachment Archiving
On average, emsCharts customers add 1 Gigabyte of attachments per hour to our system.
During the maintenance downtime on February 8th, 2018, we successfully transitioned 23 Terabytes (54+ Million files) of data into a highly redundant, state-of-the-art archive volume.
Why is This Important?
Moving the large number of aging (>1 year old) attachments to a secured archive is a critical step in streamlining our disaster recovery processes. This allows for secure, compliant, multi-location redundancy of your data and provides a pathway for tremendous growth.
What does this mean for me?
First, this does not affect the ePCR itself - only attachment files.
Only attachment files uploaded over 1 year prior to the current date are affected. Retrieving the attachment files is simple, but there is up to a 4 hour waiting period for retrieval.
Faxes which include attachments greater than one year old will also be included in this improved archive volume.
This move allows emsCharts to provide enhanced multi-location redundancy archive services at a continued low cost to our customers, and transitions a significant amount of data from our transactional database resulting in faster day to day operational services.
Retrieving Archived Attachments
After one year, attachments uploaded to emsCharts will be transitioned to the secure archive. Retrieving attachments will take approximately 3-4 hours to process.
When you click on the file that you wish to view, the retrieval process begins. You are prompted to enter an email address so that when the retrieval process is complete you will be notified. You MUST enter an email address if you wish to be notified that the file is available. Otherwise, you will need to check back manually after a few hours.
Important!
To receive an email when your requested file is available, don't forget to enter your email address.
Multiple email addresses may be entered for notification. Click Save after each email address.
While the retrieval process is running, the files cannot be deleted and your attachment list will appear as shown below:
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If you had entered an email during the retrieval request process, the email will arrive your inbox from NOREPLY@emscharts.com with a clickable link back to the attachments page.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Once I request an attachment, how long will it remain available for me to access? | Retrieved attachments are available for 7 days before they are re-archived. |
| Is there an alternative to waiting 4 hours for the attachments retrieval process? | Agencies using the Remote Downloader module can copy data to their network in near real-time. If you are interested in learning more about the Remote Downloader, please contact your emsCharts sales representative. |
| My agency uses the Archiving Module to pull attachments monthly. Will this change affect our process? | Yes, it could. To assure that there are no complications using the Archiving module, you should schedule your archives to be created within the first 10 days of the month for the previous month. Otherwise, you will need to switch to Remote Downloader for this process. Please contact emsCharts to facilitate this change. |