The Benefits of Building an Outline for VGR iForms

We started building our VGR iForms before we got any real formalized training, but fortunately for us, we hadn't started using VGR until close to when we went for training. During the training, we got some very good advice:

"When building a VGR iForm, it's best practice to build an outline with all of your orderables first."

We didn't get a full explanation of the reason at the time, but I can tell you from just a few months experience and looking at the larger picture, it's the best advice that he could've given us. The quick explanation that he gave to us was that it helped separate the clinical duties / responsibilities from the technical / development duties and that's certainly true, but it's only a piece of the puzzle.

The Benefits of Building an Outline to Drive Your VGR Forms

1. You can have the orderset builders communicate to the iForm builders the specific orders to include and "current value" the prompts that need it (for simple orders, the VGR can be just the OIS/OOS).
2. If the prompts need to change in the future, the builders can do it themselves instead of going through the whole VGR builder process (the VGR still overrides it in case there's an urgent change that can't wait for a bounce).
3. When reviewing the past orders in HEO (and other places), orders placed via a VGR iForm aren't "grouped" in any significant way; they look like individual orders. If you order from an outline, they all show up under that outline (and if the outline itself is hidden, you can definitively say that it was ordered from the iForm).
4. For the same reasons in #3, VGR iForm orders don't show up in your ITA Scorecard as having been ordered via an Orderset / iForm. At least with an outline, they will show up in the "OUTLINE" section of the ITA scorecard (and if you use a naming convention that includes the word "iForm", you will be able to filter them out).
5. If you can track your iForm orders using the outline, you don't have to build any more "iForm tracking orders," plus you can actually see WHICH orders they're ordering off the iForm and what the prompts were set to, not just that they used the iForm for something.

I know that a process change like this is not a quick one, and would not happen overnight, but there are some good and valid reasons that might be able to get that conversation started.