When a Product Is Discontinued

When a manufacturer discontinues a product, making it inactive takes it out of product search and the patient dispensary. That leaves the patients who already have it in their cart or on an auto-order. OfficePro now catches that moment and lets you tell them, rather than leaving their refills to fail quietly.

Mark the product inactive

1. Open the product in Edit Product - the pencil beside it in the Product List on Product Administration.
2. Untick Active, next to the product name.
3. Click Save Product.

If nobody is holding the product, that is the end of it - the save works exactly as it always has. If any patient still has it in their cart, or on an auto-order that is still running, you are taken to Product Discontinued - Notify Patients instead.

The review screen only appears when you untick Active on Edit Product. Clearing the Active box on the product list saves the change but does not open it. Re-saving a product that was already inactive does not open it either.

Review who is affected

By the time this screen opens the product has been saved as inactive, and nothing else has happened. Nothing is sent and nothing is cancelled until you say so.

Each patient still holding the product has a row showing:

• In cart - how many cart lines, and the quantity.
• Auto-order - how many running auto-orders, and the quantity.
• Already told - the date they were last sent a notice about this product, if ever.

Patients who have not been told are ticked. Anyone who has already had a notice about this product starts unticked, so nobody gets the same message twice by accident. Tick or untick anyone you like, or use Select all and Select none. The patient name opens their record in a new tab.

Write the notice

• Subject - the heading the patient sees in their portal inbox. It starts as Product discontinued and holds up to 50 characters.
• Message - starts with a short explanation and an offer to help find a replacement. Edit it. If you already know the replacement product, this is the place to name it - that is the part patients actually need.

Write the message once for everybody. Underneath it, each patient automatically gets a What this affects for you: list covering only what they hold - their cart lines, and their auto-orders and whether those were cancelled.

Notices go to the patient's PatientPro portal inbox. They are not sent by text or e-mail.

Choose what else happens

• Cancel the auto-orders for this product - ticked by default. It cancels the auto-orders of the patients you ticked, so no more refills are generated for a product you can no longer supply. The patient's notice tells them it was cancelled and that they will not be charged for another shipment. Untick it and their notice asks them to contact you so you can update their plan instead.
• Also raise an internal message for the product team - ticked by default. It sends one staff message listing the patients notified and how many auto-orders were cancelled, as a reminder to line up a replacement. It goes to the Order Message User set in ProductPro Settings.

Send, or skip

Click Send Notices and confirm. Only the ticked patients are sent a notice, and only their auto-orders are cancelled.

Skip for now closes the screen without sending or cancelling anything. The product stays inactive. The screen will not open again on its own. To come back to it, make the product active, save, then make it inactive again - patients already told will start unticked.

What cart lines do

Cart lines are never removed. Anywhere the product sits in a patient's Patient Cart or under Products on Auto Order on their record, it shows a DISCONTINUED badge. The badge follows the product: make it active again and the badge disappears.

The badge is a warning, not a block. If the product should not be sold, take the line out of the cart yourself or swap it for the replacement.

Good practice

• Know the replacement before you save. A notice that names the alternative saves a round of messages.
• Make it inactive; do not delete it. Deleting breaks the sales history, and it does not warn anybody who is holding the product. See Adding and Editing Products.
• Follow up the auto-orders. Once a patient has a replacement, set it up on their plan - see Managing a Patient's Auto-Order Plan.