Ye-Almaz Lab Management System

What the system is

Ye-Almaz runs the full life of a dental lab order, from the moment a clinic requests a pickup, through every production department, to final delivery and payment, as one continuously tracked digital record. Three separate applications share one backend:

flowchart LR
    subgraph Clients
        M["📱 Clinic Mobile App"]
        W["💻 Staff Web Dashboard"]
    end
    subgraph Server
        A["Express API<br/>+ Socket.IO (live updates)"]
    end
    DB[("PostgreSQL<br/>Database")]
    CL["Cloudinary<br/>(photos, invoices)"]

    M <--> A
    W <--> A
    A <--> DB
    A <--> CL
      

Every staff member logs into the same web address; the system shows only the pages relevant to their role.

The staff sign-in screen, shared by every role.

Roles at a glance

The case lifecycle, end to end

A case is one physical order (one impression, one QR code, one delivery), this is the spine the whole system is built around.

flowchart TD
    A["Clinic submits order<br/>(mobile app)"] --> B["Status: Pending Pickup"]
    B --> C["Dispatch assigns a pickup driver"]
    C --> D["Delivery exec collects the impression"]
    D --> E["Reception accepts the case<br/>Scan number + QR code generated here"]
    E --> F["Lab: scanned through every production department<br/>(Plaster → ... → Quality Check)"]
    F --> G["Status: Ready to Dispatch<br/>(automatic the moment QC is scanned)"]
    G --> H["Finance verifies payment"]
    H --> I["Dispatch assigns a delivery driver"]
    I --> J["Delivery exec delivers to the clinic"]
    J --> K["Status: Delivered"]
      

Two shortcuts skip parts of this path when appropriate:

• Self drop-off / self pickup — if the clinic brings the impression in person, or collects the finished case themselves, dispatch records that directly with no driver involved.
• Remake / redo — a free (remake) or half-priced (redo) replacement case skips the payment-verification wait and goes straight to dispatch, since nothing new is owed for it.

If a clinic cancels a pickup before it's ever collected, or an order needs to be scrapped entirely before acceptance, Dispatch can mark it cancelled or delete it outright, keeping the reception queue and database clean of orders that never actually happened (any loyalty points already awarded for it are automatically reversed).

Reception

Pages: Dashboard, Cases, New Case

• Accept incoming cases — impressions that have arrived at the lab wait in an "Arrived at Lab" queue; reception reviews and either accepts, rejects, or flags them for review before they enter production.
• Create a case directly — for phone orders or walk-ins, without going through the mobile-app/pickup flow: patient info, work type, tooth selection (a visual odontogram), shade, delivery type (Normal/Express), with price and due date calculated automatically from the work type's price list.
• Aligner cases get a tray-count selector instead of a tooth chart, no odontogram or shade needed.
• Digital/3D-file intake — cases submitted as a scan file rather than a physical impression, with a per-arch scan fee added automatically.
• Remake/redo entry — link a new case back to the original it's replacing, with the correct free/half-price billing applied automatically.
• Full case list (Cases page) — search, filter by status/payment/date, export to Excel.

Dispatch

Page: Dispatch Dashboard

The busiest screen in the system, six tabs tracking every case from "needs a driver" to "delivered":

Illustrative sample screen, not real clinic data.

• Assign / reassign a driver for pickup or delivery at any point.
• Self Drop-off — record that a clinic brought the impression in themselves, skipping the driver step.
• Self Pickup — record that a clinic collected the finished case in person, skipping "Out for Delivery" and marking it delivered directly.
• Phone orders — create a pickup request on a clinic's behalf over the phone.
• Cancel Pickup — the clinic backed out before the impression was collected; keeps the order out of Reception's queue without deleting the record.
• Delete Order — remove an order entirely if it never should have existed (only available before it's been accepted into production).
• Every tab has its own search, status, clinic, and date filters, plus Excel export.

Delivery (drivers)

Page: Delivery Dashboard, one per logged-in driver

• A personal queue of only their own assigned pickups and deliveries for the day, nothing else clutters the screen.
• Confirm impression collected from a clinic → case moves into the lab queue.
• Confirm delivered to a clinic → case marked complete, clinic notified instantly.
• Return to queue — if a pickup or delivery couldn't be completed (gate locked, clinic closed, etc.), hand it back to Dispatch for reassignment rather than leaving it stuck.

Reception/Dispatch staff have their own read-only view of everything currently ready for delivery (the Delivery page), separate from each driver's personal working queue.

Lab (production floor)

Page: Lab Dashboard

• QR scanner — point a device camera at a case's QR label to record that it has arrived at a department; the case's status advances automatically.
• 16 department stations, covering the full production path: Reception → Plaster → Margin → Scanning → Designing → (Milling/Sintering or Resin 3D Printing or Metal 3D Printing) → Metal Finishing → Opaque Application → Ceramic Layering → Zirconia Fitting → Glazing → Thermo Press → Trimming → Quality Control. Scanning Quality Control automatically advances the case straight to "Ready to Dispatch," no separate step needed.
• Lab tech accounts can be restricted to specific departments (set by Admin), so a scanning-department tech only sees scanning-relevant actions.
• Live case timeline — every scan for a case, with timestamp and who scanned it.
• My Performance — each lab tech can pull up their own activity: total scans, unique cases touched, which departments they worked in, and a daily activity chart, for any date range.

Illustrative sample screen, not real clinic data.

Finance

Pages: Finance Dashboard, Billing, Payments

• Request payment on a case once it's ready, and track it through the cycle: requested → screenshot uploaded → verified (or rejected).
• Verify uploaded payment screenshots — approve unlocks the case for delivery; reject sends it back to the clinic with a reason.
• Manual payment entry for cash or bank transfers that didn't go through the mobile app.
• Issue invoices with a printable, formatted layout.
• Trusted Partner billing — some clinics are billed on a monthly statement instead of per case; Finance generates that statement showing only cases that have actually been delivered in the period, so nothing still in production shows up as owed.
• A dedicated Payments queue auto-refreshes so newly uploaded screenshots surface without a manual reload.

Admin

Pages under /admin, the control center for the whole lab

Illustrative sample screen, not real clinic data.

• Analytics Dashboard — KPI cards (revenue, outstanding balance, cases in progress, turnaround time), a 6-month revenue trend, a cases-by-status breakdown, and revenue by work type.
• Case Status Board — a live, per-department pipeline view; click any department to see exactly which cases are sitting there right now.
• Case Management — every case in the system, with full edit and delete capability.
• Clinics — create/edit clinic accounts, toggle active status, mark a clinic as a Trusted Partner (monthly billing instead of per-case), export the full clinic list (name, contact info, station, zone, partner status) to Excel/PDF.
• Zones — group delivery/pickup Stations (specific pickup areas) into named Zones so Dispatch can quickly find coverage for a case's area.
• Pricing — the price list every case is costed against: standard price, express price, turnaround days, and a flat-rate toggle for items priced per case rather than per unit (night guards, retainers, etc.).
• Users — create staff accounts for every role, restrict lab techs to specific departments, assign station/zone for routing, auto-generated passwords with a one-time credentials reveal, deactivate/reset as needed.
• Lab Performance — roster-wide version of "My Performance": every lab tech's scan volume, department mix, and activity trend side by side, for spotting workload imbalances.
• Rewards — the clinic loyalty program: how many points a case earns, the redeemable reward catalog, a clinic points leaderboard, and approving or rejecting redemption requests.

Clinic loyalty / rewards program

Every case a clinic submits earns loyalty points automatically. Clinics can see their balance and redeem it against a reward catalog Admin manages; Admin approves or rejects each redemption request. If an order is cancelled or deleted before it's ever picked up, the points it earned are automatically clawed back, clinics never end up with points for an order that never actually happened.

Notifications & real-time updates

The dashboard doesn't need refreshing, every relevant screen updates itself the moment something changes elsewhere:

• A new case appearing anywhere in the pipeline
• A case's status advancing (scanned at a new department, delivered, etc.)
• A payment being verified or rejected

Clinics get the same real-time treatment on their mobile app, plus push notifications (e.g. "Case Delivered") even when the app isn't open.

Reports & exports

Most list views across the system (Cases, Clinics, Dispatch tabs, Case Status Board, Payments, invoices) include an Export button producing an Excel or formatted PDF version of exactly what's currently on screen, respecting whatever search/filter/date-range is applied at the time.

Clinic mobile app

The counterpart clinics use, out of scope for the staff dashboard above but part of the same system:

• Submit a new order — tooth selection, work type, shade, delivery speed
• Track every case's live status and full timeline
• Upload a payment screenshot or pay via Chapa (online payment), download the invoice
• View and redeem loyalty points