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38  Other Features

This reference section contains articles on specific features of the T.O.V.A. , discussed in more detail.

38.1  The Main Window

The main T.O.V.A. window

Everything starts from the main T.O.V.A. window. Some of these options may not always be available.

Search
- Enter the text or date you’re searching for into the Search field and press ‘Enter’. If you have a lot of subjects and sessions, this is indispensable. See section 38.2 for more search options.
Subjects
- Click on this tab to browse your list of Subjects. Then, click on the > symbol at the left to display the sessions administered to that subject.
Sessions
- Click on this tab to browse your list of Sessions.
New Subject
- Create a new subject. See section 20.3.1.
New Session
- Start a new session for the selected subject. See section 20.4.
View
- Show a report for the selected session. See section 21.
Compare
- When you select multiple sessions in the current tab, you can choose ‘Compare’ to see a report comparing the sessions. See section 21.2.
Edit
- Modify information for the selected Subject or Session. See section 38.3.
Delete
- Delete the selected Subjects or Sessions. This will permanently remove them from the T.O.V.A. database.
Export
- Export the selected Subjects or Sessions to a T.O.V.A. file, CSV, HTML, or PDF. See section 25.
Import
- If you have old T.O.V.A. 7 data files or T.O.V.A. 8/9 files from a colleague, here you can import that data. See section 24.
Preferences
- Change the settings for the T.O.V.A. . See section 27.
Credits
- This button tells you how many credits your T.O.V.A. USB device has. Click the ‘Credits’ button to order more. See section 22.
Status
- This launches the T.O.V.A. Status window. The “light" on the button will be green if all is well and yellow or red if there is a problem. See section 28.
Help
- Here you can read the other manuals, test the T.O.V.A. USB device and PTE, and contact us. See section 38.5.
Quit
- Quit the T.O.V.A. . This closes all other T.O.V.A. windows.

38.2  Searching/Sorting Techniques

There’s a search field at the top of the T.O.V.A. main window. When you type a search term and press ‘Enter’, the tables update to display subjects and sessions that match your search.

How it works is best explained with an example: If you enter joe smith, the search will return the subjects and sessions that contain joe and smith. This might mean a subject named Smith whose T.O.V.A. test was administered by a tester named Joe. It will also find subjects and sessions containing a name such as Joel Nesmith, and John Smithy whose Treatments include 3 cups of Joe. It won’t, however, find records that have joe but not smith or vice verse; by default, search looks for records containing all search terms.

You can also use the OR operator. Enter joe OR smith to find all the subjects and sessions that contain either joe or smith. Note: OR must be capitalized, or it will be treated like another search term (joe or smith will look for subjects and sessions containing joe, or, and smith).

Confused yet? Play around with it–we bet you’ll figure it out!

Text searches include the following fields:

If you give a number (1234), then the term is also matched against subject number, session number, and serial number.

You can also use dates: If a term is parsable as a date (5/12/2009), the results will include subjects with that birthdate and sessions with that test date. You can also use before: and after:, to provide a range of test dates; for instance, after:9/1/2004 before:9/8/2004 will return all the tests administered September 1st through 7th, 2004. (Note: Test dates are interpreted as 12 midnight, so after:9/1/2004 includes all tests administered that day, but before:9/1/2004 would not include any.)

Finally, as with other search engines, you can search on multiple terms. If you enter john smith, for instance, you will see all of the subjects/sessions that include the word “joe" and the word “smith" anywhere in the subject or session information (including the comments, tester, custom fields, etc.) You can also enter

38.2.1  Specifying a field to search

You can restrict a search value to a specific field using the following strings. Note: With spaces, you must use quotes around field-specific search terms, like this: "Subject Number:123".

Field to searchTypeLabels that can be used
Subject numbernumericsubject number:, sub:, subject:
Session numbernumericsession number:, ses:, session:
First namestringfirst name:, first:
Last namestringlast name:, last:
First and laststringname:
Commentsstringcomments:, com:, comm:
Tester namestringtester name:, tester:, user:
Medicationsstringmedications:, med:, meds:, treatment:, treatments:
Serial numberstringsn:, ser:, serial:, serial#:, serial #:, serial number:
Import datestringimport:, import date:

You can also search by the age of a subject when tested.

LabelTypeExamples
age:numericage:7 returns all sessions administered to seven year olds.
  (Not subjects who are seven now, only seven when tested.)
younger:decimalyounger:18, younger:5.5
older:decimalolder:12 will not return a session administered on subject’s 12th birthday,
  but will return her session administered the next day.

38.2.2  Other notes

38.2.3  Sorting

Sorting your T.O.V.A. data works just like most software. In the main window, click on any column header to sort the rows of the table by that field, in ascending order. So when you click on ‘Last’, it reorders the rows by the subjects’ last name, from ’A’ to ’Z’. Click the same column a second time, and it will sort in descending order, from ’Z’ to ’A’. Simple!

38.2.4  Searching/Sorting Tips

38.3  Edit Session Information

The Edit Session window

After you administer a session, you may want to add more information, such as medications administered (see Treatments, section 38.4) or comments about the session that you did not note beforehand. You can also update any custom session fields you have added to your T.O.V.A. database. From the main window, select the session and click ‘Edit’.

Note: While you can also modify the test date/time here, you should do so with caution. It will affect the calculated age of the subject and dictate the norms used to interpret the results of the test. If your system clock is incorrect, please correct it. If it does not hold the correct time, this can be a serious system problem; you may want to consider using a different system to administer the T.O.V.A. in the future.

38.3.1  Advanced session information

This is where you can correct calibration values for the T.O.V.A. test. This should never be necessary if the T.O.V.A. is configured correctly, so DON’T TOUCH THIS SETTING without consulting with T.O.V.A. technical support (section 29).

38.4  Treatments

Enter the medication information

You can track medications and other treatments in the T.O.V.A. . When starting a new session or editing an administered session, click ‘Add’ to add a treatment to the list. There is no limit to the number of treatments you can add to a session.

You can add three different types of treatments:

38.5  The Help Window

Here you can read the other manuals, test the T.O.V.A. USB device and PTE, and contact us.

The Help Window

38.5.1  T.O.V.A. System Information

This displays information about your T.O.V.A. software and hardware, useful to T.O.V.A. technical support.

38.5.2  Contacting Us

If you need to contact The TOVA Company for support or service, this tells you all you need to know, such as our phone number and web address. For the best service, click one of these buttons to use our built-in Support/Service Request feature. See section 29.

38.5.3  Documentation

You can access any of the manuals or other T.O.V.A. documentation from the Help window. If you want to learn more about the T.O.V.A. , we’ve put all the information here:

User’s Manual
- You’re reading it now!
Clinical Manual
- Explains how to use the T.O.V.A. in a clinical context.
Installation Guide
- Can help you set up the T.O.V.A. software and hardware
Getting Started
- Goes directly to the ‘Getting Started’ section of the User’s Manual
Observation Form
- This form is designed to provide information about factors that may influence T.O.V.A. test results. This form should be filled out prior to the administration of each test.
Release Notes
- Information on changes to the T.O.V.A. software
License Agreement
- Important legal information about the T.O.V.A.
Business Associate Agreement
- A legal agreement designed to help protect your subjects’ personal health information (section 26.1)

38.5.4  Advanced Support

For the most part, you will not need to use the Advanced Support features here. However, if you contact T.O.V.A. technical support, they may ask you to try one of these operations to help diagnose a problem.

Try out the PTE
- This option is useful when you’ve installed the T.O.V.A. on a new system, and you want to make sure the PTE will boot correctly. It is not useful if you’re configured for EAV testing. See section 34.1.2 for more information.
Collect hardware information from PTE
- Automatically reboots your system to and from the PTE for the purpose of collecting critical hardware information. You should probably only do this if requested by T.O.V.A. technical support. It is disabled and not useful if you’re configured for EAV testing.
Check T.O.V.A. hardware
- Contains a number of functions to test your T.O.V.A. hardware and its connections (section 31.3)
Back up database
- A quick and easy way to back up your entire T.O.V.A. database (section 23)
Close
- Closes the Help window.

38.6  Research Mode

There are a few features that were part of the T.O.V.A. 8 that were removed from the T.O.V.A. 9 when it was cleared by the FDA as a medical device. These features have not been cleared for use in a clinical setting, but if you would like to use the T.O.V.A. in a non-clinical research setting, you can switch to “Research mode” in the T.O.V.A. Preferences (section 27.9). Test sessions administered in Research mode will be flagged as research sessions, and the T.O.V.A. report will reflect this.

Likewise, the T.O.V.A. Synchronization Interface (see the T.O.V.A. Sync Interface manual for more information) is intended for research use only and sessions administered using the device will produce research sessions. A warning will appear whenever you start a new session with the sync interface attached unless you enable Research mode in the Preferences.

When the T.O.V.A. is in Research mode, “Research Mode” will appear under the T.O.V.A. logo in the main window.

38.6.1  Features

When the T.O.V.A. is in research mode, these additional features become available:

For more information about these features, see the T.O.V.A. Research User’s Manual. Let us know (section 29) if there are features you would like available for clinical or research use in future versions of the T.O.V.A. .

38.7  T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service

Note: This section applies only to Windows users.

The T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service is a background service we install on Windows to perform important tasks related to booting the PTE and installing T.O.V.A. updates. Windows users with limited permissions would not normally have access to all the functions this service performs. Therefore, instead of requiring that all T.O.V.A. users have Admin rights in Windows, the T.O.V.A. service acts as a system administrator to carefully perform these operations on request. These include the following:

38.7.1  Service status

Click the ‘Status’ button on the main window and then ‘Service’, and you’ll see the current status of the T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service. If the service has unexpectedly stopped or failed to start, click ‘Start service’ to attempt to restart the service. (Note: This requires administrator access to your computer.)

‘View Windows services’ will launch the Windows Services console. Here you can see all of your installed Windows services, including the T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service.

If you are unable to resolve any problems, you can disable communication with the T.O.V.A. service (see section 38.7.2 for details). Otherwise, click ‘Send to tech support...’ for more help with the problem.

38.7.2  Disabling service communication

Some Windows systems encounter problems with the T.O.V.A. service (conflicting security settings, for instance). If these problems persist, you can disable service communication, effectively asking the T.O.V.A. software to work around the service problems.

The T.O.V.A. service performs necessary operations that many Windows users don’t have access to. When you disable the service, the T.O.V.A. performs the same operations without employing the service. Since these are advanced operations, you may be prompted to “allow the following program to make changes to this computer" before and after launching a T.O.V.A. session. Granting this permission requires you to have administrator access to your system.

Without the service enabled, you must grant the T.O.V.A. permission to make changes

You can disable service communication as follows:

  1. Run the T.O.V.A. program and choose ‘Preferences’.
  2. Choose ‘Windows Service’.
  3. Uncheck the ‘Enable communication with T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service’ box and click ‘Save’.

After that, launch a T.O.V.A. session to try it out. If you are unable to grant the permissions the system needs or if the prompts become tiresome, contact T.O.V.A. tech support (section 29) for additional alternatives.

38.7.3  Service errors

The T.O.V.A. PTE Activation service is a background service we install on Windows to perform important tasks related to booting the PTE and installing T.O.V.A. updates.

Failure to connect to the service

If you see the dialog above (Figure 87), there can be several reasons:

38.7.4  “Prepared for PTE”

Ready to boot the PTE

Some users might not want the T.O.V.A. to reboot their system, and so we offer the option to reboot ‘later’ in the PTE launch settings. The T.O.V.A. prepares your system to boot the PTE and then exits. If, instead of rebooting your system, you run the T.O.V.A. application, you will see this window (Figure 88), giving you the option to have the T.O.V.A. reboot your system or cancel booting the PTE. The latter will clear away the prepared files, restore your normal boot settings, and start the T.O.V.A. application.


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