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Data-portability scorecard

Before you depend on a system — or before you leave one — ten questions about what you can take with you, answered yes, partly or no. A score out of ten, a plain verdict, and the exact questions to put to the vendor for every gap.

Items
Ten, structural
Scoring
Yes 1 · partly ½ · no 0
Names
No vendor named

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Answers are scored on the page and never saved or sent.

  1. 1.Can you export every patient's demographics and contact details yourself, as a structured file?

    The caseload is the one thing a new system must receive on day one. A CSV or spreadsheet imports; a PDF does not.

  2. 2.Do clinical notes export as text you can read and import, not only as PDFs?

    PDF notes attach to a chart as documents but cannot be searched, filtered or placed on a timeline in the new system.

  3. 3.Can attachments and documents be exported in bulk, not one at a time?

    A practice with a thousand scanned referrals cannot download them one by one before a deadline.

  4. 4.Do appointments, invoices and payments export?

    Financial history matters for tax and audit even if it never imports anywhere; it must at least be yours to keep.

  5. 5.Can you run every export yourself, from inside the product, without contacting support?

    A support-only export is granted, not structural: it depends on a queue, a person and their policy on the day.

  6. 6.Is export free of charge?

    An export fee is an exit fee. It is also a sign the data is treated as the vendor's.

  7. 7.Is the export format documented, so another system can read it?

    An undocumented file is only as portable as the next vendor's willingness to reverse-engineer it.

  8. 8.Can you still read and export your data after the subscription ends?

    The moment you most need an export is after you have stopped paying. A read-only period after cancellation is the honest design.

  9. 9.Is the deletion deadline after cancellation stated in writing?

    Some systems delete within weeks of expiry, unrecoverably. You need the number before you plan the move.

  10. 10.Can you prove an export is complete?

    A manifest or record count lets you check nothing was dropped before you cancel; without one you find out later.

Score
0 / 10
0 of 10 answered
Verdict
—
Answer every item

Yes scores one, partly a half, no nothing. Eight or more is portable.

Data portability score: 0 of 10
Answer every item to see the gaps.

Structural, not granted

The line the scorecard draws is the one the data-portability page draws: can you do this yourself, from inside the product, as a matter of how it is built — or does it happen only when support agrees to do it for you? A self-serve CSV export of the client list is structural. A chart export that arrives as PDFs through a support ticket, for the account owner only, with a seven-day link, is granted. Both may get you your records; only one of them is yours to count on.

Each item carries the reason it matters and the question to ask, verbatim, so the answers you collect are comparable across vendors.

Reading the score

Eight or more is portable: leaving would be work, not a fight. Four to seven is partly portable: some data is structurally yours, the rest depends on goodwill on the day. Under four is locked in. The verdict is blunt on purpose; the questions are what you do about it.

Use it with the export inspector

Once you have an export in hand, the export file inspector shows what SideClick's importer would take from it. The scorecard is for before that: finding out what exports exist at all, and getting the deadline for deletion in writing.

FAQ

Questions, answered

Does the scorecard rate SideClick?

It rates whatever system you answer it about. SideClick's own answers to each item are on the data-portability page, with the mechanism behind each — exports from inside the app, a published archive format, a manifest, and export in every seat state.

Is a partly score fair?

Use it when the capability exists with a real limit — a bulk export that needs a support request, or notes that export as text only for the last year. The point is the gap list, not the decimal.

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