Can you add a table to the OpenDental

[davidkerr]

I am trying to add a table that will allow us to put in more information than the treatment plan module has. Can you add a table to the OpenDental Database or would I need to use the API and make a separate database and read from OpenDental database through API?

[SLeon]

Good morning,

Open Dental recommends developers use the API to interact with customer databases.

From the Programming Resources page:

Queries
Simple read-only operations can be performed with queries. This is useful for reports. Any third party is welcome to query the database as long as no writes are involved. We have security measures in place to prevent writing to the database, so don't even think about it.

and

API
This is the only way of interacting with Open Dental for any action that requires a write to the database. Direct writes to the database are never allowed other than by going through the API.

Additional data that your application needs would indeed utilize a separate database. More information on our API can be found on its specification page and forum.