Release notes

TIP: Looking for release notes for all Axiom products, including current and previous versions? Click here.

NOTE: Download a PDF version of the release notes here.

About the release notes

Syntellis is pleased to announce the 2020.1.8 release of Axiom Contract Management. Each product release provides new features, enhancements, and configuration options to meet your needs. Many of these features and enhancements are a direct result of your feedback and suggestions.

The purpose of these release notes is to provide you with the following:

  • High-level descriptions of new features
  • Information to know before upgrading
  • Steps for preparing for and scheduling your upgrade
  • List of fixed issues

TIP: Periodically, the release notes are updated when new information is available, including patch release fixes. To view the latest release notes, we encourage you to view them in the Axiom Contract Management online help. On the help home page, simply click the Release Notes link at the top of the page.

New features in Axiom Contract Management

See What’s New.

What to know before upgrading

IMPORTANT: You must apply the Axiom 2020.1.8 upgrade before applying any 2020.1.8 Axiom product upgrades. Axiom upgrades are backwards compatible so you can upgrade different products at different times, but you must upgrade to the Axiom 2020.1.8 before the first product upgrade. Refer to the Axiom 2020.1.8 Release Notes and Axiom Healthcare Suite 2020.1.8 Release Notes for considerations before upgrading.

When upgrading to the 2020.1.8 version of Axiom Contract Management, keep in mind the following:

  • Syntellis delivered reports may be replaced. Any report that you saved under a different name or created new will remain untouched. Replaced reports are available in Document History, if needed.
  • Any Syntellis delivered report that was moved to a new location will automatically move back to its original location.
  • Syntellis product templates and calculation method libraries will be replaced.
  • Product task panes will be replaced.
  • Process definitions will not be replaced.
  • Driver files will be replaced.
  • Security roles and sub-systems will be reset to their configured settings. All user security exceptions you may have made will remain intact.
  • Specific items configured as part of your company or organization's implementation such as imports, exports, driver files, and process management files, will remain as is. Any required modifications to these areas are covered in the release notes, if required.

Preparing and scheduling upgrades

Summary of the upgrade process:

  1. Review product release notes – Review this document to familiarize yourself with the new features and functionality.
  2. Schedule an installation date – Submit a request to your organization's Axiom Master System User (MSU) to contact info@syntellis.com to schedule an installation date and time with at least three days of advance notice. The request should include the following information:
    • Desired Axiom Software platform version.
    • Desired Axiom for Healthcare product and version.
    • Indicate whether to first refresh the Axiom test sandbox with a copy of the production instance of Axiom and apply update(s) to it. If so, provide the soonest that Syntellis can do this.
    • Propose an approximate two-hour downtime window when Syntellis can apply update(s) to the production instance of Axiom during regular business hours, Monday through Friday 7 AM to 7 PM Central (except holidays recognized by Syntellis).
  3. Complete manual configuration updates – After installing the upgrade, review any manual setup steps needed to enable features for this version.

Getting help and training

Syntellis provides world-class resources at your fingertips directly within the Axiom Software system. Axiom Help provides topics, knowledge base articles, documents, webinar/training announcements, and videos to guide you through managing your system. To access these resources, do any of the following:

  • Online help – From the main menu header, click Help, and then select Contract Management Help. The Contract Management Help opens in a new browser window.

  • Contextual help – For selected Axiom Contract Management main pages such as the Contracts page, Drill-Down Reports page, View a Claim, and others, accessing the help from these pages opens the online help topic related to that feature.

Escalating to Axiom Support

As always, we appreciate your commitment to Syntellis. If you have any questions about your upgrade, please contact us by logging into Axiom, navigating to the online help for your product, and clicking the Axiom Support link at the top of the home page.

Issues fixed in 2020.1

The following table lists the resolutions for issues addressed in 2020.1, released on May 4, 2020:

Web system only

Issue Description
PFB-07236 - Payer Code Missing [TFS 32739]

Summary: Front screen view for the 835 from a claim contains a detail description of the payer; however, when a user opens the 835, they do not see the same Payer description that is displayed on the previous screen.

Resolution: Corrected by adding the PayerName to the applicable stored procedures.
Slow Performance in Calc step when calculating 1 claim
[TFS 36100]

Summary: When a user runs a Group and Price (either APC or eAPG) of only one claim, the calculation step takes much longer than expected, about five minutes.

Resolution: Corrected by updating the applicable stored procedure to filter the list of records to improve performance.
Slow response in CMA Rejected Records Canned Report causing performance issues [TFS 36847]

Summary: Errors in a stored procedure are causing performance issues (slow response when returning a large result set) in the Rejected Records Canned Report.

Resolution: Corrected by adding an index to the report column in which the stored procedure does its filtering and preventing unnecessary table locking.
New index to help grouper performance issue [TFS 37540]

Summary: When running a Group and Price on a large volume of claims (3000+), the process gets hung up on one of the stored procedures.

Resolution: Corrected by adding an index to the affected table.
PFB-07873 - CM Clear Recalculation Queue entry for aborted jobs [TFS 37880]

Summary: In the Recalculation Queue, when a scheduled calculation or Group and Price job is aborted by the user, the aborted job is not removed from the queue.

Resolution: Corrected by having the Axiom System database check to see if there are any aborted or completed calculation or Group and Price jobs still in the Recalculation Queue at the beginning of the CMA Full Import. If there are any, the system deletes them.

PFB-08186 - CM - Remove trailing space after contract name when creating contract name
[TFS 40292]

Summary: When a user creates a new contract, if a space is accidentally added to the end of the contract name, when saved, the space is added to the Axiom System database dbo.Folder table, which then causes folder errors.

Resolution: Corrected by adding a check for trailing spaces in folder names when saving, and, if found, removing them before saving the folder name.
PFB-08342 - CM-CMS OP Adjustments Factor - takes approx 4 times as long to calculate [TFS 41447]

Summary: Contracts using the CMS OP Adjustment factor take approximately four times as long to calculate as contracts that do not use this adjustment factor.

Resolution: Corrected by adding an index on the LineItemsID column for the affected tables.
PFB-08369 - CMA Contractual Export hung intermittently [TFS 41952]

Summary: The Contractual Export is hanging intermittently.

Resolution: Corrected by removing the timeout for the Contractual Export.
PFB-08420 - CM - Attributes appear to be enabled but are not
[TFS 42245]

Summary: Attribute settings appear to be enabled but, when checked by clicking View/Edit, they are not.

Resolution: Corrected the attribute copy routine stored procedures. Also adjusted the select statements for contracts/version/provisions/clauses/terms so that even when orphaned attribute data occurs, it will no longer be visible.
PFB-08419 - CM - Adding a version error - filtered vs non filtered list [TFS 42259]

Summary: When creating a new contract version on an unfiltered Contract list, users sometimes receive an error. The current Contracts screen page number is not being correctly accounted for when a new contract row is added.

Resolution: Corrected by adding code to account for the current contract page number during paging operations.
PFB-08453 - CM - Error Processing 835 File during import [TFS 43120]

Summary: Processing 835 files during the nightly full import causes an error.

Resolution: Corrected by adding a no-timeout to the applicable stored procedure so that the files process correctly.
PFB-08513 - CM - G&P error - string or binary data would be truncated [TFS 43689]

Summary: During Group and Price jobs, users encounter an error that causes string or binary data to be truncated.

Resolution: Corrected by expanding the length of the affected field to accommodate the maximum length of returned data elements.

Issues fixed in 2020.1.1

The following table lists the resolutions for issues addressed in 2020.1.1, released on May 12, 2020:

Web system only

Issue Description
GpsLineItemTableType didn't get updated. (Patch 2020.1)
[TFS 48257]

Summary: A defect in Visual Studio is causing the update script to default to Content instead of Embedded. if a user deletes an embedded resource and then undoes the deletion, the deleted resource is restored as Content instead of as Embedded.

Resolution: Corrected by adding back the script as an Embedded Resource.
3M April 15, 2020 Quarterly Release (Patch 2020.1)
[TFS 48292]

Summary: The 3M Grouper changes released in 3M’s GPS product (Service pack 1 released around the 15th) needs to be updated.

Resolution: Corrected by updating the 3M content and deleting the outdated items.

Issues fixed in 2020.1.2 through 2020.1.7

No client-facing issues were addressed in 2020.1.2 through 2020.1.7.

Issues fixed in 2020.1.8

No client-facing issues were addressed in 2020.1.8, released on February 15, 2021.

IMPORTANT: Refer to the Axiom for Healthcare Suite Release Notes for additional known issues that have a suite-wide impact.