Sharing and referrals
There are two ways to put a case in front of somebody else, and they answer different questions.
| Referral link | Named colleague | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | a referring vet, an owner’s second opinion, a student | someone in your practice, or a surgeon you work with regularly |
| Account needed | no | yes — they sign in with the email you named |
| What they can do | look | look, and edit when they hold the pen |
| Where it appears | its own read-only viewer, never in a gallery | their own gallery, under Shared |
| How you take it back | revoke the link | remove their email from the case |
Both are described below — the link first, then named colleagues.
A link shows the case as it is now
This is the single most important thing to understand about sharing.
A referral link is a pointer to the case, not a copy of it. Whenever the recipient opens the link they see the case as it stands at that moment — so anything you change after sending the link is what they see next time. There is nothing to refresh and nothing to re-send.
The plain consequence: a colleague can catch a plan mid-edit. If you are halfway through moving an osteotomy when they open the link, that is what they get. If it matters that they see a finished plan, finish it first, or tell them when to look. Their view says the case is live and shows when it was last edited, so nobody mistakes a working draft for a considered one.
The recipient’s browser fetches the case once, when they open the link. It does not update while they sit there — they reload the page to pick up your latest changes.
How do I create a referral link?
- Open the case.
- Click the share icon in the top bar.
- Optionally label the link (e.g. “Dr Smith referral”) — useful when a case has several links and you want to know which went to whom.
- Optionally set an expiry date.
- Optionally set a PIN (see below).
- Choose what to include (see below).
- Copy the link and send it however you like — email, text message, practice management system.
A case can have several live links at once. Sharing the same case separately with two people gives you two links you can label and revoke independently, each with its own PIN, expiry, and choice of what to include.
Only the surgeon who owns a case can create a referral link for it. If a colleague has shared a case with you by name, ask them to send the link, or make your own copy of the case and share that — a link always opens the owner’s copy.
How do I put a PIN on a link?
Tick Require a PIN and the app gives you a short code. The recipient must type it before the case will open, so a link forwarded on, or read off a screen, is not enough on its own.
Two things worth knowing:
- Only you hold the PIN. The server keeps a scrambled version it cannot turn back into the PIN, so nobody — including us — can look it up. Your readable copy is kept on the computer you created it on, and the Referrals modal shows it there so you can pass it on again. It will not appear if you open the case on another machine, a colleague you have named on the case cannot see it, and if you lose it the only remedy is to revoke the link and make a new one. Write it down when you create it.
- Wrong codes are counted. After about five wrong tries the link locks for roughly fifteen minutes.
Send the PIN by a different route from the link itself — text the PIN if you emailed the link. A PIN in the same email protects nothing.
What can I leave out of a shared case?
The dialog has two tick boxes, both on by default, because a referral colleague usually needs the lot:
- Patient and vet identifying details — the patient’s name, patient ID, date of birth, the attending vet, and the case name (case names very often contain the patient’s name). Turn this off and the recipient sees an anonymised case instead.
- Attachments — pre-op notes, lab results, and any other files on the case.
Clinical signalment — species, breed, weight, sex and neuter status, body condition, and the injury history — is always shared. The receiving surgeon cannot judge a plan without it.
These choices belong to the link and are applied every time it is opened, so a link created without patient details stays anonymous no matter how the case changes afterwards. Different links on the same case can make different choices.
Whatever you exclude is named on the recipient’s view, so they can see something was withheld and ask, rather than working from a plan they wrongly believe is complete.
A caution about free text. Your clinical summary, tags, and notes on concurrent injuries and disease are shared as written, and the app cannot reliably strip names out of prose. If you are anonymising a case, read your own notes through first — owner and patient names have a habit of turning up in them.
What does the recipient see?
- Patient details, minus anything you excluded
- All radiographs in the case, as they stand when the link is opened
- Your measurements, overlays, implant templates, and osteotomy planning
- Attachments, if you included them
- A line saying the view is live, and when the case was last edited
They cannot change anything, they need no account, and they cannot see any of your other cases — not even your other links to this same case.
Where do I see the links I have sent?
The Referrals modal (share icon, top bar) lists every link on the current case:
- The label you gave it and when it was created
- Whether it is active, revoked, or expired
- Whether it needs a PIN, and what that PIN is
- Copy to send the link again
- Revoke to withdraw it
A revoked link stays in the list, marked revoked, rather than disappearing. That way you keep a record of what you sent and when. If revoking fails — usually because the connection dropped — the link stays active in the list and the app tells you it did not work. If a link vanished silently you could believe access had been withdrawn when it had not.
How do I revoke a link, and what does revoking not take back?
Revoking takes effect at once. The next time anyone opens that link they get an access error, with no notification sent to them. If the recipient still needs the case, create the new link before you revoke the old one.
What revoking cannot do is recall a radiograph image the recipient already has. The radiographs are served from long-lived web addresses, and opening the link hands those addresses to the recipient’s browser. Afterwards their browser — or anyone they passed those addresses to — may still be able to fetch the pictures. Revoking closes the case view: the measurements, the plan, the patient details. It does not reach out and delete a picture someone has already been given.
Treat a referral link the way you would treat emailing the X-rays: fine for a colleague, and not something you can take back cleanly. If a link has gone somewhere it should not have, tell us, so the underlying images can be replaced.
If a link will not open
Because the case is read live, opening a link goes through the Librevet sharing service. In the rare event that service is down, the recipient is told exactly that — the link itself is fine, and it will work again shortly. Nobody is shown an empty case or a vague error.
How do I share with a named colleague?
Instead of a link, you can name people on the case by email address — up to 25 per case. They sign in with that address and the case appears in their own gallery, alongside their own work. You can name someone who has not signed up yet; the case is waiting for them when they do.
Unlike a referral link, a named colleague can edit.
One pen at a time
Two people editing one plan at once is how a measurement quietly disappears, so the app hands out a single edit lock:
- Whoever opens the case first holds it, and can work normally.
- Everyone else opens the case read-only, and is shown who is editing.
- They can take the pen over whenever they want it.
- If the holder shuts their laptop or loses connection, the lock lapses by itself after a little over a minute — a dropped connection never leaves a case stuck.
How do I remove someone from a case?
Take their email off the case and their access ends, the same way revoking a link does. There is no notification either way.
Where are the cases shared with me?
The Shared location in the gallery sidebar has two tabs, each with its own count, because the two are opposite jobs:
- Shared with me — a colleague’s case, waiting for you. It sits at the top level of your gallery rather than in one of your folders, and you cannot file or delete it.
- Shared by me — your own case with somebody else’s eyes on it, whether that is a named colleague or a referral link you have not revoked.
A case that has been shared carries a small badge on its card counting everyone who can open it now — named colleagues plus live links. A revoked or expired link is not counted.
A referral link never appears in anybody’s gallery. It opens its own read-only viewer and works whether or not the recipient has an account, so tell them to keep the link — bookmarking it is the only way back to the case.
What is never shared
- Your other cases
- Your other referral links to this same case, or their PINs
- The colleagues you have named on this case
- Your account details
Deleting a case ends its sharing for good
Putting a case in the bin revokes every link on it and drops every colleague, immediately. Restoring the case brings back neither. The case comes back; the links and the memberships do not, and you re-share it from scratch. See Working with cases.