Crewley › What it runs › Lens ordering
AI lens ordering and lab tracking for an opticians
Your team fills in the order sheet the way they do now. The agent drafts the order on the lab's website, attaches the frame trace, checks the price against your list and waits for a person to press OK to send.
Gavin explains
“The order is typed once, and a wrong price gets caught on screen instead of on the invoice.”
Watch it run
One lens order, from sheet to sent.
Illustration with sample data
TimeThe order is typed once, on your own sheet. Our estimate: about 8 hours a month
- Lens
- Varifocal 1.6, hard coat
- From
- Order sheet, row 412
- Frame
- Trace attached ✓
- Price
- Matches your price list ✓
Illustration with sample data
MoneyA price that doesn't match your list is caught on screen, before it reaches an invoice.
How it works
How a lens order is placed.
- It reads the order sheetEvery few minutes it looks for new rows. Your practice management software and clinical records aren't touched.
- It drafts and checksThe lens, coating, frame trace and reference are filled in, and the price is checked against your list.
- A person presses OK to sendNothing goes to the lab until someone on your team approves it. Then the card moves to Sent to lab.
In detail
Questions practice owners ask.
The detail behind the pictures.
What is AI lens ordering for an optical practice?
AI lens ordering for an optical practice means the order to Essilor, Nikon or any other supplier is built from the order sheet by an agent, checked against your stock first, and sent with one press. The same agent runs the in-store lab board and watches how long every job has been away. Your practice management software stays where it is; the agent works from the order, never the clinical record.
How does an AI agent order lenses?
The dispense is dictated or read from the order sheet: patient, lens type, supplier, coating, frame. The agent reads it back and waits. Once a person confirms, it builds the order on the supplier's ordering site with the right lens code, base curve and coating, and leaves it ready to send. Sending stays a human press, every time, because a wrong lens order costs money and a patient's patience.
Before it raises any lab order it checks whether the job could be picked from stock lenses on the shelf. A stock job done today beats a lab job done next week.
What does "runs the in-store lab" mean?
Every glazing job on one board: what came in, who is on it, what is waiting on a frame, a lens or a trace, what is due today and what is late. Staff ask the board in plain words, "what's in the lab?" or "what's due for Mrs H?", and get the answer in the staff channel without looking anything up.
How does it track time at lab?
Every outsourced order carries a day count. When an order passes the threshold for its supplier and lens type, a chase task is raised for a named person with the supplier, the order number and the patient's promise date. The agent does not phone the lab itself; it makes sure someone does, and records what happened.
Non-tolerance, remakes, warranties and returns
The expensive leaks in an optical practice are the ones nobody tracks: the non-tol remake that never got credited, the warranty frame that went back and was forgotten, the returned lenses that sat in a drawer. Each one is logged with the supplier, the reason and the expected credit, and stays open until the credit note arrives.
What stays with you
Prescriptions, sight-test data and medical notes stay in your practice management software. The agent reads the dispense and the order, not the record. Every action that costs money or touches a supplier account is confirmed by a person first.
See how this fits with the rest of the estate on AI agents for opticians, and how orders are told to patients on spectacle collections.
Does it send the order to the supplier by itself?
No. It builds the order and stops. A person presses send. That is deliberate and it will stay that way.
Which suppliers does it work with?
Essilor and Nikon through their online ordering, and any other supplier with an ordering site or an emailed order form. Your supplier list is part of the build.
Can it read our order sheets?
Yes. Printed order details, scanned delivery notes and dictated orders are all read and turned into structured orders that are read back before anything is created.
What about our own glazing lab?
The lab board tracks in-house jobs the same way as outsourced ones: job in, job stage, waiting on, due date, done.
Does it touch clinical records?
No. It works from the dispense and the order. Clinical records stay in your practice management software.
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