Upgrading your Dental System - Backwards compatibility with Manufacturers

3Shape Dental System is backwards compatible with manufacturing centers, to allow for seamless upgrades to new versions

3Shape Dental System includes backward compatibility mechanisms specifically designed to eliminate the need for customers to align their manufacturer's version with their own Dental System version.

This article provides a brief overview of these mechanisms, which help prevent issues arising from version mismatches, except for a few cases:

Compatibility with Previous Manufacturer Versions

If you have installed the latest Dental System version (e.g., 24.1.0), and your manufacturer uses the previous version (e.g. 23.1.1), your cases can still be sent without requiring specific adjustments or design module changes. The case will seamlessly be received by the manufacturer's inbox compatible with the older version.

Choosing the Target Version for Manufacturing

If you are sending an order to a manufacturer using an older version of the 3Shape Dental System software, you can select the desired version in advance. This setting can be pre-configured in the Dental System Control Panel (DSCP -> Site Settings -> Manufacturers). This option ensures additional compatibility.

This setting is relevant only for the current Dental System version (i.e. 2024) and 2 previous versions (i.e. 2023 and 2022).

Using Manufacturer-Specific DME Files

Some manufacturers provide their customers with a DME file, which contains all of the inbox settings related to this specific manufacturer — including the Dental System Inbox version. After this DME file is imported into the Dental System Control Panel, the manufacturer's inbox version is selected automatically for sending cases. 

As in the previous example, backwards compatibility is relevant only for the current Dental System version (i.e. 2024) and 2 previous versions (i.e. 2023 and 2022).

Compatibility with Nobel Biocare manufacturing:

It is known, that Nobel Biocare (Envista), requires validation of every new Dental System version in their inbox. As a result, users attempting to send cases to Nobel Biocare shortly after a new release might face temporary issues.

Consult this article for information on the latest Dental System version supported by Nobel. 

Currently, Nobel Biocare supports Dental System version 24.1.0 and older.