Run This Checklist Before Your ChiroTouch Server Goes Live

The single most common cause of post-installation headaches in chiropractic offices is using hardware that simply was not designed to serve as a ChiroTouch server. The system requirements document is explicit: the server must be a dedicated, standalone desktop computer. Laptops, Macs, and all-in-one PCs are not acceptable in that role, regardless of how capable they may appear on paper. Before you hand a new machine to your IT vendor or open the shipping box, confirm the build is a tower-style desktop running Windows 11 (64-bit) or Windows Server 2016 or newer. If your office has one to seven workstations, the server needs at least 6 GB of available RAM, 20 GB of free hard-drive space, a SATA III interface, and a CPU with a PassMark benchmark score of 3000 or higher. For offices with eight or more workstations, the floor jumps to 12 GB of RAM, 50 GB of free space, and a benchmark score of 8000 or higher. Skipping this verification step is the fastest way to end up with sluggish charting, failed SQL transactions, or a server that cannot keep up with end-of-day reporting.

Networking is the second area where practices quietly create their own problems. ChiroTouch is a local, network-based application, and the server must connect to the rest of the office through a wired 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet link—wireless is not a supported path for the main server. Every workstation also needs to reach a shared directory on that server, which means your IT person should confirm that SMB file-sharing permissions are configured correctly before anyone tries to open the Records module. On the firewall side, three ports must remain open for normal operation: 1433 for Microsoft SQL Server traffic, 8221 for iPad and mobile-service traffic, and 443 for web traffic. If your office recently changed routers, ISPs, or network topology, a quick port-scan from an external machine will confirm those paths are still clear.

Software dependencies are where surprises tend to hide. ChiroTouch requires Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express or Standard Edition (or newer); if your version has EHR enabled, the Standard Edition is the recommended tier. Every workstation must be running the 32-bit version of Microsoft Office 365, installed locally, because Word and Excel are used for opening, exporting, and printing forms and reports. The system also depends on the latest Microsoft .NET framework and PowerShell updates being present, so schedule a full Windows Update pass on the server and every workstation the same day you plan to install. One incompatibility that trips up new installations: ChiroTouch will not coexist on the same machine as other chiropractic EHR products such as ACOM (on-premises), ChiroNotes, ChiroOffice, Chiro8000, Pinnacle, QuickCharts, Sage, or Seamless. If you are migrating from one of those platforms, make sure the old software is fully uninstalled and its SQL instance removed before the ChiroTouch installer runs.

If your practice uses the iPad app or the Mobile Service Manager for remote scheduling and patient check-in, add a connectivity check to your pre-install list. The Mobile Service Manager must be running as a service on the server, your public IP address must be static (request it from your ISP and record it), and your router must forward incoming traffic on a chosen WAN port to LAN port 8221. When you use CTSecure, the connection expects at least 25 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. Log into mychirotouch.com, navigate to the ChiroTouch Software Information section, enter your public IP and WAN port, and run the built-in connection test before you hand the iPad to the front desk. A failed test here will surface as intermittent sync errors or a kiosk that cannot authenticate patients, and diagnosing that after go-live is far more disruptive than catching it during setup.

Finally, take a moment to confirm that the screen resolution on the server and each workstation is set to at least 1280 × 768, and that no monitor is pushing a resolution above 1920 × 1080, since ChiroTouch applications can display errors at higher resolutions. Touchscreens, 4K displays, biometric fingerprint readers, and RAID 5 arrays with spinning disks are all on the not-supported list, so if any of those are in your current build, plan around them now rather than discovering the conflict on the first day of production. A thirty-minute walkthrough of this checklist with your IT professional—before the installer runs—saves the hours of troubleshooting and the lost clinic time that follow an ill-prepared deployment.

Sources and further reading