A dental lab's software problem is different from a dental practice's. You're a B2B vendor to dentists, not running patient scheduling, and the real operational risk shows up when the lab-management system goes down (one lab on Evident posted "we are dead in the water" during an outage, unable to invoice or look up a single case) or when a case comes in with a 3Shape or iTero scan that doesn't match what the system expects, and the dentist's office and the scanner vendor each blame the other.
Most labs pick lab-management software based on which one a sales rep demos smoothly, then discover the real risk isn't day-to-day features, it's what happens during an outage (can you still invoice and pull up an active case?) and how reliably the system ingests scan files from whatever intraoral scanner each referring dentist happens to use. We start from your actual case volume, how many different scanner formats you receive (3Shape, iTero, and others all have their own quirks), and how much downtime risk your current setup actually carries, then match the platform to that instead of a generic feature comparison. Getting it running means your active case queue and customer (dentist office) records need to migrate without a case in production losing its specs mid-fabrication, and if scan-artifact issues between a specific scanner and your lab's software are a recurring problem, we build the validation check that catches it before fabrication starts instead of after a remake.
A lab running on Evident's lab-management software posted "we are dead in the water" during a real outage, unable to invoice or even look up an active case. That's the actual risk question to ask of any platform: not just its features, but what your lab can and can't do when the system itself goes down, since that directly determines whether you can keep operating.
Dentists send scans from whatever intraoral scanner they use, and a scan artifact that doesn't translate cleanly into your lab's software is a real, recurring source of finger-pointing between the scanner vendor and the lab software vendor, while your lab is the one that eats the delay or the remake.
A case already in production, with specs tied to a specific dentist and patient, needs to migrate into a new system without losing those specs partway through fabrication. We handle that migration directly so a case in progress doesn't stall or get remade because data didn't transfer cleanly.
Your actual case volume, how many different scanner formats you receive from referring dentists, and how much risk an outage actually poses to your business decide this more than a features comparison. Tell us how your lab actually runs and we'll tell you honestly which platform fits, what a real case-migration looks like, or whether scan-artifact mismatches need something built custom to catch.
Get a free quote → →That depends entirely on the platform's architecture, and it's a question worth asking directly before you commit, not discovering during your first real outage. A lab on Evident reported being completely unable to invoice or look up cases during a real outage, which is exactly the kind of operational risk we check for.
Often neither side wants to own it, which is the actual problem: the scanner vendor and the lab-software vendor can each point at the other while your lab eats the delay or the remake. We build a validation check specifically to catch the mismatch before fabrication starts, regardless of whose fault it technically is.
Yes, if migrated carefully, which is the part that matters most for a lab, since a case already in fabrication can't afford to lose its specs partway through. We map cases individually during migration rather than doing a bulk transfer and hoping nothing drops.
Sometimes, depending on your case volume and how many different referring dentists and scanner formats you deal with. We check that honestly against your real volume before recommending a platform sized for a much bigger operation.
We do. Evident and other lab-management vendors maintain their own platform; migrating your active cases and dentist records, and building scan-validation logic to catch mismatches early, is the work we handle directly.
Picking usually takes a couple of weeks once we understand your case volume and scanner mix. The migration itself depends on active case load, typically three to six weeks for most labs.