For a year, "does it work offline?" had a two-part answer that nobody loved. The cloud edition's installed app opened without internet but could not touch your data. The offline edition ran entirely on your own PC, but the owner could not see it from home and patients could not open their report from the slip. You picked one, and you gave something up.
Since October 2026 a lab no longer has to pick. A PC running the offline edition can be connected to the lab's cloud account, and from then on the two keep each other up to date: everything the PC holds goes up whenever there is internet, and whatever the owner changes online comes back down. This guide explains how it behaves, where the limits are, and how to decide whether your lab wants it.
The one-sentence version
The lab PC is the working copy; the cloud account is the owner's window and the off-site copy. Staff register, enter results and print on the PC, with or without internet, exactly as they would on an unconnected offline edition. The cloud catches up when the connection returns. The owner opens the cloud account on a phone and sees the same lab a cloud-only lab would see.
Nothing about this changes the two editions themselves. An online-only lab stays online-only. An offline lab that never connects stays exactly as it was. The link between them is a switch our team turns on for a lab's account, and the offline edition is still licensed separately from the cloud plans.
What goes up, what comes down
Up, from the PC to the cloud: everything. Patients, orders, samples, results, reports and their PDFs, invoices and payments, expenses, stock, doctors, staff, the test catalogue and every setting. A new screen added to the software in future syncs from the day it exists; there is no list that has to be kept up to date.
Down, from the cloud to the PC: everything the owner changes online. Prices, settings, the letterhead, staff accounts, referring doctors — and patients and orders too, if someone registers one online. The clinic's own record travels column by column, so a sign-in online does not overwrite a letterhead change made on the PC an hour earlier.
Down only, never up: the plan. Once connected, the cloud account's plan, its expiry and its limits apply on the PC. A PC cannot extend its own subscription, and a suspension in the account reaches the PC on its next check-in, within a minute while it is online.
The software checks every ten seconds while the internet is up. A record edited ten times between two checks travels once, as it is now, so a busy counter does not flood the connection.
What this gives back to an offline lab
Three things the offline edition had to leave out, because they needed a hosting company behind them, come back the moment the PC is connected.
The patient's QR link. The billing slip on a connected PC carries the QR code again. A patient scans it with their phone camera and their report opens online for 30 days, as it does for a cloud lab, once the released report has reached the cloud. Scanned before the order itself has gone up, the link does not open yet; once the order is up and the report is not, it says the tests are still in process. On a PC that is not connected, the slip has no QR, because the link would have nowhere to point.
The owner's view from anywhere. The day's registrations, collections, pending reports and stock alerts, on a phone, from home or the other branch. This was the single feature that most often sent a lab to the cloud edition despite a bad connection.
An off-site copy. The offline edition backs itself up once a day and keeps the last fourteen, but on the same PC. We have always asked offline labs to copy the newest backup to a USB stick each week, because backups on a stolen machine protect nothing. A connected PC's data is also on the cloud, continuously. Keep the USB habit; it is no longer the only copy outside the building.
What happens when the same record changes on both sides
Two people editing the same record on two machines before they next sync is rare, but a sync that pretends it cannot happen is not one to trust. The rule is simple and it is written down:
| Record | Winner |
|---|---|
| Results, reports, signatures, samples, critical values, quality control | The lab PC, always. It is the medical record. |
| Everything else — a patient's phone number, a price, a setting | The later edit |
The losing version is never discarded. It is listed under Settings → Cloud sync on the PC (and Settings → Desktop sync online), where an administrator can read both versions, dismiss it, or restore it. A restore is an ordinary edit and syncs like one.
Numbers that cannot collide
Both machines issue their own invoice, order, report, sample and MR numbers, because the PC
has to keep issuing them with no internet. So while a PC is connected, anything the cloud
issues — a patient the owner registers online, say — carries a W- prefix: W-INV-2026-00042
rather than INV-2026-00042. The PC's series is the plain one. Two series, no clashes, and
anyone reading a number knows where it was made.
Connecting a PC that has been working on its own
The usual case is a lab that signed up online first and then installs the offline edition: on the installer's first-run window choose Connect to an existing A Pulse Solution account, enter a link code, and the whole account comes down. The administrator signs in with their usual online password.
The harder case is a PC that has run offline for months and now joins an account that has also been used. Both sides hold a test catalogue, staff accounts, and — this is the awkward part — patients and orders that may share a number, because each side counted from one.
- The same thing on both sides — the administrator's account (matched by email), the seeded test catalogue (by code), the default branch — becomes one record. The PC keeps its own values and adopts the cloud's identity.
- Two different records that happen to share a number — the PC's
PAT-00001and the cloud'sPAT-00001, two different people — are both kept. The PC's copy moves to the next free number in its series, and its old number is listed on the sync screen, so a slip printed with it can still be traced. Nothing is ever merged because two things shared a number. (The first version of this merged them, and it was caught in testing before it reached any lab. We mention it because it is exactly the question to ask any vendor offering a sync.) - Anything the rules cannot decide waits on the sync screen for a person. Nothing behind it is held up.
How to connect one
- Ask us to switch Desktop sync on for your account. It is a per-account permission, off until a lab asks for it.
- Online, open Settings → Desktop sync and press Link a lab PC. You get a code like
APL-XXXX-XXXX. It works once and expires in fifteen minutes. - On the PC, open Settings → Cloud sync, enter the cloud address and the code. Or, on a fresh install, choose Connect to an existing account on the first-run window.
- Watch the chip in the header. It says whether the PC is up to date, sending, waiting for internet, or needs attention. Clicking it opens the sync screen with Sync now, Pause and Resync everything (for after a backup restore on the PC).
One PC per lab. The design assumes the lab nominates one PC that stays on as its server, with the other desks opening the software over the lab's own network, as the offline edition always has. Two separate PCs each connected to one account would each issue the same numbers and collide. If your lab has two locations with two PCs, that is two accounts, or the cloud edition's multi-branch plan.
Updates reach the PC on their own now
Related, and worth saying because it was the other honest cost of installed software: the desktop app now downloads a new version quietly in the background and, once it is ready, a bar at the bottom of every screen offers Restart & update or Later. Restart takes a backup, installs, and reopens on the new version in about a minute, with one Windows administrator prompt on the way. Later installs it when the software is next closed. A PC with no internet never sees an error about updates; it runs its version until someone brings an installer on a USB stick, exactly as before.
What still needs a connection
Being plain about the edges:
- The patient's QR link needs the report to reach the cloud. On a bad morning with no internet, a patient who scans the slip at the lab sees in process until the connection returns and the report goes up. Printing the report is unaffected.
- WhatsApp and SMS delivery of report links need internet on the PC, as they always did. Staff can still hand over the printed report.
- The link code needs internet for the few seconds it takes to redeem it.
- Online payment, Google sign-in, OTP and email password resets are still not on the desktop. Passwords are set in person, as before.
- The cloud edition's installed app on a phone has not changed. It opens offline and prints what is on screen; the data still needs the server. The sync described here is between the Windows desktop edition and the cloud, not something a phone does.
Who this is for
A lab whose internet is genuinely unreliable, and whose owner still wants to see the day from outside the building. Before October this lab had to choose between the two; now it runs the offline edition and connects it.
A lab that has been offline for a year and now has a decent connection. Connecting it turns the PC's history into a cloud account without a migration project. The PC keeps working as the counter; the cloud becomes the owner's view and the backup.
A lab with reliable internet and no particular fear of it does not need any of this. The cloud edition on its own is simpler: nothing installed, nothing to update, no PC that has to stay on. The cloud vs desktop guide still applies, with one fewer trade-off in the offline column.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the lab stop if the internet is down? No. The PC works exactly as an unconnected offline edition does: registration, results, printing and billing all carry on. Changes queue on the PC and go up when the connection returns. The only things waiting are the patient's online link and WhatsApp delivery.
Can staff work in the cloud account instead of the PC? They can, and anything they do there comes down to the PC. But the design assumes staff work on the PC and the owner looks, and occasionally edits, online. If a result were entered on both sides before they synced, the PC's version wins and the other is kept for review.
Which plan do I need? Desktop sync is switched on per account by our team, on request; the offline edition itself is licensed separately. Once connected, the cloud account's plan and its limits apply on the PC. Message us on WhatsApp with your lab's name and we will send both in writing.
Is my data on the cloud now? Once connected, yes, the same as a cloud lab's, with the same isolation and the same backups. Disconnecting the PC stops the sync; it does not delete what has already reached the cloud. Read the security page for what we hold and how.
What if I restore a backup on the PC? Press Resync everything on the PC's sync screen. Every record is sent again and the cloud is brought back to what the PC holds. Anything created online since the backup is not deleted by that; if it refers to records the restore removed, it waits on the sync screen for a look.
Can two PCs in two branches connect to one account? Not well. Each PC syncs with the cloud, not with each other, and both would issue the same numbers. Use one account per PC, or the cloud edition's multi-branch plan, where every branch works in one shared account.