Recording Acupuncture Points

Daobook records the points you needled as real data rather than a line of free text — so it can count needles, build each patient's point history, and report across your whole clinic. It's built around your own working library, which is what makes charting a treatment take seconds.

What it is and isn't: Daobook doesn't suggest which points to use — it's not a clinical reference. The feature is for recording the points you've chosen, quickly. What you needle is always your call.

What comes with it: 423 points ship with Daobook — every numbered point on all fourteen channels, the WHO extra points, and the scalp lines. Anything beyond that (your own system, a lineage's extra points, an ashi point you keep coming back to) you add yourself, and there's a section below on how.

Turning It On or Off per Template

The Acupuncture section appears on consultations whose template includes it. It's on by default — on the templates you already had, as well as any new ones.

Go to Settings > Communications tab > Consultation Templates.
Edit a template and tick or untick "Show Acupuncture Points".

A consultation template being edited, with the Show Acupuncture Points checkbox ticked

Untick it and the section disappears from that template entirely — if you don't needle, nothing changes for you.

If you've been typing points into the free-text Acupuncture Treatment box, that box now steps aside wherever the section is switched on and the box is empty. A consultation that already has a note in that box keeps it, with a line explaining it's been superseded — clear the note and the box stops appearing.

Step 1: Chart the Points

Open a consultation and find the Acupuncture section, between your treatment notes and the prescription builder. There's one search field — "Add a point — LI4, He Gu…" — with your quick-pick chips beneath it.

The Acupuncture section of a consultation, showing the search field, quick-pick chips, three selected points with Left, Both and Right controls, and the points and needles counter

Tap a chip to add that point. Tap it again to take it back off.
Or type. Typing filters your chips first. Codes match however you write them — li4, LI 4 and li-4 all land on the same point — and so do pinyin written solid ("hegu" finds He Gu), Chinese characters, and English names. Anything outside your palette is searched from the full library and listed under "Not in your points". Pressing Enter adds the first match.
Each selected point gets a row with an L / Both / R control. Midline points — Ren, Du, and midline extras like Yintang — simply read "Midline".
The counter at the top right totals points and needles as you go, counting a bilateral point as two needles.
The bookmark icon on a row pins that point to your quick-pick chips. This is the main way a palette gets built — out of the points you actually use, one consultation at a time.
The × takes a point off this treatment only. The chip stays in your quick pick — points are removed from your palette in Settings, never from inside a consultation. See Managing Your Library below.

Step 2: Save a Protocol

Select the points you use together, then click "+ Save selection" beneath the list and give it a name.

The Protocols toggle opened inside the Acupuncture section, showing two saved protocol pills with their point counts

From then on the "Protocols" toggle opens your saved protocols, and one click adds every point in one. They apply additively, so two protocols stack rather than replace each other. The search field filters protocols by name as well as filtering your chips, and whether the list sits open or closed is remembered for next time.

Step 3: Points That Aren't in the Library

When a search finds nothing anywhere in the library, two quiet options appear.

The add-to-my-points form that appears when a search finds no match, with Code, Name and Region fields and an Add button

Add "…" to my points — for a point you'll use again. Fill in the Code, Name and Region, and it joins your personal library, findable in every future consultation.
Chart as one-off — for a true ashi point. It's recorded on this treatment only and leaves nothing behind in your library.

Your custom points are yours alone — colleagues at the same clinic don't see them.

Bringing In a Whole List

If your own point system lives in a spreadsheet, bring it in at once rather than a point at a time. Go to Settings > Clinical Resources tab > Acupuncture Points and click "Import a point list".

Download the CSV template.
Fill it in. code is required; pinyin_name, chinese_name, english_name, body_zone and midline are optional. Body zones need to be one of the zones listed on that page — anything else is left blank rather than rejected.
Save it as UTF-8 CSV (in Excel: Save As → CSV UTF-8) and upload it.

Re-importing is safe: a row whose code you already have updates that point rather than duplicating it. Up to 1,000 rows per file. If some rows have problems the good ones still land, and the rest come back numbered the same way your spreadsheet is.

Managing Your Library

Settings > Clinical Resources tab > Acupuncture Points holds everything in one place.

The Acupuncture Points settings page, showing the Quick pick card with pinned chips, the Protocols card, the Import a point list button, and the My points card

Quick pick — search the library and add chips in bulk. The × on a chip is the only way to take a point off your palette: pinning happens inside consultations, unpinning happens here. "Sort by channel" tidies the whole palette into channel order in one go. It's a one-off tidy-up rather than a setting, so newly pinned points still land at the end and your arrangement stays where you left it.
Protocols — your saved protocols with their points and counts, and a × to delete your own. A filter box appears once you have ten or more.
Import a point list — collapsed behind a button until you need it.
My points — your custom points. The pencil renames a point's code and name; the × removes it from your library, which archives rather than deletes it, so past consultations keep showing it. Filter box at ten or more.

Where Charted Points Show Up

The finalised consultation lists them grouped by body zone with the needle count, and the consultation PDF carries the same section.
While you're writing notes, the side panel shows the points from previous visits alongside those notes.
The client's profile has an Acupuncture tab: their most-used points, a channel spread, and a visit-by-visit timeline linking back to each consultation.
Data > Acupuncture shows the same picture across your clinic for any period — treatments with points, distinct points, needles, needles per treatment, most-used points, channel spread, and a breakdown by practitioner. It exports to PDF.
Letters gain an Acupuncture group of placeholders — points, points with names, points with laterality, a bulleted list, channels treated, point count, needle count — once you choose a consultation as the letter's context.
Your data export carries an acupuncture_points column on the consultations file.