How do I use automation to send appointment reminders and other correspondences?
To set up an automation rule for appointments:
In Dentally, go to 'Settings' then choose 'Automation'.
Here you will see the 'Communication' tab, with any automations you have previously set up. You can edit existing automations by clicking the pen 📝 button on the right-hand side.
📝 Please note: Any automation rules you have created previously which are inactive will be hidden by default when you open the page - they can be made visible by simply going to the dropdown in the top left and filtering to 'All'.
To set up a new automation, click '+ New Rule'.
In the window that appears, complete the fields you need.
When you have completed the necessary fields, click 'Save'. The appointment automation will now be active and will send automatically when triggered.
💡 Top tip: If a patient is not receiving SMS reminders as expected, check that your settings are correct, and then recommend that they reach out to their carrier to see why. For email reminders, recommend that they check if the emails have been opened accidentally, or if they have landed in the spam or junk folder. If the problem persists, contact Support.
When completing each field, remember:
Rule name
A description to help you remember what it is, eg. 'Reminder one week before'.
Type
Choose 'Appointment' from the dropdown, for appointment correspondences.
Message will be sent approximately
Choose when the correspondence will be triggered - select the number of hours/days/weeks and before or after the appointment started. You can also choose to limit the number of times a message of the same type is triggered per day to once (for example if you have two appointments on the same day but only want a reminder to go out once).
Conditions
Click '+ Add condition' and select the attribute to filter, then check the tickbox of the filter(s) you want to apply.
When you have selected conditions, ensure you click 'Apply' before proceeding, or it will not save. If no conditions are added, all appointments will trigger the message. It is not currently possible to filter by practitioner.
Choose from the following conditions:
State - Whether the appointment is pending, confirmed etc.
Site ID - The site location for the appointment.
Reason - The appointment reason, based on the reasons you have created.
Payment Plan ID - The payment plan that the patient is on.
💡 Top tip: If your patients are receiving confirmations or reminders even though their appointment was cancelled, it could be because the 'Cancelled' appointments have not been excluded from the automation. To ensure reminders aren't sent to patients whose appointment has been cancelled, adjust the 'State' condition to ensure 'Cancelled' is not included.
Message
Choose whether to apply one of your pre-made correspondence templates for both SMS and email. If you select 'None' from the dropdown, this correspondence type will be excluded completely, so patients will not receive the automated correspondence in that format.
💡 Top tip: Communications will be sent using the phone number and/or email address on the patient's record. If a patient shares contact information with another patient (such as family members), it could result in correspondences such as confirmations and reminders being sent to the wrong patient.
For SMS, you can select 'Requires a patient response'.
An appointment can be confirmed by sending a text to the patient, to which they can reply with a 'YES' or 'NO' - this will automatically mark the appointment in the calendar as 'Confirmed' or 'Cancelled' respectively.
For email, you can add a calendar invite by selecting 'Include calendar invitation with email'.
You can then choose your preference for what order correspondences are sent in:
'Email then SMS'/'SMS then email'- The primary method will be attempted first - if it is successfully sent, the secondary method will not be attempted. If the primary method fails, the secondary method will be attempted.
'All' - Both correspondence types will be attempted, so if the patient has registered both an email address and contact number, they may receive the correspondence twice.
💡 Top tip: For pre-appointment reminders and confirmations, your trigger should only contact appointments with the status 'Pending' or 'Confirmed', otherwise you may remind patients about cancelled appointments.
This type of automated correspondence may be used for:
Medical History reminders
Chasing FTAs and WNBs
Contacting cancellations to rebook appointments
📝 Please note: Automated communications are not sent retrospectively - if an appointment is booked last-minute (ie. after your reminders were triggered to send), the system won't "catch up" and send outstanding communications as this could cause multiple reminders to send at once. If they book after all trigger dates have passed, then they will not receive an automated communication.