Rich text for portal appointment descriptions

Hi ​@DavidB2, thanks for raising this! That’s a great point about new lines, I’ve passed that onto the product team and they’re going to keep it in mind for future Portal work.

Rich text formatting like bold and italic is something we've deliberately kept out of appointment descriptions. The core challenge is display consistency across different devices and browsers - when text is formatted, there's no guarantee the intended appearance you created would come across as expected. In the worst case, it could end up displaying the code behind your formatting in some instances.

We'd also encourage keeping appointment descriptions short and to-the-point. Clear, concise copy tends to be more effective for patients, so they can easily understand each appointment type and don’t have to read a lot of text.

We are exploring how we can improve the Portal experience so we appreciate you taking the time to feed back.

Thanks for the response ...rich text in html  is fairly standardised though - <strong> <u> <ul> <li> are well supported across browsers, and many others.

I guess part of the desire for formatted appointment descriptions beyond their intended use is to overcome other missing features from the portal - like the ability to display/accept a cancellation policy and built in support for discounts - are there any plans to support these features?

Thanks ​@DavidB2 I can understand where you're coming from, and we agree that a better solution to the core problems would be preferable to this workaround. Cancellation policies within the portal are already on our radar.

If you could go into more detail about what specifically you’d like to see regarding discounts, I'd be very happy to raise this as a feature request too.

Discounts could be a whole brain storm!

In the context of our current use in the portal - we are displaying information about how we are applying the discounts (ie in surgery ...since there’s no way to enter a discount code in the portal), and about time limits to discounts. So in the first instance, the opportunity to include small print or further information when booking appointments would be helpful.

The brainstorm might be how discounts could be fully implemented into Dentally… friends and family discounts, referral codes, special offers, vouchers...

Thanks ​@DavidB2 I’ve added that additional insight into the ticket!