Patient names in automated correspondence

Hi ​@clairem, 

Hope you’re getting some good downtime over the holidays. Thanks for raising this and for explaining the impact so clearly. I’ve checked internally and this isn’t currently logged as a feature request, so I’ll add it and make sure it’s passed to the relevant product manager to review.

There isn’t a way to customise this behaviour today, but I agree the distinction between first name and preferred name in automated messages is important.

If other practices are affected, feel free to add your comments below.

Hi ​@clairem,

I’m having a chat with our product team regarding this issue. Are you able to share which specific message or scenario you’re seeing this with, that would really help us scope it properly. Thank you!

Hi Saymon

It’s the automated message that is sent to patients to complete their medical forms prior to an appointment. “Dear Sally, you have 1 task to complete before your appointment. https://portal.dental/r/LWoook3W.”

I can’t find this stored as a template, so I can’t change it to preferred name from first name.

Thanks

Claire

Hi ​@clairem ,

thanks for clarifying!

You’re right: the pre-appointment medical forms message is a system-generated Portal message, not a configurable template, which is why you can’t switch it to use the preferred name today.

I’ve shared this specific case with the product team and passed it on to the team owning the Portal experience. There’s ongoing work to better centralise and align Portal correspondence with the rest of Dentally’s messaging, and this is exactly the kind of gap they need to be aware of. No timeline to share just yet, but it’s now clearly logged with the right context. Thanks again for flagging it 😊