Practice Admin

HI. I am familiar with the FP17forms that the patients sign through dentally. We also need to sign FP17DC. Can these also be done through dentally? I am referring to the form https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2025-04/FP17DC%20form%20England%20-%20April%202025.pdf I could not find any reference to it here or in the support portal.  Thank you

I can see there is no option to assign tasks to more than one person but if you have 2 receptionists it is twice the time to assign the task to both separately so I would hope to see this become a feature in future upgradesThe same with being able to send an instant message to multiple recipients. If you need to send a panic message for instanceAlso is there any way to increase the size of the message box

I wanted to share an issue I recently ran into when rebuilding Word document templates in Dentally, in case it helps others and saves some time.We’ve very recently migrated from EXACT to Dentally, and as part of that process we’re trying to re-establish our trusted systems and templates (including referral templates) that are essential for day-to-day clinical and administrative workflows.The problemDentally data tags will not work in Word documents that are protected (for example, restricted editing or form protection).This is particularly relevant for documents such as referral templates, as hospital referral templates are often protected by default.This limitation isn’t currently called out in the Dentally help guide on Word templates. I also contacted Dentally support, but unfortunately they were not able to identify the cause o

We often get patients who turn up to the practice for an appointment without having completed the NHS forms or medical history forms online and we’re stuck becuase they are not confident with using an ipad (or too lazy to type an entire list of medicines).As a work around we scanned the prescription list to PDF and then attach it to the patient’s correspondance.  Does anyone have a better suggestion of how this information can be recorded, ideally in the patient’s medical  history?  Is there a way we can manually edit on the desktop computer the list after they have done the medical history (but not at the same time as their appointment as they will run late).  

Most support tickets with any web site provider / SAAS (software as a service), automatically close tickets if they are not responded to, after about 10 days or so with automated emails to back it up.  There always seems to be a rush at Dentally to close a ticket if its not responded to within a day.  I get that you probably have lots of open tickets where practices are either not engaged with the support staff or replying but probably because they are running a practice or dealing with patients but its very frustrating when tickets are closed far too quickly. The matter is made worse by the fact that when a ticket is closed, there is no way to reopen the existing ticket and continuing the conversation by adding more updates or attaching screenshots which we might not have been able to do before. Surely it would be better for everyone if an existing ticket could be reopened on the chat rather than starting a new one and all the hassle associated with cros

You may still be working on this. When trying to send text reminders from the patients appointment list, if they have say 3 appointments, it comes up with the 1st date, for the 2nd and 3rd appointment.  I did raise this a few weeks ago.Best regards Fiona

please can we have a feature so that when checking in a pt that has multiple appointment on the same day it will notify the user that checks them in.For example if a pt has an exam and hygienist appt one after another, if the system could then prompt the user notifying them of a double-booking. This would really help in making sure appointments aren’t missed and reduces the chances of practitioners running behind because of catching up.

It would be great to be able to easily view the history of a cancelled appt that isn’t on the scheduler. At the moment, you can only see the history of an appt from the scheduler section. 

Our appointments used to print out on portrait orientation, with practice name and appointments included. Over the last couple of days, it has changed to landscape, and the appointments only are in the top left corner, with no practice detail's showing. Can you please help with this?

Hi the tablets are not pairing up despite following instruction 

Hi Could I please reiterate the need for improvement to setting up new patients when it concerns a family of patients.  The process can be quite long when setting up a family for the first time.  Is it possible when completing one adult (or a child) to select a feature to add multiple other people on a pop up dialogue box which asks for just their NHS number, first name, last name, title and date of birth (with the tool automatically assuming that the address, mobile, email address will be the same for children as the primary account holder / parent? Separately, I have mentioned this many times previously, but there remains a bug in Dentally when adding a family member to an existing account in the patient details screen, it copies across the parent’s email address but not the mobile phone number which doesnt make sense.  Please correct this because otherwise we have to keep switching screens.

Is there any way of chasing up responses to support tickets?we have some which are open for months.  no response to prompts for updates…   

As a practice, we find the option of lunch and tea breaks being in the diary as movable appointment blocks.Our superiors want us to use the break blocks that are fixed in place when added as part of the clinicians schedule. Would it be possible to make these moveable from the diary page, without having to delete and re-add for a different time? We often shift the breaks to fit around patients.Hope that makes sense.

 It would be extremely useful to be able to colour code the different “kinds of correspondance” as it makes it immediately obvious without having to change the filter what is what.  Example: If we attach an incoming referral from the hospital or another dental practice, it would be nice to just scroll down to the latest e.g. red colour knowing that it is a referral, it saves time and navigating would be immedate with less clicks here and there.  Seconds matter when we’re moving around the system It would be useful if we can FORCE a clinician to look at an important “kind of correspondance” when the patient next comes for an exam.  Example: An important referral from the hospital has been added to the correspondance.  Rather than having to create yellow sticky notes etc, if we want to make sure that the dentist sees and does not miss the referral during the next “exam” appointment, it would be nice to add a feature to “upload new document” screen

It would be great if missed appointments changed colour rather than the little x, it would make missed appointments easier to see in the diary, helping the reception team distinguish them from attended appointments

Hi guys! We are looking to host our first implant open day on Monday 24th November and were wondering if there are any tips and tricks people can offer us who have hosted them before.Do you do goodie bags, do you involve every member of the team in the day and what logistical issues have you encountered on the day that we can hope to avoid?Thanks in advance! :)

Hi all, is there anyway to monitor past occupancy of separate clinicians. I know there is a future occupancy report. I have looked into the practitioner report but I don’t find accurate enough as it is only for patients/appointments who have completed treatment on that day. It also doesn't record the hours if our treatment plan doesn't contain the number on minutes.Thank you 

We take deposits for various treatments to occur in the future.  The payment will go as unallocated or unexplained.   How can we prevent a £100 deposit for e.g. EMS Airflow hygiene being deducted because an associate has charged something else e.g. Band 1 NHS £26.50 to the account thereby reducing the deposit to £73.20 and reception staff being none the wiser because they let the patient go as there is no longer a negative £-26.50 balance showing.We have had many many instances where we cannot “reserve” and lock a deposit on the account for the actual treatment it was meant for, rather than it being deducted against something else the patient has done.  Patient then complains in future saying “I already paid £150 for my airflow hygiene” when they know full well that we didn’t charge them for their other treatments e.g. Band 1 NHS because it has netted off.

Some suggestions for better PR forms:Populate a list of family member’s names for the “If you are signing for the patient give details below: Name (in CAPITALS)” field using registered family members Have a better list of common relationships for the “Relationship to patient” field eg mother, father, step mother, grandma, Sister, foster carer, carer etc Allow patients to select their exemption themselves directly on the PR form Drop the first screen confirming patient details ...just make the PR form interactive Require baby due date for baby in last 12 months exemption Force selection of  under 18 years of age for children (and prevent selection of any other exemption all of which are invalid for children) Require HC3 “amount” for HC3 certificate exemptions Allow choosing the date of acceptance for backdating FR forms (to allow correcting exemptions in the past)

Hello, How do I change the default time for appointment reason? I can set them up and change the order however I am unable to find an option to change the default times, they are all set as 5 minutes which means we have to modify the time manually Thank you in advance

My team have been testing the short-notice list by adding themselves, accepting a short-notice appointment, and then removing it. Even though the slot appears free in the diary whitespace, it no longer shows as available for short-notice booking. Has anyone experienced this before or know how to resolve it?ThanksLesley

Is anyone else having troubles with the deposits system? we’re finding any funds taken that are allocated as a deposit don’t get allocated to any invoices generated without being manually released. Even if the invoice generated matches the clinician on the deposit.

If one right clicks on a zone in the diary there is only the option to delete.Can we have the option to edit the time of the zone from here as well please (like in Exact).Also, the ability to create a zone directly in the diary (like in Exact).

Tell me this is happening sometime soon!White space everywhere and where to start!If anything why can we add to the waiting list while booking that individual appointment, rather than having to open patient record, appointments and the adding, so time consuming!

Hi, More data tags would be very useful for templates, such as one for the person being referred to. ie “Specialist name”. Also it would be great if when creating new correspondence, the data tag for “Dentist” relates to the clinician logged in, not always the clinician to whom the patient is assigned to on the details page. Thanks!