Questions & Feature Requests

I’d be interested to know some examples of non-standard automations other practices have setup and the rule logic they applied in the settings to get it to work.An example of a few that I have setup include:Missed appointment warning - Automation set to send an email to a patient whose state is DID NOT ATTEND and email them 2 hours afer their missed appointment warning them that essentially 3 strikes and they are off our NHS list if they miss or late cancel (within 48-working hours) 1) their first appointment with us, 2) 2-3 appointments within the last 5 years or 3) a family appointment consisting of 3 or more family members (nearly 45 min of clinic time!)iMOS referral appointments - oral surgery referrals to us where we send them pre-operative instructions for the extractions.  We send this T- 48 hours and again T-12 hours as there are various things the patient needs to do e.g. not drink alcohol, eat several hours before, where to find us etcWould like to know more interesting autom

Hi. What are you using for dentist wages calculations? Is it the practitioner activity report or the payment allocations? We are struggling with errors on the allocation of some treatments and been using practitioner activity. is there a better way to do this?Thanks

With the launch of our new appointment search function, I’m keen to understand how sites are managing diary zones to make sure they're hitting financial goals while seeing patients promptly as well as keeping practitioners happy.I usually stand by the blend of the 3 P’s - Patient, Practitioner & Practice, by taking each into consideration you can achieve the perfect day across your practice.To break down the diary zones into its basic format I normally suggest starting with the below zone groups:- Emergency- Recalls- New Patient consultations- TreatmentI’m keen to understand what other sites are doing to Zone out the diary or what's stopping you from zoning yours out.@Lesley Morgan-Barlow & @Esther Egan I know you both have a great set-ups for making sure each day hits your targeted day rate to ensure success but what does everyone else look at when organising this space? 

HelloJust wondering if is there currently a way to view patient images (e.g. XRays on dentally) and type clinical notes at the same time in Dentally?At the moment, I find myself switching back and forth between the notes section and the image viewer on dentally to cross-reference findings and confirm what I’m writing. It is a bit cumbersome, especially during XRay/OPT interpretation or when reviewing multiple images.Would it be possible to introduce a floating or resizable image window that stays visible while typing notes? I think this would be a really helpful feature for many of us in practice. Keen to hear if others have found a workaround or if this is something already on the roadmap.Thanks.

We were hoping to be able to automate aftercare instructions, eventually for all treatment items, but initially to start with extractions. So when a patient has an extraction done, they would immediately have after care instructions emailed to them. We trialled this, however, it was only possible to send the automated email, to be initiated by the appointment reason. This caused several issues, such as patient booked in for urgent, who had an extraction, wouldnt get the aftercare instructions. Or, patient booked for extraction, but then changed their mind on the day, would then get aftercare instructions even though the treatment hasn’t gone ahead. I have been told that it is not possible to have automations run of the actual treatment item. Has anyone managed to automate aftercare instructions / information successfully? Or, has anyone used something like Zapier to automate emails from their own practice emails rather than relying on dentallys email system?

We use the log a call drop down in the correspondence tab for about half of phone conversations that we have with patients. For example if a patient is phoning up because they are in pain or have lost a filling we have a list of questions that we ask to be able to triage them. It would be really useful to be able to pull across a template for this type of conversation to save us typing it up every time.

Has anyone else had an issue with the Bot closing a conversation with one of the help desk team without the person actually answering the question or is it just me?

Hi team,I was really glad to see the Lab work icons introduced - it really helps our team track at a glance where our jobs are at, and be on the front foot to manage this in advance of clients coming in.However, we offer Invisalign and many patients have short 15minute appointments booked in to change over their aligners.The problem here is, Lab work icons only show on appointments say 30min long - the icon is showing underneath the pending/confirmed/seated/complete icon.So therefore, we cannot glance at our diary and check lab jobs ie Invisalign retainers for many of our patients with shorter appointments.Can we have a fix for this?

Hello all! We have changed our plate scanner / processor from Apixia to Durr Vista Scan Mini The processed images are now pixilated around dense areas i.e amalg fillings, we have been advised to increase dosage which has helped but not resolved.  It seems bonkers that we need to radiate patients more now we have upgraded the unit. Have any other practices had similar issues?Many thanksAnnabel 

We often have patients booking in for a series of appointments such a dentures which are 5-6 appointments in our diary and they ask for a list of appointments. We then have to type them all separately. A data tag for all future appointments would save so much time. 

A patients invoice is showing up on takings report but not under the individual practitioners report. Any ideas on how to rectify this? 

This morning I had some great feedback from a patient that it would be faster and more convenient to be able to book online with Apple pay (when paying a deposit - which we have found has helped immensely with managing cancellation/DNA rates). I can see the value in this as some people when booking online on their mobile (the majority of people, I assume from general desktop vs mobile device activity) are on the go, and being able to leave their payment details quickly with Apple pay would be really useful. Potentially even secure some extra patients if we can make it more convenient and quick for them to book...

Good Afternoon, Would anyone know how to get the PRSI report for practioners. I have gone into reports and used all filters but the report keeps coming up blank. I need it to cross reference list of patients who were charged PRSI. Thanks 

Hi Community! We are always looking for ways to improve Dentally based on your feedback, so we’d like to know your thoughts. We understand that the NHS does not specifically recommend hygiene appointments for children – only regular dental exams. To help us understand more about this and whether you would value the option to automatically exclude children from hygiene recalls, take a quick look at our poll below! 👀  Let us know if you have any more comments around child hygiene recalls below! 👇 

Hi all, In the API I can retrieve current opening hours per practice through the sites endpoint. Is there also a way to retrieve historical data for the opening times? Or even just the mutations of the opening hours?

I’ve recently come across a couple of children who’s accounts are “linked” to the account of a parent, but I can’t find a way to “unlink” them. I’ve tried changing the name on the patient screen but when I try to save the chnage it reverts back to the parent.I can see why some practices might like this feature, but I don’t. It’s too confusing for an inexperienced Receptionist as it shows both patients’ charges and payments on both accounts.Can anyone explain how to “unlink” these please?

I want to know what tips people have for managing their membership plans in Dentally including how to keep track of quotas and discounts (not necessarily only through the portal but also keeping track in core Dentally) and also ensuring correct pricing for each plan?

We have 2 NHS contracts, regular GDS for normal dentistry and a PDS for iMOS (Minor Oral Surgery on referral). When our own regular GDS patients come for their appointments, they have to complete the FP17 / PR form either online before the appointment or on the ipad.  If that patient is then referred for Minor Oral Surgery (back to ourselves with the specialist) we are still required to ask that patient to do another FP17 / PR form as NHS require a new FP17 / PR form for each Course of Treatment (CoT).Dentally however, does not offer the patient a chance to do the form a second time because it recognises the fact that “our” patient has already filled in the form.  It’s really frustrating as we waste a lot of time asking the patient to sign the form on the ipad for their referral appointment because they say the portal said there was nothing else for them to complete.  

Does anyone know if there is an unallocated payments report?

Hi,I would like to know if there is a way to use an external SMS system and log such correspondences against a patient’s record in Dentally through portal  or API. Currently, when I try to add a new SMS correspondence from portal, it automatically sends the SMS through Dentally. Is there an option to manually log an SMS without triggering one from Dentally’s system? We are exploring options for integrating an in-house SMS system and would like to ensure proper record-keeping within Dentally.Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated!Thanks!

Can the development team look at changing the colour of the Completed and Confirmed drop downs in the Appointments Tab under Status. As both of these drop downs are slightly different shades of green, it's hard to differentiate when glancing at the appointments tab. Thank you 

Hi, Is it possible to remove a watch from charting if it was put on as a treatment and completed rather than put on as a base chart item. I’ve just tried to remove a watch by clicking on TP in the history search, but the item is locked. 

how are we able to view next of kin details once they have been out into the portal

Hi, first time posting and this may have been asked already but….does anyone else have a problem when booking an impressions appointment it shows as “null” in the diary? The dentist always requests the appointments and we book as linked appointments, but we’re finding that even though it shows as “impressions” on the patient chart it shows as “null” in the diary. We’ve checked our settings and can’t see a problem. If we then double click on the appointment it will change and show the correct information, but as soon as we click on someone else or refresh the diary it will revert to null.Any ideas gratefully received as it’s driving us mad! TIA

Hi, i've been trying to import my invoice items for all of 2024 using the API, but so far it's a quite slow process. The API doesn't seem to allow me to import chunks of data (an updated_before parameter would be sufficient), so i've resorted to taking all invoice id's from the invoice table and calling the invoice items per invoice.The problem with this is that this costs me one API call per invoice. For all of 2024 that's going to take forever.Is there a better way to get the invoice item data?For context, what i'm trying to achieve is to link treatment id's to the payment allocations table. So far my route has been to link payment allocations through the invoice item id to a treatment plan item, which has a treatment id linked to it. If there's a smarter way of approaching this i'd be happy to hear about it.