Configuration 101

New/existing patient website bookings

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The above shows how to add a provider into the New Patient/Existing Patient types of Online Bookings. These are for patients booking through the link on your website. As can you can see you need to set:

1. The default NHS and/or Private appointment length as well as the service code.

2. What clinic settings you want it to default to, the three options being:

   1. ‘Specific Clinic’ - meaning you can set a clinic that should be in the provider’s diary for the online bookings to go in.

   2. ‘All unbooked non-clinic time’ - which would allow the Online Bookings to go in any open time that isn’t zoned out with a clinic.

   3. ‘All unbooked time’ - This one allows the Online Bookings to go in any open time regardless if there are clinic zones there or not.

3. Lastly the confirmation templates you’d like to be sent automatically which sends when a patient books online. There will more than likely be ones already created for email and SMS called ‘OBAPPCON’.

Updating the reasons/services available online

After defining all the providers you’d like for Online Bookings you also need to decide what services you want patients to choose from; this part is just for the new/existing patients booking for your website.

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In the above example a service is added for ‘Oral Hygiene Visit’. What you need to set for Online Booking reasons are:

1. The private price you’d like to display. You don’t need to set an NHS price here as the Online Booking page will always display the latest NHS fees under the NHS tab.

2. The deposit to be taken for the service. This is only for private appointments.

3. The providers you’d like available for it under ‘Configure Providers’. Exact will then ask you if you want to add every provider, all dentists or all hygienists to it. However you can add, edit and remove providers instead one by one if you prefer by clicking ‘no’ to this option.

4. For each provider you can then amend the appointment lengths & service code, clinic settings and confirmation templates if this needs to be adjusted for this Online Booking reason.

Recall Online Bookings

This shows how to add a provider for Online Recalls. The only configuration needed here is the clinic settings and confirmation templates. This is because when the patient receives their recall link they’ll only be able to book for the dental/hygiene recall appointment you have set them on their patient file.

Ensuring your recall settings are current

Keeping you recall settings up to date is important to ensure your Online Recalls is getting the best utilization.

The above demonstrates how to add/remove providers to your ‘Manage Recalls’ settings. You can also adjust the default dental or hygiene recall service, appointment length and interval from here also. If you need more guidance on how best to setup your recalls then feel free to click here.

Most practices automate the sending of their recalls but either way to let patients book their recalls online the email/SMS templates to send need to be Online Booking ones. These will probably have been created for you and are called ‘OBR1’, ‘OBR2’ and ‘OBR3'. The only difference between the templates is the wording depending on how due or overdue the patient is.

Planned Online Bookings

This is how you add providers for planned Online Bookings. You need to set the clinic settings and confirmation templates as before. Additionally under ‘Sending Templates’ you need to set what email/SMS templates you’d like when sending patients links for outstanding planned appointments. You’ll most likely have ones we’ve created for you already called ‘OBPLANNED’.

Features you can turn on/off

These are some other options you can enable/disable for your Online Bookings depending on your preferences:

1. ‘Display Call Me option’ - enabling this allows patients booking through the Online Booking link on your website only to request a callback from the practice. You’ll see see which patients have requested a callback from the ‘Online Appointments’ tab in your appointment book. For information regarding the ‘Online Appointments’ tab click here.

2. ‘Open Recalls’ - This is for recalls only. If unticked then patients will only see dates & times from the date their recall is due onwards. If ticked and a patient receives their recall link earlier than they are due in then they could book in before their recall date if they wanted to.

3. ‘Appointment Stacking’ - This determines how much availability our Online Booking will show within any gaps in your diary. If unticked then it will only show the first appointment time out of every gap whereas if ticked it will show all availability in half hour intervals.

The ‘Marketing Reasons’ section here is if you’re using Campaign Plus to send unique links to patients for a campaign you’re running (which you can do!) For more info on this please click here.

Lastly the three buttons at the bottom are how you can update the branding of your Online Booking page. If you need help with this then click here.