Auto-Dialer and SMS Text Reminder

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Fri Oct 08, 2010 4:27 pm

Normal behavior: staff selects patient, goes to Family Module, looks up phone number, reaches for phone and dials number. Problem: too long, mistakes

What I'm showing below: staff selects patient, goes to Family Module, clicks "Call Phone" button, office phone rings, picks phone up, speaks to patient.

How?!?

Part 1.
Get a free Google Voice account https://www.google.com/voice and forward that number to your real office number.
In my example, my Google Voice username is username@gmail.com, my password is myGVpassword, my "real" office phone number is 5558675309.

Part 2.
Download a command line dialer acting as a bridge, download GVDialer here http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1 ... 0-80-0.zip
Open Dental | Setup |Program Links | Add

What that does is run "GVDial.exe username@gmail.com myGVpassword patientwirelessnumber yourofficephone"
You should now see a "Call Phone" button in the Family module. Select a patient with phone number in the Wireless Phone. Click call, your phone should now ring.

You can do the same for [WirelessPhone] and [WkPhone].

Let me know if you need help. Working GREAT for me.

Post by **jordansparks** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 10:20 am

We went ahead and added that to 7.3 and 7.4, but use [WirelessPhone] instead of [PatientWirelessPhone]. Not quite released yet.

Rickliftig · Post by **Rickliftig** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 1:32 pm

Whoa - Phil - you are a real 'hacker'! In the traditional sense of the word!

Nice job!

Justin Shafer · Post by **Justin Shafer** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 7:25 pm

Wow! That is really cool! What in the world are you working on! Prexion.cs, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc....

enamelrod · Post by **enamelrod** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 5:04 am

ok phil ill pay you to add this hack. take the information from open dental and feed it into google maps information( or zillow) to give you an instant feedback of where your patients are coming from and their demographics. and what proceedures they are accepting. We have found certain areas do certain types of proceedures more often then others.

and then the ability to bridge the name and address to the google account would be nice so my droid will have there info on it so i know whos calling at night asking for drugs

jclaydds · Post by **jclaydds** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 11:32 am

I guess this post is on the Advanced Topics Forum for a reason.

Re: Part 1 of instructions: I would love to utilize this auto dialer capabilty but have no programming knowledge. How would I add those two lines in OpenDental.ProgramL.cs? Where the heck is OpenDental.ProgramL.cs? I imagine if I have to ask how to do it and where it is -- I likely have no business trying. I was sort of hoping this could be a cookbook procedure and I wouldn't get myself in trouble.

Re: Part 2 of instructions: Done.

Re: Part 3 of instructions: I downloaded gvdial.exe but I am a little confused as to which folder I put it in so it will be available to all workstations. I would imagine it should be in one of my folders on the server.

If you all sense that I am in over my head -- Tell me so and I'll forget about it. I have survived up to this point without an autodialer.

Thanks.

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:02 pm

jclaydds:
Part 1 of the instruction has been incorporated into version 7.3 by Dr. Sparks, so you don't have to modify any files. Just wait a couple of days until Dr. Sparks releases 7.3.
The parameters have been changed from [PatientWirelessPhone] to [WirelessPhone]. You can also repeat Part 3 for [HmPhone] calling. The gvdial.exe file should go into the same folder as Open Dental to make it easier to keep track (ie C:\program Files\Open Dental)

enamelrod:
Check out this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... erica.html
I think what you want to do is to plot the patient's address into google maps, with an overlay of the "Race maps of America" over it? I guess that allows you to see where the patient resides/demographics etc. You're opening a can of "race" worms here my friend

enamelrod · Post by **enamelrod** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 7:16 pm

dont care about race its income and family make up age kids that kind of thing

enamelrod · Post by **enamelrod** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:00 pm

so is this a feature or a work around now? is it a direct sip autodial? is there a button we click to make it dial?

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 8:48 pm

With the changes incorporated by Jordan, the capability is there. You just have to set it up, just like anything else.

Follow steps 2 and 3 as above to make a Program Link and buttons in any module. Jordan has made two new arguments, [WirelessPhone] and [HmPhone] for your use.

Google Voice is not a SIP phone. It still needs a real phone. When you click on the button, your office phone will ring immediately. Once you pick it up, it will ring your patient's wireless or home phone. It allows you to bypass manual phone dialing and errors associated with it.
Another side benefit I have found is that it gives me a nice log in GV that the frontdesk girls have indeed been calling patients for recalls/confirmations etc.

enamelrod · Post by **enamelrod** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:55 am

ok ill give it a whirl, still wondering how it works and how it knows which line to dial on?

jrpappy · Post by **jrpappy** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 6:33 am

This is really cool. With a little work, I got this working! (and I am not very computer savy). Thanks for the feature!

One enhancement would be to have the patient's comm log pop up as soon as the call is made. (it would also be great to have incoming calls somehow bring up comm log, but that may be a bit more difficult). This would encourage anyone using the feature to post a note for that call!

So, is there a way to have the Call Cell Phone button also bring up the patient's comm log?

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:07 am

jrpappy: I'm glad you got it working.

Regarding the Commlog, the Family Module has a Commlog button right next to Select Patient, one click away. If you REALLY want to default to the entire Commlog, in Part 3 instead of selecting the Family Module, choose Account Module only, or both. That way the buttons do appear in Account Module and the entire commlog is there.

jrpappy · Post by **jrpappy** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:13 am

That's an easy fix and should work. I'll give it a try!

Thanks

drtech · Post by **drtech** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 12:17 pm

works great...calls your phone and then it calls out to the number you want. Only problem I see is if you have multiple people working the phones at once, how are they going to know which incoming call is the one they want?

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:38 pm

drtech: I assume by having multiple ppl calling at once, that means you have multiple phone lines.

If so try one of 2 things.

1) Make more Program Links (name it Call Wireless #2) with the same exact parameters as in step #3, except the last phone number part, enter your secondary phone line, or...

2) set up more Google Voice accounts to point to your secondary numbers. Then make more Program Links buttons with those accounts and name them Call Wireless #1, Call Wireless #2, etc. That way Call Wireless #1 will dial your primary number. Call Wireless #2 will call your second phone line, etc. Use your imagination

jrpappy · Post by **jrpappy** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:05 am

drtech wrote:works great...calls your phone and then it calls out to the number you want. Only problem I see is if you have multiple people working the phones at once, how are they going to know which incoming call is the one they want?

I think the problem is not that multiple people will be making calls at the same time, but that real incoming calls may be confused with incoming google voice calls.

We have a really old phone system. Do the new ones with caller id solve this problem. ie do they have caller id for multiple calls coming in at the same time? This would solve a lot of confusion.

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 9:48 am

You have brought up a concern of mine too when I was playing with it the first couple of days. Firstly, when you click on the call button, you're already anticipating your phone to ring. Secondly, wait for your phone to ring at least once first. When you pick it up, you will hear the ringing tone of the person you're dialing right away. If you don't hear the ringing tone, that means it's a real incoming call.

Despite the possible confusion, I have not experienced a case where the girls would get confused between a real incoming call versus a google voice outgoing call. It's not like the phone is ringing off the hook all the time. Even if you are immensely popular like Jordan Sparks, set GV to your secondary phone line instead

The CallerID feature would also ward off the minute chance that it should happen. It would show your GV number. I chose my GV number to be very similar to my real office number, both ending with 1519, so you would know right away too.

By the way, look for a program called GVNotifier. You can see a log of all phone calls to make sure the girls are really hard at work, send text reminders, etc. Works awesome too.

irfan · Post by **irfan** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:44 pm

is there any work around to getting it to show your office # instead of GV #? I dont know if its even legal though but it is infact using your office phone to make a call isnt it? so really that shouldnt be spoofing.

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:39 pm

Google is working on phone number portability, meaning you can port your number to become a Google Voice number (or out of GV to another provider). You may or may not want to do so. Having said that, my office grand opening is tomorrow and all office signs/adverts/business cards are using my GV number.

It is entirely legal, otherwise Google wouldn't be offering the service to the masses. They have more to lose than our measly dental offices

Joseph Laudie · Post by **Joseph Laudie** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:00 pm

Nice idea guys; however I'm running into a problem setting up the autodialer to call the home phone..and it may be a google voice issue. when I try it - click the button, my office phone rings and I get the following recorded message from google voice, "this number is not available for call return". Has anyone else ran into this problem?

Jay · Post by **Jay** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:32 am

Is there any reason this does not work when I try using [WkPhone] for the Work Phone number?

Post by **jordansparks** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:13 pm

Because that isn't an option.

rhaber123 · Post by **rhaber123** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:44 pm

This is a great feature.

I use Google Voice Dial Application on my Windows Vista.
http://rstoeber.com/apps/Google_Voice_Utility.html

Do you know how to transfer the cell number from Open Dental to the SMS option in this application?
if we can do that , it will be easy for our receptionists to send SMS to our patient by using a bridge in open dental,

Jay · Post by **Jay** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:37 pm

jordansparks wrote:Because that isn't an option.

Any reason why it isn't. It is not different from the other two.

Post by **jordansparks** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 7:40 pm

Home phone isn't an option either. No reason.

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:46 pm

jordansparks wrote:Home phone isn't an option either. No reason.

Jordan,
Home Phone works fine. Why do you say it isn't an option?

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:50 pm

From a different thread:

teethdood wrote:Jordan, if you ever start work on SMS messaging, please consider Google Voice integration. Free SMS on lots of devices including smart phones and PC desktop. I was looking into making a bridge much like the auto-dialer thing. Something like a program links button
googletext.exe [WirelessPhone] "Friendly reminder from OD Family Dentistry for your appointment on [ApptDate] at [ApptTime]"
You can also add that to the Appointments List/Confirmations
Just an idea

Dr. Doan,
Thanks for the info on Google Voice that you posted. I set it up and we're dialing patients' cell & home phones right from OD. It works great.
Could you explain how you are using it to send SMS messages? I don't quite get it.
Thanks.

Jay · Post by **Jay** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:03 am

jordansparks wrote:Home phone isn't an option either. No reason.

Jordan, actually it is an option. That's why I was wondering why it was not extended to Work Phone.

irfan · Post by **irfan** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:28 am

yes home phone works if i replace [wirelessphone] with [hmphone] ... but [wkphone] wont dial

Post by **jordansparks** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:57 pm

My mistake. Anyway, it took two seconds to add, so I did. It will be in 7.9.

edpsystems · Post by **edpsystems** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:26 pm

Great idea! Was on the road to setting it up until Google says

"Google Voice is not available in your country.
Thanks for visiting Google Voice. We're not yet open for users outside the US, but are planning to expand our service to additional countries in the future".

Grr..!

Is there an alternative out there or should I wait until they reach Spain?
Stu

Joseph Laudie · Post by **Joseph Laudie** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:38 am

Has anyone figured out how to tweek this to send text messages to patients?

irfan · Post by **irfan** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:51 am

this was working fine until today...

no the gvdial screen blanks out but no dial. doing it enough times im able to read "login failure" on the gvdial cmd before it closes out. anyone else have those issues? username/password are still correct... i can log in to google just fine and the settings are still correct in the OD setup end.

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:11 am

irfan wrote:this was working fine until today...

no the gvdial screen blanks out but no dial. doing it enough times im able to read "login failure" on the gvdial cmd before it closes out. anyone else have those issues? username/password are still correct... i can log in to google just fine and the settings are still correct in the OD setup end.

SAME HERE

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:58 pm

irfan wrote:this was working fine until today...

no the gvdial screen blanks out but no dial. doing it enough times im able to read "login failure" on the gvdial cmd before it closes out. anyone else have those issues? username/password are still correct... i can log in to google just fine and the settings are still correct in the OD setup end.

DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO IT?

Jay · Post by **Jay** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:57 am

Google changed something at their end. The author, DogFace has released a new version 0.80.0 Alpha. It works with OD (verified by overwriting 0.70.0) and even supports SMS (yet to be verified). Here are the links:

Announcement (Note: The first post is a sticky): http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r220935 ... ice-dialer

Latest Zip Archive: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1 ... 0-80-0.zip

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk. I am providing the information purely for educational purposes

Jay · Post by **Jay** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:18 am

SMS also works (obviously command line only).

The syntax to send Hello World! is:

gvdial.exe -s username password destno "Hello World!"

Note the -s switch at the start and the quotes wrapping the message because it has a space.
Note that your own Google Voice number is not needed, only the destno i.e. the recipient's 10 digit number.
Now for OD integration. Someone in the development team please figure out a way.

irfan · Post by **irfan** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:39 am

thanks Jay! Simple copy-replace of the gvdial.exe is all that is needed. works now.

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:24 am

I have updated the original post to reflect the new version for new users.

90210smile.com · Post by **90210smile.com** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:50 pm

Worked nicely for us until - the big goog decided that we were violating rules and shut down the account

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 7:20 pm

90210smile.com wrote:Worked nicely for us until - the big goog decided that we were violating rules and shut down the account

What rules were you violating?

CeylonSoft1 · Post by **CeylonSoft1** » Sun May 19, 2013 12:23 pm

Checkout the OpenDental plugin for Phone, Voicemail, Fax, Email, Reminders and Recalls.

http://www.DentistPatientManagement.com

-Allen

CeylonSoft1 · Post by **CeylonSoft1** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:28 am

Using DentistPatientManagement software you can send Automatic batch reminders, single manual reminder for a particular appointment, batch reminder for a particular day for all doctors. Automatic reminders can be sent with OD field preferred contact method. For manual reminders you can send by Preferred contact method, Email, Phone call or SMS. You can view all results in OD.

boboffice · Post by **boboffice** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 6:35 am

CeylonSoft1 wrote:Using DentistPatientManagement software you can send Automatic batch reminders, single manual reminder for a particular appointment, batch reminder for a particular day for all doctors. Automatic reminders can be sent with OD field preferred contact method. For manual reminders you can send by Preferred contact method, Email, Phone call or SMS. You can view all results in OD.

Any idea of the cost of this?

eschoud2 · Post by **eschoud2** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 9:21 am

Can anyone explain to me how to properly set up a program link for this? I have Google Voice and have downloaded the GVDial app, but I cannot seem to get past that. When creating a program link, what should I put in the "path of file to open" and other boxes? In the original post instructions, there is an image that is missing, and I am guessing that would answer a lot of my questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Eric

teethdood · Post by **teethdood** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:07 pm

Fixed the image file in original post. Should be more clear now. Thanks

eschoud2 · Post by **eschoud2** » Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:41 am

Yes, everything is clear to me now. Thank you!

Eric

dkennel · Post by **dkennel** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 11:56 am

It doesnt work for me, everytime I click on my call button in OD it opens another GVdialer icon on the taskbar on the bottom, but the commands do not work, I have to manually enter the phone number to text to....
GVDialer is version 0.4/ GVdDialer 0.4.exe, I wonder if that is the problem??

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 6:43 pm

dkennel wrote:It doesnt work for me, everytime I click on my call button in OD it opens another GVdialer icon on the taskbar on the bottom, but the commands do not work, I have to manually enter the phone number to text to....
GVDialer is version 0.4/ GVdDialer 0.4.exe, I wonder if that is the problem??

Try uninstalling version 0.4 and install version 0.3.
http://code.google.com/p/gvdialer/downloads/list
Let us know if that makes a difference.

corneredge · Post by **corneredge** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 3:42 pm

teethdood and users: great info thread

I would like to do away with the separate phones completely and use the PC to make calls w/ headset & mic.

1) is it possible to have gvdialer call via voip (cancelled old att land lines...ie. not hooked up to old land lines but thru the web)
2) the front desk PCs will all have different google voice numbers so the staff can make patient calls from different PCs.
3) would gvdialer work? or do I need a separate windows soft phone program (ie. soft phone dialer)

thanks for any info.

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 8:12 pm

My GVDialer has stopped working and I can't figure out why.
Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Anyone have any information?
I can still use Google Voice to dial from a web browser, but miss being able to click a button in OD.

mopensoft · Post by **mopensoft** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 7:13 pm

GV changes their HTTP access, software like GVDialer or GVNotifier stopped working