Our in-clinic form responses have always had "automatic processing". That's because they're started from an appointment — so we've already got the patient ID to which we match! So in this article, we'll be talking exclusively about web form responses.
Since our version 5 update, web form responses have gained the ability to be automatically processed, rather than requiring a manual processing step. 🎉
Turning on automatic processing
If you've only just joined Finger-Ink, you don't need to do anything special to turn on automatic processing, as we enable it by default.
If you've been a customer of ours for a while, it won't be on — you'll need to turn it on via the Inbox. Points if you can figure out where:
That's right — the settings button! Clicking it will show you three different settings you can enable. You'll most likely want to turn them all on, but for now we're just concerned with these two:
Flick the switch on both of them, click save and you're done! Automatic processing is now enabled!
☝️ If you've got any web form responses in your inbox from before version 5, these will still have to be processed manually.
☝️ If you're wondering why we enabled patient record backups as well, it's because automatic processing isn't foolproof. And, if things go awry, you'll want to reverse the process so the original record is restored.
Automatic processing for new patients
Patients will be created automatically via automatic processing, but only if the form they filled doesn't require a treatment note to be created.
The best match is the automatic processing match
For existing patients where a match is found, the best (i.e. one at the top) match is used to process automatically.
As this isn't guaranteed to be the right patient, we offer a way to reverse processing on a form response. You can then manually match as you would have prior to this update.
Automatic processing doesn't always happen
Sometimes automatic processing can't occur, here are a few reasons why automatic processing won't be triggered:
It's not enabled in the Inbox settings.
No match was found (i.e. probable new patient), but a treatment note is required to be created by the form that was filled.
The filled form requires a treatment note to be created and no next appointment was found for the matched patient.
Practitioner signatures are required on the form response.
Sometimes workflow is skipped
When a treatment note is to be created, and the appropriate practitioner (that the patient is to see next) doesn't have their API key connected via the Finger-Ink portal, treatment note creation will be skipped. This can still be performed manually at a later date, and you'll get notified via email when/if this happens.