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SOE Exact

Read busy times from your practice's Exact diary, so your receptionist only offers appointments that are really free.

For dental practices that use SOE Exact. A small connector on your practice's server sends CallsCovered the times your clinicians are busy, so your receptionist only offers free appointments. If you choose, confirmed patients can also hear, book, move and cancel their own appointments.

How it works

Exact keeps its data on your practice's own server. The connector runs on the computer that runs Exact Server. Every 5 minutes it reads the diary from the read-only copy of the database that Exact's own admin tool (SoeAdmin) makes, and sends only the start and end time of each appointment and a clinician code. It only makes outgoing secure connections: no ports are opened on your network, and Exact itself isn't changed.

By default, a time is offered when any clinician is free. To limit it, list clinician codes from Exact in Only offer these clinicians (optional), separated by commas, such as AB, CD. You can also choose Leave a gap around Exact appointments: no gap, 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

What you need

  • The computer that runs Exact Server, and someone who looks after it. Your IT support can set the connector up in about half an hour.
  • SoeAdmin set to make its scheduled copy of the practice database in SQL Server Express, including the appointment tables, and a SQL Server login with read-only access to that copy.

Setting it up

  1. Open Plugins, choose SOE Exact and click Switch on.
  2. Click Get the connector and download the file onto the computer that runs Exact Server. The steps are at the top of the file.
  3. Click Show connector key. Your IT support puts this key in the connector's settings file, exact-connector.json. Keep it private: anyone with it can send busy times for your practice.
  4. Once the connector is running, click Save and test. It should say how many busy times and clinicians it has. Connector status shows when it last sent the diary.

Patient access (optional)

With Patient access set to On, a patient can ask your receptionist about their appointments and book, move or cancel with their own dentist, by phone or in the website chat.

  • Before anything is read or changed, the patient is confirmed against Exact itself: their surname, date of birth and the mobile number on their record, then a code texted to that mobile.
  • Booking, moving and cancelling also need the practice to switch writing on in the connector's own settings. Without that, patients can only hear their appointments.
  • This needs a second script, Get the patient-access script, running beside the connector, with the Show patient-access read key and, if you want changes made, Show patient-access write key. Instructions are at the top of the script.

Cost

Free.

Privacy

  • With patient access off, only appointment times and a clinician code leave your practice. Never names, contact details, dates of birth, notes or treatments. The connector ignores every other column, and CallsCovered refuses any upload containing anything else.
  • With patient access on, the details a patient gives to prove who they are are checked by the connector at your practice. Once confirmed, that patient's own appointments are passed to your receptionist for the length of the conversation, so it can tell them. The plugin holds them for about 20 minutes and doesn't log them, though what your receptionist says to the patient is part of the conversation record, like any other conversation.
  • The connector's log on your server holds counts and errors only, not diary contents.

Limits

  • Bookings your receptionist takes aren't written into Exact by the busy-times connector: there's no public way to. They appear on your dashboard and in your team's alerts, and your team enters them in Exact.
  • If the connector stops sending for over 30 minutes, the plugin shows Needs attention. After an hour without news, Exact's busy times stop being used, so check the practice server is on.
  • The connector runs on Windows, on the same computer as Exact Server.

Still stuck? Write to hello@callscovered.ai with your business name and what you were trying to do, and a person will reply.