Telephone integration with Open Dental

[Rickliftig]

This topic has come up several times before, but aside from an Asterisk interface (which requires a VOIP system), I have never seen any other alternatives.

Over the past few weeks I have become aware of the Panasonic "Contact Sync" telephone system:

Panasonic KX-TG9471B - Now have your Microsoft Outlook Contact list synched with your telephone. Easily connect your telephone to your PC via USB and make and receive calls with ease. With the Panasonic Contact Sync telephone, you can make a call directly from your Outlook contact list that is on your PC screen with 1 click, or when a call is received the caller information will pop up on your PC screen if their contact information is stored within Outlook.

Any thoughts on integrating this technology with Open Dental? It would require an export from the database to Outlook and then either a bridge to Outlook or regular maintenance of the Db.

[teethdood]

Rick,

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3060

The Google Voice autodialer works with your existing phone system without having to purchase anything. That was 2 years ago, still working fine today.

Now if you want to have OD open up to the patient's screen when a call comes through (so you can freak them out by saying "Hello Mrs. Jones! You owe us $500" right off the bat) then I'm trying to see if it's possible. A GV program would just run "opendental.exe 555-554-4455" and OD would open it up after searching for a patient with that phone number. The trick is to get OD to do that.

[bpcomp]

This is still a VOIP method, but there is a company offering this kind of service. http://www.getweave.com/pricing/ We do not use their service and I can't speak for how well it works or not. You have to replace most or all of your existing phone system. I did hear that they integrate with OD.

[Rickliftig]

BP- Weave looks very attractive, but at $299/mo, I hoped I could "roll my own" for a wee bit less.

[bpcomp]

Oh trust me, I know what you mean. There is a reason we haven't used it in our office. I've actually spoken to Nathan at OD about their internal use. I think using some code of theirs and a plugin could bring that functionality to any office.... at the price of running your own PBX, switching all your hardware to VOIP, and being your own tech support. It's not something we are considering at this point, but if we ever switch our phone system then I would definitely look at this again. If I did get that plugin written then the greater community would know about it.

[enamelrod]

weave is cost prohibitive for anyone. I tried to explain that to waeve. at 299 per month that's more then my internet (50meg) and phone (six lines) bill with comcast. I have an asterisk box with the same phones they recommend and he told me i would still need to buy new phones.

I had an IT person set up my current phone system and I haven't touched the thing in 5 years or so. It works great.

There is a windows based system 3cx that is easier to manage then asterisk. The software is from 400-900 depending on how many calls you want to handle at a time. they have a trial version. I set 3cx at home It was extremely easy to use, the problem for OD is 3cx uses postgresql and not mysql so im not sure it would work
Maybe this is something that we need to put as a request? weave has a very interesting product but I cant get any references from them...

[jordansparks]

TAPI has been around for about 20 years. Click on a phone number, and the phone card in the computer picks up the line and dials. It assumes you will pick up the same line to handle the call. That's the low hanging fruit that we will attempt before anything fancy. It should work just fine with POTS or VOIP as long as you have a hard phone.

[Rickliftig]

Thank you Jordan. I think that basic telephone integration like dial and caller id pop-up would be a real asset to the program. These automations move the program from the "merely a database" realm into the category of a useful tool for the practice.

Al the best to you, your family and your employees for the holidays and the new year!

[kdna]

Twilio allows you to set up VOIP or advanced telephony services using HTTP. By far the best option out there. You just need to find a developer to set this up for you once and tailor it to your practice needs.

Highly recommended, check them out

http://www.twilio.com/

[jaynahar]

Folks,
After many, many months of research, trial/errors, and support/feedback from this forum members (esp Kevin R), we are now very, very close to telephone integration plugin release. Now its time to access market to set price.

Will any Dr. pay for such plugin and how much? What value it brings to a practice with added on expense. Will this value worth the expense?

In our beta we did notice it helped improve the productivity of front staff, improved patient engagement and stopped the revenue leakage by scheduling dormant family members and leverage unused insurance.

Thanks again for your help!

[mkleive]

I think that the annual or monthly cost will have to be weighed along with the amount of new hardware that would have to come with it. It's really easy to get attached to an existing phone system. Or will this work with existing systems?

[jaynahar]

I think that the annual or monthly cost will have to be weighed along with the amount of new hardware that would have to come with it. It's really easy to get attached to an existing phone system. Or will this work with existing systems?

Thanks for your feedback. Its a "service" with monthly fee. No hardware change is needed in many cases and can be attached to existing systems.

[mopensoft]

I have support Twilio for SMS but haven't try void IP function. Sound interesting to check it out.

Twilio allows you to set up VOIP or advanced telephony services using HTTP. By far the best option out there. You just need to find a developer to set this up for you once and tailor it to your practice needs.

Highly recommended, check them out

http://www.twilio.com/

[mopensoft]

Why not using a mobile phone instead? No hardware required, cost almost nothing to setup.

I think that the annual or monthly cost will have to be weighed along with the amount of new hardware that would have to come with it. It's really easy to get attached to an existing phone system. Or will this work with existing systems?

[starastar]

I have support Twilio for SMS but haven't try void IP function. Sound interesting to check it out.

Twilio allows you to set up VOIP or advanced telephony services using HTTP. By far the best option out there. You just need to find a developer to set this up for you once and tailor it to your practice needs.

Highly recommended, check them out

http://www.twilio.com/

We are trying to use twoilo but it is not stable with mopensoft. Sometimes the batch of messages get sent and sometimes nothing gets sent. And we don't get an indication whether the messages are sent successfully.
Is there another way ? Or should we use a more stable SMS provider ?

[mopensoft]

TextLocal and NeonSMS work well in Ireland and UK, SMSglobal is OK. I'm not sure about the others. Recently I tried DirectSMS but experienced a long delay. Basically, the plugin sends the request to SMS providers and receive a response from them saying accepted/rejected for example. And providers decide when messages will be sent. Sometimes messages just sit in the queue or not sent due to technical problems that's what you would have experienced.

When having problem like that, you can go to your Twilio account to see if SMS requests from my plugin are there or not. If not, it's plugin error but I'm sure you will get message if requests are rejected.

My suggestion is using your mobile instead which is more controllable. I have several dentists in different countries sending SMS this way and do not have any problem. Or you can use Google Voice function if it's free in your country.

Regarding Twilio, so far I know only one guy in Singapore using Twilio with my free plugin and have thought it's not very high demand.