Dana's Mixed Bag

14 Responses to “Using AutoHotkey to Send Text Messages in Dentrix”

1. wendy // Feb 23, 2011 at 12:09 pm

   Hi Dana, This is a great writeup on how to implement texting easily! I’m coming across one problem that I can’t seem to debug: the appt time shows up as the phone number to be texted. Everything else is working like a charm! Any help to fix this would be greatly appreciated!

2. Dana // Feb 23, 2011 at 6:30 pm

   Wendy,
   It sounds like the computer is flying through some step before a window is ready. Try replacing all of the code in your ahk file with this code instead:

   #^w::
   ; scrapes data from Dentrix appt and FF and pastes it into Google Voice Text Message
   ;
   ; Begin with APPOINTMENT CARD (in Appt Bk) and Firefox (with Gmail logged in) open
   ; From Appt card, hit Ctrl-Win-w
   send !d ; grab date
   Send ^c
   ClipSaved_1 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   Send !t ; grab time
   Send ^c
   ClipSaved_2 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   send !p
   WinWait, Dentrix Family File
   sleep 500
   send {Enter}
   WinWait, Patient Information
   sleep 500
   send !h
   sleep 500
   Send {TAB 5} ; grab mobile number
   sleep 500
   send ^c
   ClipSaved_3 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   send !{F4}
   sleep 500
   send !{F4}
   sleep 500
   run https://www.google.com/voice
   WinWait, Google Voice
   sleep 3000
   send t
   send %ClipSaved_3%
   send {tab}
   send We look forward to seeing you at Dr. McCall’s office on %ClipSaved_1% at %ClipSaved_2%. Please reply with “c” to confirm.
   return

   If you still have problems with this, then PLEASE let me know. We can break it down a little bit to find where the error is happening.

3. Michael // Mar 22, 2011 at 1:05 pm

   Dana, the script works great. One question: how does your office manage the replies Google Voice receives, since the reply doesn’t show any patient identifier other than their cell phone number? Thanks!

4. Dana // Mar 30, 2011 at 5:47 pm

   So glad to hear that, Michael!

   When we get a text response from a patient, we just have to manually look through and see which phone number matches, unfortunately. So far this hasn’t been a problem, though, as G4 Productivity Pack 7 allows a quick pop up of the patient’s info from the Appt Book.

   One workaround, however, could be a change in the script that puts the patient’s preferred name at the beginning of the SMS message (since we aren’t close to using up the max 140 characters). Something like:

   Vanessa, we look forward to seeing you…..

   This way if there is a response to that message, you’ll see the original note in the thread with the preferred name. That’s hard when not everyone has a preferred name, though.

   Another option is to scrape the first and last names, then paste their initials at the end of the message in parentheses:

   We look forward to seeing you at Dr. McCall’s office on 3/31/11 at 8am. Please reply with “c” to confirm.
   return (VN)

   In order to get their initials, you’d copy their first and last names. Somewhere you’d paste a name, hit the {HOME} button, then the right button (to put the cursor to the right of the first letter), then hit ^{DELETE}. This will delete the rest of the word. Then paste the last name, get the cursor to the second letter in the last name, and ^{DELETE}, then put the parenthesis.

   just a few thoughts!!

5. Bing // Feb 22, 2013 at 12:48 am

   Thank you for the code. It works great in my case. Really wonderful!!

   One question: Is there a way to include just first name in the text message?

6. Dana // Feb 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm

   You certainly could alter the script to scrape the first name. The problem, however, is which first name to scrape: the First Name or the Preferred Name? My concern is that improper use of the First Name could sound canned. Secondly, you have a 140 character limit on texts, so brevity is generally a virtue with texting. What are your thoughts on this? You pose a _really_ good question.

7. Louis // May 1, 2013 at 7:24 pm

   I reallly appreciate your posting this info. I had been looking for ways to integrate 2 ways texting for years. The only problem I had with your scripts was that google was breaking up my texts into 3 seperate texts. I also didn’t like the year added as it just seemed to clutter up the message. Lastly I wanted to add a phone number so patients could call easily if they needed to talk to someone about their appt. Below is the script I use which I thank you so much for templating. My computer must be slow so I also added a few extra pauses and the following worked great for me.

   #^w::
   ; scrapes data from Dentrix appt and FF and pastes it into Google Voice Text Message
   ;
   ; Begin with APPOINTMENT CARD (in Appt Bk) and Firefox (with Gmail logged in) open
   ; From Appt card, hit Ctrl-Win-w
   send !d ; grab date
   Send ^c
   ClipSaved_1 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   Send !t ; grab time
   Send ^c
   ClipSaved_2 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   send !p
   WinWait, Dentrix Family File
   sleep 500
   send {Enter}
   WinWait, Patient Information
   sleep 500
   send !h
   sleep 500
   Send {TAB 5} ; grab mobile number
   sleep 500
   send ^c
   ClipSaved_3 = %Clipboard%
   sleep 500
   send !{F4}
   sleep 500
   send !{F4}
   sleep 500
   run https://www.google.com/voice
   WinWait, Google Voice
   sleep 4000
   send t
   sleep 1000
   send %ClipSaved_3%
   sleep 300
   send {tab}
   send Your appt. with Dr. McCall is on %ClipSaved_1%
   sleep 200
   send {BS}
   send {BS}
   send {BS}
   send {BS}
   send {BS}
   send {Space}
   sleep 500
   send at %ClipSaved_2%
   sleep 100
   send . Please reply with ‘C’ to confirm or call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX
   return

8. Dana // May 6, 2013 at 9:01 am

   Louis,
   So glad this could help you. Removing the year is a _great_ idea…makes it much more personal. I also like the idea of presenting the phone number, however if you route your Google Voice number back to your main number, people _should_ be able to call the texter with a single press, and the call would be routed back to your main number. That isn’t as obvious, though, and it’s likely that number presented in the text becomes a hyperlink to the phone’s dialer screen. So, it probably is a little better customer service to present it like you did.

9. Dana // May 6, 2013 at 9:08 am

   Can’t remember if I made this point in the article, but the first step in my code changes the appt’s status to “TXT”, a status I set up in the Dentrix status definitions. This lets the office know that the text has been sent (as opposed to a phone call, which is the next phase of confirmation)

   One other note: I added this code to jump through any Patient Alerts that may pop up:

   send !p ; OPENS FAMILY FILE
   sleep 1500
   IfWinExist, Family Alert
   {
   WinActivate, Family Alert
   sleep 300
   Send !d
   sleep 300
   Send {ENTER}
   }
   IfWinExist, Patient Alert
   {
   WinActivate, Patient Alert
   sleep 300
   Send !d
   sleep 300
   Send {ENTER}
   }
   sleep 1000
   click 135, 135, 2
   sleep 300
   WinActivate, Patient Information

   ALSO:
   You can truncate the date, a string that contains 10 digits always from Dentrix’s database (ie MM/DD/YYYY) by using this after saving the clipboard to ClipSaved_1a. This will remove the need for those slow, successive backspaces in your code:

   ClipSaved_1a = %Clipboard%
   StringLeft, ClipSaved_1, ClipSaved_1a, 5

   This will still have leading zeros through September and on the first 9 days of each month, however. To remove those is a lot more complicated and probably not worth it anyway.

10. Louis // May 9, 2013 at 6:12 pm

    Great info Dana!!

    My patients have really loved the simplicity of the text reminders.

    I’ll update my code again to the changes you provided and thank you again for sharing this.

11. Sanjay // Jul 27, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    I was using this system since last year. Suddenly it stopped working this may. I have been trying to make changes but wont work. I don’t know if its my comp setting changed.
    When I press the #^t (I use t for text) the cursor does not move to any of the date, time, or any family file, instead jumps over to google voice & types all the date without any date or time or name.

    Please help. I don’t know why its skipping all grab data steps.
    Any suggestions.

12. Dana // Jul 28, 2013 at 10:18 pm

    Sanjay,
    That IS weird! Have you tried making a new script that only includes, say, the first 6 lines to see if it jumps to the time box?

13. Bing // Nov 12, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    Hi, Dana, this has been great for me for many years! Thank you!. Recently, Google voice has changed format, and the script does not work as it did anymore. Instead, it prints the message in the address bar, we just copy and pasted to the text area. A bit trouble, but still works. Any suggestions? Thanks!

14. Dana // Nov 13, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    Ugh. I have been so disappointed with the new Google Voice. The problem is that it can take anywhere from a handful of seconds to over 30 to fully load the page and have a target in which to type. At this point I am stymied and don’t really have a fix. Here are some ideas:

    you could try any of these…
    * Increase the “sleep 3000” (3.0 seconds) to a high number, but this will be slower _every_ time you run the script.
    * Insert a MsgBox instead of Sleep that you click once the Google Voice page is fully loaded
    * Load some shortcuts for each of the blanks. (Win-Ctrl-p could “send %ClipSaved_3%” while WinCtrl-m could send the prepared message). This would require the user to manually “paste” each of the two messages separately in once the page is loaded.
    * Load just one shortcut for the blanks. truncate the script I posted at the sleep 3000 point, and put the lines that follow into a keyboard shortcut that the user runs when he/she see that Google Voice has fully loaded.

    I’m just throwing a few ideas out there without _any_ testing. While these require a little more interaction by the user, it could at least salvage this as a way to text out of Dentrix without spending hundreds of dollars a month.