Outreach System¶

The RingRx Outreach system is a powerful and flexible way to automate patient and client reminders, promotions and communications through Voice, SMS and Email.

Getting Started with Outreach ¶

The Outreach system consists of two basic elements

An Outreach Profile
- What message will be delivered, i.e.: An appointment reminder. What is said.
- What are the rules for delivering the message. When are we allowed to send calls or SMS messages, etc.
- How should feedback be collected
- Who gets notified
- What callerID to use
Outreach Events
- This is one instance. So John Smiths appointment at 10:30am on Friday.

Setting up outreach for the first time ¶

The first thing you need is a profile. All of the fields in a profile are described below in Outreach Profiles but to kick you off quickly

Create your first profile

Give it a name, like appointment reminder

Select a phone number that will be the source for calls and SMS messages

In the “Message 1” field enter a very basic message you want to deliver like

This is doctor Smiths office calling for {name}

In the “Message 2 field enter a second message

Your appointment is scheduled for {reminder_date}

In the “Message 3 field enter a third message

If you have any questions or need to cancel or change your appointment please contact us at {contact_number}

In the “Message 4 field enter a fourth message

To confirm your appointment, press {confirm_digits}

In the Exit greeting type:

goodbye

Set Call Trigger hours before to 24

Call start time should be 00:00 (midnight), and call end time should be 11:59 (1 minute before midnight).

Set Confirm digits to 1

Set confirm notification to your email address

Set cancel notification to your email address

on the SMS tab, sms start time should be 00:00 (midnight), and sms end time should be 11:59 (1 minute before midnight).

on the SMS tab, set sms Trigger hours before to 48

on the SMS tab, set sms reply window to 120 minutes

on the SMS tab, set sms message to:

This is Dr Smiths office confirming your appointment on {reminder_date}. To confirm your appt reply "YES"

on the SMS tab, set sms confirm text to:

y,ye,yes,yea,yeah,sure,ok,confirmed

on the SMS tab, set sms cancel text to:

n,no,cancel,cant,negative,negatory

on the email tab email start time should be 00:00 (midnight), and email end time should be 11:59 (1 minute before midnight).

on the email tab, set the reply-to to your email address

on the email tab, set email Trigger hours before to 72

on the email tab, set email subject to

Appointment Reminder for Dr Smiths office for {reminder_date}

on the email tab, set email text message to

This is Dr Smiths office confirming your appointment on {reminder_date}

on the email tab, set email html message to

This is Dr Smiths office confirming your appointment on {reminder_date}

Now save your profile

Creating your first event

For Name enter your name

for Profile select the profile we just created

for Event Date, enter the current date time (this will cause you to get all of the notifications immediately)

For phone number, enter your cell phone number

Optionally enter your email address for email

Check voice and SMS (and email if you entered an email address)

click save

You will now receive your new outreach call, sms and email.

Outreach Work flow ¶

In Outreach, you configure an event with a clients/patients appointment time, then decide what method or methods they wish to be notified by (voice, sms, email, or some combination of them) and then you set the profile for the message that should be sent.

From here the outreach platform takes over. Each contact method has a window of hours before the appointment where that reminder will be executed. This will allow you to, for example

Send an email 3 days before the appointment
Then make a call 2 days before the appointment
Then send an SMS the day of the appointment.

Each contact method also has a start and end time of day where you want to allow those contacts to take place so calls and messages do not arrive at inopportune or inappropriate times for your clients, so you can for example, only allow calls from 4pm to 8pm, but SMS from 8am-8pm.

When an event executes, the message can be personalized for each given user by allowing for token substitution in the script of what is spoken or sent.

Building the message: Calls ¶

For calls, we will build a message using a combination of 6 parts

part 1: Either a text-to-speech block of text in Message 1 OR an uploaded media file selected in Media file 1. If both are present, the uploaded media file has priority. If both are blank we will skip to the next.
part 2: Either a text-to-speech block of text in Message 2 OR an uploaded media file selected in Media file 2. If both are present, the uploaded media file has priority. If both are blank we will skip to the next.
part 3: Either a text-to-speech block of text in Message 3 OR an uploaded media file selected in Media file 3. If both are present, the uploaded media file has priority. If both are blank we will skip to the next.
part 4: Either a text-to-speech block of text in Message 4 OR an uploaded media file selected in Media file 4. If both are present, the uploaded media file has priority. If both are blank we will skip to the next.
part 5: Either a text-to-speech block of text in Message 5 OR an uploaded media file selected in Media file 5. If both are present, the uploaded media file has priority. If both are blank we will skip to the next.
Exit Greeting: This is typically “Goodbye” and is the last thing the system says before hanging up

5 spots are made available so you can use a combination of text to speech and uploaded media if you so desire, or if you intend to make it all text to speech, you can use as little as one part if that works for your application.

Note

Mix and match recorded greetings for hard to pronounce names. Don’t feel you need to split text blocks at sentence ends. Feel free to split a sentence with a recording to handle this problem.

Building the message: SMS ¶

For SMS we use only a single block since there is a maximum number of characters we can send.

SMS Message: Since this is an SMS only one text block is used and only 140 characters are allowed.

Building the message: Email ¶

For emails there are 4 parts used to build the message

Reply To: The reply-to address of the message so email replies can route directly back to your office
Email Subject: The subject line of the email
Email Text Body: This is the message body for non-html mail clients
Email HTML Body: This is the message body for rich email clients. Often times both email bodies are the same, but logos, images, links etc can be used in the HTML body and the appropriate format will be displayed to the user

Getting feedback ¶

Outreach offers multiple ways to collect feedback from the contacted party.

A voice message can have the users confirm or cancel appointments by pressing configurable keys
A voice message can have a dial-back configured i.e.: “Press 0 to speak to someone about this appointment now”
A sms message can have pre-configured matches configured for SMS replies to determine confirmation and cancellations
Confirmed events can send an email to one or more email recipients defined in the profile
Canceled events can send an email to one or more email recipients defined in the profile
Event updates are also available for API callbacks API - Callbacks

Token Replacement ¶

The outreach system allows for dynamic customization of written and text-to-speech messages by using token replacement to personalize each message delivered.

Outreach Tokens ¶

{name}: The name of the outreach event, typically the patients name
{phone_number}: The dialed phone number will be said phonetically (eight one eight etc)
{contact_number}: The callerID that is placing the call will be said phonetically (eight one eight etc). Often used to provide call-back instructions
{reminder_date}: The spoken date of the appointment i.e.: “May 23rd two-thousand-nineteen”
{confirm_digits}: If the profile has a confirmation digit configured it will be spoken: “One”
{cancel_digits}: If the profile has a confirmation digit configured it will be spoken: “Two”
{dialback_digits}: If dialback is configured, what the dialback digit is to route the call to the dialback destination

`Example 1`¶

Message: “This is Doctor Smiths Office calling for {name}. This is to let you know you have an appointment scheduled on {reminder_date}. To confirm press {confirm_digits} or to cancel this appointment press {cancel_digits}.”
Confirm digits: 1
Cancel digits: 2
Event Name: “Jack Jones”
Event reminder date: 10/30/2019 3:00pm
when a call is placed we will say: “This is Doctor Smiths Office calling for Jack Jones. This is to let you know you have an appointment scheduled on Wednesday, October 30th three pm. To confirm press one or to cancel this appointment press two. Goodbye”

If the caller presses one the event will be marked as confirmed and any email notifications will be sent.
If they press two, the event will be marked as canceled and those email notifications will be sent.

`Example 2`¶

Message: “This is Doctor Smiths Office calling to let you know you have an appointment scheduled on {reminder_date}. To confirm press {confirm_digits} or to speak to someone now about this appointment press {dialback_digits}.”
Confirm digits: 1
Dialback digits: 5
Dialback Destination: extension 100
Event Name: “Annabelle Lee”
Event reminder date: 10/30/2019 3:00pm
when a call is placed we will say: “This is Doctor Smiths Office calling to let you know you have an appointment scheduled on Wednesday, October 30th three pm. To confirm press one or to speak to someone now about this appointment press five”

If the caller presses one the event will be marked as confirmed and any email notifications will be sent.
If they press five the call will be transferred to extension 100

Outreach Profiles ¶

Each profile will only be setup once but will then get used many many times.

`Name`¶

The name of the outreach profile.

`Description`¶

Some description, purely for your own reference.

`Caller ID`¶

The callerID that will be presented to called parties.

`Tags`¶

Tags to apply to all calls from this profile.

`Media file 1-5`¶

Uploaded media files to be played when a voice event is sent.

`Message 1-5`¶

Text, optionally with token replacement that will be spoken via text-to-speech when a voice event is sent.

`Exit Greeting`¶

Typically “Goodbye” but the last thing spoken in the message. Can be blank.

`Call Start Time/End Time`¶

Always evaluated in customer local time, we will not allow calls to start before the start time, or after the end time. This allows you to control when during the day your customers are contacted. May not bridge midnight.

`Call Trigger Hours Before`¶

How many hours before the appointment time should we begin trying to place the reminder call (if the event has voice enabled)

`SMS Message`¶

The message to be sent via SMS, accepts tokens

`SMS Start Time/End Time`¶

Always evaluated in customer local time, we will not send SMS before the start time, or after the end time. This allows you to control when during the day your customers are contacted. May not bridge midnight.

`SMS Trigger Hours Before`¶

How many hours before the appointment time should we send the SMS (if the event has SMS enabled)

`Collect SMS Replies`¶

This turns on/off the sms reply harvesting on this profile

`SMS Reply window`¶

How many minutes to listen for SMS replies. If the use sends a reply to an Outreach SMS within this time, we will search its contents for matches in both confirm text and cancel text, and log the reply in the event log. If the from number is shared with groups or users, replies that are harvested by outreach will NOT be routed to those users.

You can check more than one
IF Voice or SMS are checked, you MUST enter a phone number
If Email is checked, you MUST enter an email address