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OutSmart Guide

Notifying a Waitlist Patient

The OutSmart waitlist does not auto-notify patients when a slot opens. That’s a deliberate choice — your staff decides who to contact, when, and through which channel. The Notify Patient action makes that contact fast: pre-filled templates, variable tokens, save-as-default per office or practitioner, and a full audit log of every message sent.

How to Notify a Patient

From the Waitlist Dashboard Card:

  1. Find the patient’s entry.
  2. Under Contact Preference on the entry card, click the blue Email or SMS button.

A panel opens with two tabs — Email and SMS. You can send either, or both, in sequence.

Variable Tokens

Both the email and SMS templates support variable tokens — placeholders that are filled in automatically when the message is sent.

TokenReplaced With
{patient-first-name}The patient’s first name
{office-name}Your office’s name
{office-phone}Your office’s main phone number
{appointment-name}The appointment type the patient is waiting for
{practitioner-name}The practitioner the entry is for (or compact multi-list)
{preferences-summary}A summary of the patient’s day/time preferences
{current-time}The date and time the message was sent

A tag toolbar at the top of the message editor lets you click to insert any of these placeholders at the cursor position.

Sending an Email

  1. Open the Email tab.
  2. Review or edit the Subject line and Body. Variable tokens are pre-filled; edit any of the surrounding text to suit the situation.
  3. Click Preview to see the final message with all placeholders replaced and the patient’s actual data inserted.
  4. Click Send Email to send.

Resetting to Default

Click Reset to default at any time to restore the template to its saved default (or to OutSmart’s built-in starter template if no default is saved).

Saving as Default

Click Save as Default to make the current Subject and Body the new starting point for future notifications.

  • Admin staff can save the default at either the Office level (everyone at the office sees it as the starting point) or just for themselves.
  • Practitioners can save defaults for themselves only — the office default is administered by admins.

You’ll be prompted to confirm before overwriting an existing saved default.

Sending an SMS

  1. Open the SMS tab.
  2. Review the recipient phone number. You can edit it for this message.
  3. Tick Save to patient record if the new number should replace the one on file for this patient.
  4. Edit the message body. Variable tokens work the same as email; the live character count helps you stay within SMS segment limits.
  5. Optionally edit the callback phone (the number patients call back if they want to confirm). Tick Save as default to make this your or the office’s standard callback number going forward.
  6. Click Send SMS.

SMS Subscription Requirements

SMS sending requires your subscription to include the SMS feature (Complete, Schedule Plus, SMS, or Basic modules). If the practitioner this entry is assigned to doesn’t have an active SMS subscription, you’ll see a friendly notice naming the practitioner — the SMS won’t be sent.

Phone Number Formatting

Phone numbers are automatically normalized to E.164 (international) format before being sent to the SMS gateway. You can enter the number in any common format — (555) 555-5555, 555-555-5555, +1 555 555 5555 — and the system will convert it.

Audit Log

Every notification — whether sent successfully or blocked — is recorded in the entry’s audit log. The log captures:

  • Who sent the message (staff member name)
  • When it was sent
  • Which channel (Email / SMS)
  • The exact message body that was sent
  • Success, failure, or subscription-blocked status

To see the log for any entry, click the three-dot actions menu on the entry card and choose View Log. For email messages, the log includes a View Email link that opens the fully-formatted message in a separate window — exactly as the patient saw it.

See Managing Waitlist Entries for more on the audit log.

Best Practices

  • Notify when a matching slot exists, not before. The dashboard card’s green / orange indicators are your signal — these patients have matches, others don’t.
  • Use the SMS callback number on file rather than entering ad-hoc numbers — it ensures replies route to the right line.
  • Save your own default if you find yourself customizing the same message repeatedly.
  • Notify, but don’t book yet. Wait for the patient to confirm, then come back and book the slot. See Booking a Patient From the Waitlist.

Troubleshooting

SMS appears to send but the patient never receives it

Check the audit log via View Log. If the status shows “blocked”, the practitioner’s subscription likely doesn’t cover SMS. If it shows “sent” but the patient says they never received it, double-check the recipient number — it may need to be updated on the patient’s contact record.

Email preview shows tokens like {patient-first-name} instead of the patient’s name

You’re looking at the editor, not the preview. Click the Preview button to see the message with the real values filled in.

”Couldn’t notify” panel after cancelling an appointment

If you used Cancel and Notify Patient on an appointment but the patient has no email or phone on file, the cancellation still goes through but the notification can’t be sent. The panel will offer an Open patient workspace link so you can update their contact info and reach out manually.