Dentrix Ideas

Modern VoIP phones ubiquitously support varying levels of CRM integration support. Dentrix needs to catch up.

With most brands and models of VoIP phones, an http formatted message can be sent directly to the phone or to the platform that hosts it, to tell the phone to access one of its functions. The most commonly used function is "Dial" (other functions might include mute, phone book, transfer, etc).

I just installed new VoIP desktop phones at a dental office in California who uses Dentrix. The Dentist's wife asked me to reach out to Henry Schein to urge enhancement to their Dentrix software so that it can support clicking on a phone number to dial.

Since this particular dentist stated that each workstation was logged into Dentrix without regard to a "user" then the software should be able to add optional icon(s) that appear next to a phone number, each icon representing one of the extensions in the office. An extension is represented by a name or number. The icons would be clickable, and when clicked, the software behind the scenes accesses an http resource, using a URI in this form,

https://username:password@www.the.address.or.ip.address/SOME/PATH/some-resource.php?exten=exten1&phoneType=Mitel&phoneNumber=$$phone

Implementing this feature within Dentrix should be an easy enhancement. It would require the optional activation of icon(s) next to any phone number displayed by the software (like a customer cell number). Each icon would need a menu-accessible defining parameter so that when it is activated, a URI is defined for it. Of course, the phone number part of the URI would be represented as a string like, $$phone, and the software would know to replace that with the actual phone number when it executes the http call behind the scenes.

With this small enhancement, the staff at this California Dental office would become more productive, never needing to dial customer numbers again. They would simply click on the phone icon next to their customer record that corresponds to their extension, then pick up the phone on their desk to talk.