User guide · Perfect Smile Richmond
How it works
This guide is for practice staff who use the AIMA Call Dashboard and especially Booking control for Perfect Smile Richmond. It explains what each area of the product is for, how booking rules affect the AIMA voice line, and how common situations play out with concrete examples. It is written as a how-to, not as a technical specification.
Who this is for and what AIMA does here
AIMA is the automated receptionist on the inbound phone line for Perfect Smile Richmond. She speaks to callers in English, can look patients up in Dentally, check availability, take bookings, send payment links when a deposit applies, and handle many general questions. She only follows what your practice has turned on or configured in the dashboard (plus the live data that comes from Dentally). When you change Booking control, those changes are picked up by the voice line within about a minute in normal operation, so you do not need to redeploy the phone system for every tweak.
Signing in
You start on the sign-in screen with your username or email and password. After a successful sign-in you land on the main dashboard. If your account belongs to Perfect Smile Richmond, you will also see Booking control in the sidebar; other organisations may not see that item.
Overview
The Overview page is your day-to-day operations view. At the top, summary tiles show how many calls you have had in total and how many were tagged with broad intents such as booking, cancellation, rescheduling, or interest in packages. The charts help you see whether call volume is steady or spiking and whether certain intents are trending up or down.
Below that, filters let you narrow the call list by date range, intent, and call status so you can focus, for example, only on completed booking calls last week. The Recent calls table lists each conversation with time, caller number, detected caller name if available, duration, status, intent, services the caller mentioned, and links to recording and transcript where those exist. Pagination moves you through older pages of calls. This page does not change how AIMA behaves on the phone; it helps you review and quality-check what happened.
Hot leads
Hot leads is a dedicated view for callers whose intent was packages and discounts (not routine booking or cancellations). Tiles summarise how many such leads you have and break out interest areas such as teeth whitening or Invisalign where the system could infer them. Charts show leads by day and over time. The table lists the same kind of detail as on Overview but filtered to this audience, and you can use the Add to Boxly action if you use that workflow for marketing follow-up. Again, this page is for insight and follow-up, not for changing booking rules.
Services
The Services page answers a simpler question: “What did people ring about in terms of treatment topics?” Counts are shown across tiles such as check-up, cleaning, crown, implant, and so on, with charts for volume and mix over time. It helps reception or management see demand patterns. It does not control which treatments AIMA may book; that is governed under Booking control (treatment overrides and clinician rules), described later.
Reports
Reports focuses on telephony health: average call duration (ACD), answer success rate (ASR), and how calls distribute per minute, per hour, and per day, with charts over selectable periods. Use it when you want to see whether the line is busy, whether calls are getting through, or whether average handling time is creeping up. It does not edit booking policy.
Settings
Under Settings you maintain your own account: profile details, practice logo where supported, and password changes. This is personal and organisational branding, separate from Booking control, which is about patient-facing rules and payments for the voice agent.
Booking control (Perfect Smile Richmond)
Booking control is where the practice shapes what AIMA is allowed to do for Perfect Smile Richmond: which clinicians and treatments sit on the automated line, how Private and NHS schemes behave by weekday and payment plan, what deposits apply, how Stripe and email are configured, and which “reasons for visit” the assistant may use when booking. Think of it as the control room for the AI receptionist, not the place for listening to recordings (that remains Overview).
Always finish meaningful edits by pressing Save settings at the top of this page. Until you save, the voice line will not reliably run on your latest choices. If something fails to save, an on-screen message should tell you.
The page is organised into three main tabs: Patient schemes, Treatments, and Payments & notifications. On many builds the dashboard also loads Dentally practitioners, treatments, and payment plans in the background when you open Booking control, so that lists and tick-boxes reflect what exists in your PMS. If a hint tells you to “open the Catalogue tab” when plans are empty, that refers to making sure the Payments & notifications side of the flow has been visited or the page reloaded so the system can pull live plan data—wording on screen may vary slightly by version.
Patient schemes tab
Here you work with two fixed rows: Private and NHS. For each row you choose which active Dentally payment plans belong to that patient scenario and which weekdays (Monday through Sunday) are allowed. The same weekday pattern is used both when someone registers as a new patient on that plan and when someone books an appointment on that plan, so you are really answering: “On which days may we take Private-plan bookings vs NHS-plan bookings?”
Example — weekday gate: You might allow NHS plan bookings Monday to Friday only, while Private stays available six days a week. If a caller fits the NHS scheme and asks for a Saturday slot, AIMA’s tools will refuse that booking path and she should suggest another day or offer the practice’s main number (020 8940 5006) for exceptions.
Example — plan mix-up: If a caller is on a plan you did not tick for the Private row, the assistant may not treat them as matching your Private scheme rules. Keeping the plan tick boxes aligned with how reception thinks about “who counts as private vs NHS on this line” avoids confusion.
Treatments tab — “Treatments (overrides)”
This sub-tab lists Dentally catalogue treatments (by code or ID) and lets you override how they behave on the automated line: display name for the assistant, length of appointment in minutes, advance deposit in pounds for visits that require a card payment before booking completes, which payment plans apply to that treatment row, whether it is offered for online-style booking through the assistant, and optional rules about cancellation, rearrangement, and refundable amounts.
Example — Exam deposit: Suppose catalogue treatment 1234 is your “New patient exam” and you set Advance (£) to 40. When a caller books an exam and the flow requires a deposit, AIMA uses that amount for the Stripe payment link instead of a generic default. If you leave advance blank for a treatment, the system falls back to the wider default deposit you configure elsewhere in booking settings.
Example — duration: If Dentally says thirty minutes but hygienist visits should always be forty-five on this line, set Time (min) to 45 for that catalogue row so availability searches use the correct slot length.
Cancellable, rearrangeable & refundable (per treatment)
In the same Treatments (overrides) table, the last three columns control what AIMA may do after a visit has been booked, for that catalogue treatment (matched from the appointment reason and your display names). Always press Save settings so the voice line picks up changes within about a minute.
- Cancellable — No: AIMA cannot cancel that type of appointment on the phone line. The caller should be directed to reception on 020 8940 5006.
- Cancellable — Yes: Choose the minimum whole hours before the visit start (the field defaults to 24 when you switch to Yes). If the caller is inside that window, AIMA cannot cancel online.
- Rearrangeable — No: AIMA cannot move or reschedule that treatment on the line. Reception handles changes on 020 8940 5006.
- Rearrangeable — Yes: Same idea as cancel: minimum hours before the visit that a reschedule is still allowed on the automated line.
- Refundable — No: If a card deposit was taken for that booking, AIMA will not trigger an automatic Stripe refund when a cancellation goes through. Use this when deposits are non-refundable on the phone but you still allow Cancellable — Yes so the slot can be released in Dentally.
- Refundable — Yes: Sets the notice window for when a refund of the deposit is still allowed, and exposes Max £. That cap limits how much Stripe refunds (for example if the deposit was £120 but Max £ is £60, only £60 is refunded to the card). The practice may need to tidy the matching payment row in Dentally when a refund is partial.
Typical combination: Cancellable Yes + Refundable No + notice hours met → the appointment can be cancelled through AIMA, but no money goes back to the card automatically; the practice handles money according to your policy.
Important: These rules only apply once a row has been saved with those Yes/No choices. Older override rows that never stored cancel/rearrange/refund flags do not impose these limits until you save them. Align Display name with how visits appear in Dentally so the correct row is matched.
Treatments tab — “Clinicians”
Here you map which dentists and hygienists may offer which catalogue treatments through the assistant, and optionally which payment plans may apply for a given clinician and treatment combination. You can also adjust the role label stored for instructions and tick whether that clinician is “online” for this automated booking experience alongside the picker list used elsewhere.
Example — matrix: Dr Smith is ticked only for “Exam” and “Emergency assessment” in the dropdown. If a caller insists on Dr Smith for a hygiene scale-and-polish, AIMA should not be able to complete that booking through the matrix; she ought to suggest another clinician or hand off to the practice.
Example — plans per clinician: For Dr Jones and “Exam” you use Edit plans… to allow only two specific payment plans. A caller on a different plan should not get a slot with Dr Jones for that treatment through the assistant unless you widen those ticks.
If you leave every clinician without any treatment ticks, you are choosing not to enforce the clinician–treatment matrix; other rules (schemes, plan allowlists, treatment catalogue toggles) can still apply.
Payments & notifications tab
This tab holds who gets told what by email, how outgoing mail is sent (SMTP), and Stripe keys for card payments and webhooks. Enter addresses for appointment notifications and payment notifications if you want those inboxes to receive operational mail once your environment sends them. Fill in SMTP host, port, credentials, from-address, and use Test SMTP to confirm delivery to yourself or to the test recipient field before relying on it.
Under Stripe, paste your publishable key, secret key, and the webhook secrets your Stripe dashboards provide (including the refund webhook if you use that flow). Test Stripe keys checks that the secret works; you still need to Save settings so the live agent and dashboard-backed configuration stay aligned.
How Booking control reaches AIMA (in plain terms)
When a call connects, the Perfect Smile Richmond server asks the dashboard for a policy snapshot: who may be booked, which treatments and plans are in scope, what deposits apply, Stripe credentials, and the softer rules such as whether new patients or refunds on the card are allowed. That snapshot is cached briefly (on the order of one minute), so your saves are not instant but are very quick in practice.
AIMA’s spoken instructions are then augmented with short “practice policy” lines derived from your settings: for example, allowed appointment reason labels, reminders to pass plan and treatment IDs from Dentally when schemes or clinician rules are active, and the deposit cheat-sheet when you configured per-treatment advances. Even if the model forgot a line, the tools themselves enforce the hard rules (they will return a polite refusal and point the caller toward 020 8940 5006 when something is not permitted).
Scenarios with examples (Perfect Smile Richmond)
These examples illustrate how dashboard choices and caller behaviour interact. Wording on the phone may vary slightly, but the outcomes should match the policy you set.
- 1New patient registration switched off. You turn off allow new patients for the line. A caller who is not already in Dentally asks to register. AIMA should not complete registration; she should explain that new registrations go through the practice directly and give 020 8940 5006.
- 2Existing-patient journeys switched off. You disable existing patient handling. Someone wants to move tomorrow’s hygienist visit. Tools that look up or change existing appointments should refuse, and AIMA should direct them to reception on 020 8940 5006.
- 3Tighter “reason for visit” list. You leave only Exam and Emergency ticked as allowed reasons. A caller asks for a routine “Scale and polish” booking reason string that is not in your list. The booking tool should block it; AIMA should stay within your allowed wording or suggest ringing the practice.
- 4NHS-only Wednesdays on schemes. Under Patient schemes, your NHS row allows Wednesday–Friday only. A caller on an NHS-tagged plan asks for Monday. Scheme logic should block that slot path; AIMA should offer midweek alternatives or the practice number.
- 5Private deposit default without a treatment override. You never set a per-treatment advance, but you set the default partial deposit to £65. A private flow that requires a deposit should charge that default amount unless a treatment override later overrides it.
- 6Emergency path with multiple high deposits configured. You set large advances on two “emergency-style” rows but did not type a display name. The assistant may still infer the higher-deposit emergency row for an “emergency” style reason—best practice is to set display names that match how AIMA speaks about visits so the right row is always chosen.
- 7Clinician not on the matrix for a treatment. Dr Lee is not ticked for “Implant consultation” but the caller insists on Dr Lee. Availability or booking should not succeed through that combination; AIMA should propose another clinician or hand off.
- 8Plan not allowed for that clinician and treatment. You used Edit plans… so Dr Patel’s “Exam” only accepts Plan A. The patient carries Plan B. Even if Plan B is globally allowed elsewhere, that clinician–treatment pair should fail until the caller accepts another dentist or the practice changes the matrix.
- 9Refunds on the card discouraged. You turn off refunds enabled online in policy. A caller asks for the deposit back to their card before attending. AIMA’s instructions tell her not to promise automated card refunds; she should explain that refunds are handled by the practice on 020 8940 5006.
- 10Exam cancellable but not refundable online. For the Exam override you set Cancellable Yes (24 hours), Refundable No, and a £120 deposit. Outside 24 hours AIMA can cancel in Dentally; Stripe does not refund the £120 automatically—the practice follows its own refund rules. If you had set Refundable Yes with Max £ £60, only £60 would return to the card.
Quick habits that keep the product reliable
Save Booking control after material changes. When altering payment plans in Dentally, reopen Booking control so chips and scheme rows reflect active plans. Use Test SMTP and Test Stripe keys after any credential rotation. For contentious policy (NHS days, deposits, who may book whom), do a short test call into the Richmond line and confirm AIMA’s offers match what you expect before advertising a change to patients.
This in-app guide mirrors the README user guide. If the on-screen layout gains new blocks (for example a visible Dentally “catalogue” sidebar), align this text with whatever labels your build shows.