Automations
One timeline of the moments in a lead's journey, with every message each moment sends.
Automations send the messages your team would otherwise have to remember: a welcome for a new enquiry, a nudge after an unanswered call, the booking confirmation, the reminder the day before, a follow-up after a missed visit. Settings → Automations shows them as one timeline of fixed steps, from top to bottom in the order a lead meets them. Each step lists every message it sends, in send order — when, on which channel and which message — and opens its own page when you click it.
New practices start with a ready-made library: follow-ups for the main treatment groups and a standard set of booking messages, all editable.
The steps
The steps are grouped in five phases: Enquiry, Contact, Booking, Visit and Outcome. The visit sits between Before the visit and After the visit as a marker. A practice that keeps its recalls in Smileline's clinical workspace also has a sixth, Recall, at the end — see Recall reminders.
| Phase | Step | Starts when | Booking messages | Follow-ups |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | New enquiry | A lead lands in New — a new enquiry, or one moved back there. The Also for ad enquiries tab runs as well for an enquiry from a paid ad. | — | Yes |
| Contact | Couldn't reach them | First try: the lead moves to Contact Attempted, usually on its first No answer or message sent on Today. Try 2 to Try 10: I called but didn't speak to them on that attempt. Later tries: any later attempt without a tab of its own. | — | Yes |
| Contact | Spoke to them | First conversation: the lead moves to Contacted. Thinking about it and Call back later: that answer is recorded on Today. | — | Yes |
| Booking | Booked | Any booking — on Today, from the board or a patient's record, in the diary, online, by AI phone or in your practice system. If plans change: the booking is moved or cancelled. | Yes | Yes |
| Booking | Before the visit | Every upcoming booking, counted back from its start. | Yes | — |
| Visit | After the visit | The visit ends (booking messages) or the lead is marked attended (follow-ups). | Yes | Yes |
| Visit | Didn't turn up | The visit is marked as a no-show. | Yes | Yes |
| Outcome | Going ahead | The lead is recorded as going ahead, or moved to the going-ahead stage. | — | Yes |
| Outcome | Not proceeding | The lead is closed as not proceeding. | — | Yes |
| — | Your stages | A lead is moved to a stage your practice added to its board. Shown only when your board has one. | — | Yes |
| Recall | Recall due | A patient's recall falls due, counted from its due date — from four weeks before to 18 months after with the recommended schedule. See Recall reminders. | Recall messages | — |
Each step on the timeline says where it stands — On, Off, Not set up or Needs attention — and flags what needs fixing: SMS not connected (or another channel), WhatsApp not approved, or Online link empty (see Bookings typed on Today). When a connected practice management system reads your appointments and booking messages are on, a warning above the timeline reminds you to switch off the matching reminders in that system, or patients get both.
The ⚡ on a column of the journeys board opens the step for that stage. With more than one board, Board at the top picks the board whose stages you're looking at: follow-ups on a stage belong to that board.
Booking messages and follow-ups
A step holds up to two kinds of message, fired by the same moment:
- Booking messages go out for every booking — a lead or a regular patient. They're counted from the booking itself, follow the visit when it moves, and stop if it is cancelled or missed. See Booking messages.
- Follow-ups go to leads. They run as a schedule of steps — messages, tasks, notes and stage moves — and stop when the patient replies or the lead moves on. See Follow-ups.
Both are service messages: they reach every patient whatever marketing consent they've given, even when your outbound-marketing policy is explicit consent only, and carry no STOP line or unsubscribe link. An opt-out still counts, one channel at a time — a patient who replied STOP to your texts gets no texts, but still gets your emails. A WhatsApp template Meta files as marketing keeps the marketing rules.
Messages for one treatment
For at the top of the page switches between Standard and each of your treatments. Standard messages run for everyone whose treatment has none of its own. A treatment's own messages replace the standard ones on that step — booking messages and follow-ups separately — and only while they're switched on. A dot in the list marks the treatments that have messages of their own. You only set up the steps you want to be different: with a treatment picked, each step shows Own messages where the treatment has messages of its own, and Uses standard everywhere else — even where the standard step sends nothing.
On a step's page, with a treatment picked, each section is in one of three states:
- Its own messages — edit them as usual.
- Uses the standard ones — the section says so (Uses the standard follow-ups · 2 emails · 1 SMS). Click Customise for the treatment to copy what runs now into the treatment's own messages, then change them.
- Nothing set up — add the first one: Add step under Follow-ups, or the dashed row under Booking messages.
A set of follow-ups that covers several treatments says Also used for and names them: a change applies to all of them.
Removing the last follow-up from a treatment's own set leaves it empty, so that treatment gets no follow-ups on that step. Switch Own follow-ups for the treatment off to give it the standard ones again. Deleting a treatment's last booking message of a kind returns that treatment to the standard ones for that kind; the confirmation says so.
Edit a step
Go to Settings → Automations and click the step. Its page opens with the timeline along the top, each step's dot coloured by how it stands, so you can move to the next step without going back.
Pick the moment when the step has several: a tab such as Thinking about it or If plans change, or a try on the row of tries under Couldn't reach them. A line above the sections says what starts the step (Runs when), and each section says where its times are counted from.
Add, change or remove messages under Booking messages and Follow-ups. A step with no follow-ups yet saves them the moment you add the first complete message — there is nothing to create first.
How automations behave
- One moment, one step. However a lead was booked — on Today, from the board, in the diary, online, by AI phone or in your practice system — it fires Booked. The same goes for attending, missing a visit, starting treatment and not proceeding.
- Booking messages follow bookings, follow-ups follow the lead. A second booking for a lead who is already booked sends its own booking messages, but doesn't start the Booked follow-ups again.
- Calls. First try runs on the first unanswered try, and Later tries never does. When They're thinking about it or They want to be contacted again later also moves the lead to Contacted for the first time, the call result's follow-ups run instead of First conversation.
- Automations only move leads forward. A Move to stage step never takes a lead back to an earlier stage. The one backward move is a new booking for a lead in Failed to Attend, which takes it back to Consultation Booked.
- Messages thread into the inbox. Every automated send lands in the patient's conversation like a human-sent message; replies arrive in the shared inbox as usual.
- Humans win. When a patient replies, or a team member messages the patient manually, the running follow-ups stop — automation never talks over a live conversation. If a shared family contact replies and Smileline cannot safely identify one patient, reply-sensitive follow-ups stop for every patient that contact represents.
- Quiet hours. Automated SMS and WhatsApp messages only send inside the practice's send window (default Monday–Saturday, 08:00–20:00, changeable under SEO → Reputation → Setup). Email is exempt.
- Opt-outs are checked at send time. A message the patient can't receive is skipped and logged on the timeline, never held indefinitely.
- Follow-up edits apply immediately. Changing live follow-ups affects leads currently in them: removed steps are skipped, new steps apply to anyone who hasn't passed them, and switching the follow-ups off freezes everyone in place without ejecting them. A message already prepared when the switch wins is marked as cancelled in the Inbox and cannot be manually retried. After you switch them back on, the next scheduled check resumes that exact step and message instead of creating a duplicate. Booking-message edits apply to bookings made from then on.
Automated activity is always visible: follow-up starts, stops and sends appear on the patient timeline, and each lead's journey shows a chip with the running follow-ups and a Stop button.
Older setups
Follow-ups made under a starting point the timeline no longer uses — every new enquiry, the first unanswered call, entering the going-ahead stage — are copied to the matching step when your practice moves to the timeline, keeping their switches, treatments and timings. Where your own follow-ups and the library's covered the same moment and treatment, yours win. Any still on an old starting point show as an Older setup tab on their step, with their own Runs when line.
An original that was copied over but still has leads part-way through says Finishing 3 leads: it starts nobody new, finishes the leads already in it, and disappears once nobody is left. Links to older automation pages still open the right step.