Calls on the desk

With Smileline Voice

When the desk isn't in front

A call that rings while the desk is closed to the tray (the menu bar on Mac), minimised, hidden with Cmd+H on Mac, or simply behind another app brings up a small incoming-call window on top of your other apps — the desk itself stays where it is, out of sight. On Mac the window sits in the top-right corner of the screen, just under the menu bar; on Windows, in the bottom-right corner, just above the taskbar by the tray. It appears on the same screen as the desk.

The window shows who is calling — the patient's name, or the number — with the Marketing line badge on calls to your tracking numbers, and Answer and Decline. It never takes your keyboard, so you can carry on typing where you are. A ringing call shows no desktop notification: the window is the alert, and a notification would land in the same corner, over its buttons. The Dock icon bounces (on Windows, the taskbar icon flashes) until the call is answered or stops ringing. Missed calls and voicemails still send their usual notifications.

• Answer, and the window becomes your call controls — timer, mute, hold and hang up — so you can talk without leaving the app you are in.
• Decline, a colleague answering first, or the caller hanging up closes it. If you are already on a call, the ring shows above that call in the same window, and the call's controls stay where they are.

With the desk in front, nothing extra appears: the incoming-call card on the desk shows the call.

Marketing-line calls

Calls to your tracking numbers — the ones your adverts and website show — ring the desk with a Marketing line badge. While it rings, nothing opens by itself. If the number matches a patient, their name is shown — click it to open them; if the number is unknown, the card offers Not a known patient — create a lead. You rarely need it: Smileline files the call as a lead as soon as it rings, and when you answer, the desk switches to Today with that lead open (on the clinic side, their patient panel opens instead).

Calling out

Every lead in the queue with a phone number has a call button in the work panel. Click it and the call panel shows the patient's name with Calling… straight away. Your desk answers its own ring, you hear a ringing tone while the patient's phone rings, and you are connected the moment they pick up — the timer starts then. If the patient's voicemail picks up instead, Voicemail shows beside the timer a few seconds in. The call stays connected, so you can leave a message or hang up. A short tone tells you when the call has ended.

A call is placed once: while it is being set up, every call button waits for it, so a second click never starts a second call.

The desk's Today has the same Auto-call switch as the browser: with it on, saving an outcome rings the next due lead after a 3-second countdown you can stop. See Auto-call the next lead.

Calling any number

Keypad in the left rail dials anything — a lab, a referring practice, a number read off a note. Type it or tap it out, in whatever form you would read it aloud, and click the round call button (or press Enter); the desk sorts out the country code. Calling works the same way as calling a lead: the panel shows Calling… and you hear a ringing tone until the number you dialled answers.

Under the pad are the practice's last five calls, in and out. Start typing a patient's name, or a number, and the list shows the matching patients instead — so a number you type that belongs to a patient shows their name. Click a row to put its number on the pad — it is not dialled until you click call. The full call log is Calls in the left rail.

While you are on a call

Every call — one you answer, or one you place from the keypad, the call log, a patient's record or the inbox — shows in a small call window that floats on top of the desk and your other apps for the whole call. It stays above every other window, including other apps' windows set to stay on top, menus and notifications, and it can't be minimised. Only your computer's own screens, such as the lock screen, cover it — and on a Mac, another app in full screen, where macOS doesn't let it show. It never takes your keyboard when it appears, so you can carry on typing where you are. Drag it by its top bar to wherever suits you: the next call comes back to the same spot until you quit the app. The window goes away by itself when the call ends, and the arrow on its top bar (Open desk) brings the desk forward — on the caller's lead, when the window shows one (see Open lead below). On a Mac it follows you between desktops (Spaces). Because the call has its own window, moving between the desk's screens never drops it.

Hover a button on the window to see what it does. Keypad sends tones down the live call, for phone menus and extensions; click it again to close it. The keypad and the transfer list open one at a time, and the window grows to fit whichever is open.

When the call is with a lead, the window shows under the caller's name: the treatment and its value, the journey's stage, who owns the lead and how many times the practice has tried to reach them. This works for a lead you rang from anywhere in the desk and for an incoming caller the desk recognised. Click Open lead to work them in Today — the desk comes forward on that lead. When nothing of theirs is due today, it opens their patient record instead, with their journeys. This stays hidden while that lead is already open in Today, where you can see all of it.

Hold and Transfer appear once the person you called answers. Hold plays them music, and they cannot hear you until you take them off hold. When card details are read out, the call recording pauses by itself and the window shows Card payment · recording paused with a countdown to when it resumes; see Call recording.

Transfer opens the transfer list in the call window; click Transfer again to close it. It hands the caller to a colleague — the list shows everyone with calling set up and whether they are on do-not-disturb — or to a number you type. Announce first rings the colleague while the caller hears hold music, connects you to them when they answer, and waits for Complete (hand the caller over) or Cancel (take the caller back); Blind moves the caller to the colleague's most recently used device at once and ends your call. If the colleague doesn't answer a blind transfer, your desk rings again so you can take the caller back; if you don't answer either, the caller can leave a voicemail, and if they leave no message a task to call them back appears in Today. Send to voicemail works from here on calls you made as well as calls you took. Closing the list while an Announce first transfer is ringing doesn't stop it: open Transfer again for Complete or Cancel.

A call that was ringing you and was answered elsewhere closes with Taken by and the colleague's name. While you are on a call your other devices are left out of the ring for new calls.

On the Keypad screen, a practice with more than one number chooses which one the person you call sees under Show as. Left on Automatic, the call presents the number routed to your device's location, or the practice's default caller ID when that location has none.

After a Smileline update the desk reloads itself to load the new version. During a call it waits: a screen the update replaced shows an error until the call ends, and the desk reloads then, so an update never cuts a call off. For the same reason, F5, Ctrl+R, Cmd+R and Reload in the right-click menu don't reload the desk during a call.

If the call controls ever stop working, the call stays connected and a card says The call controls stopped working. Click Try again to bring the controls back.

Live suggestions

With Call AI — for practices in the United Kingdom and the United States with Smileline Voice — the call window helps while you talk. Under the call's controls, Live assist shows the newest suggestion the moment it fits what the caller just said: its kind (Objection, Answer, Booking or Reminder), a title and what to say, with prices, opening hours and the next free appointment times already filled in from your own information. Click Used if you said it, or Dismiss to set it aside; either way it clears, and the next suggestion appears when the conversation calls for one.

The arrow beside Live assist (Show all) unfolds the rest, and clicking it again (Collapse) folds it back:

• the checklist for this kind of call — a new enquiry, an existing patient or a follow-up call. Each item ticks itself once the conversation covers it, and the count beside Live assist (such as 2/6) tracks them.
• every suggestion so far, newest first, marked Used or Dismissed once you have acted on it.
• Live transcript — open it to read both sides as Caller and Practice, each speaker's words gathered into one turn until the other speaks.

Every call starts folded. Suggestions come from the practice's playbook, which managers edit in Settings → Live call suggestions — only cards a manager has turned on are ever suggested. The live transcript keeps running while the recording is paused for card details, with the card digits blanked (•).

Live suggestions are in the Smileline Desk app only — the browser and the iPhone app don't show them. As with reading a transcript, the practice's activity log records each time the call window loads a call's suggestions and transcript.

If your connection or headset drops

A short Wi-Fi or internet drop does not end the call. If its sound has to be reconnected, the call window shows Reconnecting… stay on the line until it is back, and the call carries on by itself — there is no need to hang up and call again.

The call window also warns you, under the caller's name, while something is wrong — its dot turns amber too:

• Weak connection — audio may break up: your network is slow or unsteady. Move closer to the Wi-Fi router, use a cable, or pause large downloads.
• Audio isn't getting through — check your headset and internet: one of you may not be able to hear the other. Check the headset is plugged in and not muted, then your connection.
• Microphone unplugged — switched to your default microphone: your headset came out mid-call, so the call moved to your computer's default microphone and carries on. If you picked a speaker that was unplugged, the sound moves to your default speaker in the same way.

When you call from your browser, the call bar shows a short version beside the timer — Weak connection, for example — with the same amber dot; hover it for the full sentence.

Without Smileline Voice

A call button hands the number to your computer's own phone app, the same as clicking a phone number anywhere else. Record how each call went on the lead's card as usual.

If calls don't ring

• Check the tray menu says Available, not Do not disturb — see Tray and availability.
• Check your computer's microphone permission for Smileline Desk (System Settings on Mac, Settings → Privacy on Windows).
• On macOS 13, keep the Smileline Desk window open.
• Check your network lets calls through — see Network.