Move, close, and reopen

A journey's place on the board should always reflect reality: move the card as the patient progresses, record Going ahead when they accept treatment, Not proceeding when they don't — with a reason — and reopen it if they come back.

Move a card between stages

Drag a card to another column and drop it. On a touch screen, press and hold the card for a moment, then drag. You can also change the stage by clicking a step on the journey's stage timeline in the Journeys panel of the patient record.

Moving a card forward tells Smileline you've acted on the lead: the first forward move records the first contact attempt, and any open first-contact task for that journey on the Today page is completed automatically.

Most of the time you shouldn't have to. Stages move on their own from the work you record — the Today outcome wizard, a booking made in the diary, online or by AI phone, an appointment marked Fulfilled or No-show in the Calendar, and a connected practice-management system. That's why the stage beside a lead's name on Today is a read-out rather than a dropdown: the board and the patient record are where a manual correction belongs.

Booked, attended and failed to attend

Three stages stand for something that happened, so moving a lead into one records it rather than just moving the card. The card stays where it is until it's recorded, and the board reloads when you close the lead's record.

• Consultation Booked opens the lead's record with the outcome wizard on the booked step. Book the visit and the lead moves with the booking — which also sends its booking messages. When the only things open on the lead are an attendance question or an online booking waiting for approval, the record asks you to answer that first, because a booking can't be recorded while it is open.
• Consultation Attended and Failed to Attend record the attendance answer: on the lead's open attendance question when it has one, otherwise on its booking in the diary — made there, online or by AI phone — once you confirm, for example Mark the 13 Oct visit as attended?. A visit your practice system manages says Your practice system records attendance for this visit, and a lead with no booking to answer says Book first. Either way the lead stays where it is.

The stage dots on the patient record behave the same way. A team member whose role doesn't work leads gets a message instead, and nothing moves.

A new booking for a lead in Failed to Attend takes it back to Consultation Booked — the only time a lead moves back on its own. Automations never move a lead backwards.

Record that a patient is going ahead

Once the consultation has happened, record it as the lead's outcome:

• Answer the lead's attendance question with They're going ahead with treatment.
• Or, after a conversation, choose it under We spoke — on Today, or with Log outcome on the patient record. It's offered once the lead is at your board's consultation-attended stage or past it.

The wizard asks for the Agreed treatment value, filled in with the value last agreed or else the estimate, so the price the patient accepted is what your revenue reports, ad-platform conversions and referral rewards use.

You can also drag the card into your board's going-ahead column (Treatment Started on the default board), or pick that column under Move to… in the card's ⋯ menu. That skips the value question: the lead keeps its estimate until someone edits the value.

Either way the journey moves to the going-ahead stage, its status becomes Going ahead, and the close date is recorded.

Record that a patient is not proceeding

This is an outcome too. In the outcome wizard, choose They're not proceeding after We spoke and click the Reason that fits. It's required, and it feeds your missed-revenue reports. When nobody ever reached the lead, Give up on this lead — not proceeding closes it with the reason Unable to contact. See If they're not proceeding. Admins and owners manage the reasons in Settings.

Closing as not proceeding is not a stage move: the journey keeps the stage where it stalled, along with all its history. The card fades and disappears from the board unless Show not proceeding is on (the toggle is hidden on phones narrower than 768px). Any open first-contact task for the journey is cancelled.

Mark a lead as junk

A spam, duplicate or fake enquiry closes as not proceeding like any other. To also keep it out of the conversions sent to ad platforms, choose Mark as junk… from the card's ⋯ menu, or the journey's menu on the patient record, and optionally say why. Unmark junk takes the mark off. A reason set to mark leads as junk adds the mark by itself when a lead closes with it.

Reopen a journey

People change their minds. To bring back a journey that is going ahead or not proceeding, choose Reopen from the card's ⋯ menu or the journey's menu on the patient record.

• A journey that was not proceeding becomes active again in the stage where it stopped.
• A journey that was going ahead returns to its last open stage before that: Consultation Attended when it went ahead from the attendance question. If that stage is no longer available, it returns to the board's entry stage.

Reopening clears the close date and the not-proceeding reason and note. The agreed value stays.