Clinical chart

The chart is the first tab of the patient's clinical record. It draws the mouth the way a dentist reads it — four rows of teeth, one five-surface glyph per tooth, the planned rows outside the present ones — with the treatment list beside it and the plans, images and history beneath it. Nothing on the chart is edited in place: a recorded row is evidence, so a correction is a new row that supersedes the old one. The only exception is a treatment's practical details on its treatment plan — its duration, invoice wording, practitioner and completion date — which change in place and are recorded in the activity log; see Treatment plans.

Reading the chart

The chart is laid out the way Dentally lays it out, one to one.

• Four rows. From the top: the upper treatment row on its grey band, the upper teeth as they are today, the lower teeth as they are today, the lower treatment row on its grey band. The two present rows meet at the bite, as in the mouth; the planned rows sit outside them, next to the tooth numbers, which follow the chart's notation. R and L mark the patient's sides.
• Five surfaces. Each tooth is a square with a smaller square inside it, joined at the corners: the outer faces are buccal (towards the cheek) and lingual, the sides are mesial (towards the midline) and distal, the centre is the biting surface — occlusal on a back tooth, the incisal edge (a wide bar) on a front tooth. Molars show their fissure as a line down the centre; a child's tooth is drawn as a circle around its centre square.
• Icons and colours. Every procedure code carries a chart icon — a shape, a colour and an optional short text, set under Settings → Procedure codes — and the chart draws it on the tooth the row names: a filling colours its faces, a crown is a full circle that replaces the square, an implant a blue circle with its grey connector bar in the gap above the tooth, a root filling a post down the tooth, an extraction a cross, a finding such as caries a small dot, wear or mobility a word at the middle of its face. The defaults are Dentally's palette (tan crowns, blue implants, ink-blue posts, yellow composites, green wear). The row tells you the status: the two middle rows hold what is in the mouth — active findings and completed procedures — and the outer, grey rows what is planned or started (see What the marks mean). A missing or extracted tooth is a blank cell that still takes the pointer. Each surface's accessible name reads the icon and its status ("Crown · Planned").
• Hover. Resting the pointer on a tooth tints its column and opens a panel under it listing everything charted there — the tooth and the name, then the date, the practitioner and where it came from (Base chart for a finding, the plan's price list for a procedure). An empty tooth offers the treatments your practice charts most on that kind of tooth (upper molars, lower incisors …): one click charts a whole-tooth treatment there at once, while a surface treatment such as a filling is armed, ready for you to click its surfaces. A practice that has charted nothing on that kind of tooth yet reads where they will appear. When images are filed on the tooth and you can see the patient's documents, the panel ends with a link such as Images for 16 (2) — even when nothing else is charted there. It opens Images beneath the chart, filtered to that tooth; on a supernumerary tooth the link reads Images for 16|SD and shows that tooth's images only, never those of the tooth beside it. The panel stays closed while a code is armed, so it never covers the tooth you are charting.
• Click. With nothing armed, a click on a tooth opens its menu: Status (Unerupted, Partially erupted, Present, Missing, Extracted, Implanted, Retained root — a tick marks the current one) and Diagnosis (Drifted or rotated mesially or distally, Over erupted, Impacted, Mobile). A status is one finding per tooth: choosing another supersedes the current one in a single write, Present resolves it, and a diagnosis is recorded beside it. Each item is one of the practice's finding codes, so it shows only when the catalogue has that code and reads in the practice's own words. With a code armed from the list, the click charts it instead — see Charting in one click.
• Layout. The record's tabs sit right under the patient's name, the active one underlined in blue. On the Chart tab the app's menu on the left shrinks to a bar of icons so the teeth get the width; rest the pointer on an icon for its name. » at the top of the bar (Expand menu), or ⌘B (Ctrl + B on Windows), opens the full menu for this visit to the page only: your saved menu preference does not change, and the other tabs and pages show the menu as you left it. The treatment list stays put on the left while the chart, the strip and the open panel scroll on the right; on a tall enough screen the chart stays in view at the top while the plan scrolls under it. The chart fills its column (a narrower window shrinks the teeth rather than scrolling sideways).
• Tablets and narrow windows. Below 1024 pixels wide the treatment list folds away: the Treatments button above the chart opens it from the left, and arming a code closes it again so you can click the tooth.
• Rows and preferences. The joined PD / PTD / DD / DTD / SD segments above the chart show or hide the permanent and deciduous rows, their treatment rows and the supernumerary slots (solid blue when on); the chart opens on the rows that suit the patient — see Rows by age. The ⇤ button beside them hides the treatment list. The cog in the strip, Charting preferences, holds the Tooth notation, the layout — Separate: four rows, or Condensed: two rows, where each arch is one row showing what is in the mouth and what is planned together (planned work is hatched, and a planned filling still shows on a tooth that already has a crown) — and Show roots. Your choices are kept on this browser.
• Keyboard. The chart is one tab stop: the arrow keys walk between teeth, Shift + arrows between the surfaces of a tooth, Enter or Space activates (the menu, or the armed treatment). With a filling armed, Shift + Enter adds the focused surface to the ones you are collecting (see Several surfaces in one item). Typing a tooth number or a letter sends it to the search box — see Quick charting.

What the marks mean

Every mark takes its code's icon and colour. Where it sits, and a few extra marks, say where the work stands:

The row decides what a click does. A click on a present row records existing work; a click on a treatment row — or on the single row of the two-row layout — plans the treatment. A finding code is recorded whichever row you click. See What a click does.

How marks stack

A tooth can carry several marks at once. They are drawn in a fixed order, so the small ones stay visible: surface fills first, then the tooth-sized shapes (a crown's circle, a square, an implant), then posts and bars, then the small marks (a caries dot, a triangle, a cross), then text on top. A post shows over a crown, and caries on two surfaces shows a dot on each.

A completed extraction blanks the tooth and hides what was in the mouth before it. Treatment planned or started on that tooth keeps its mark, and work done after the extraction — an implant, say — is drawn on the blank tooth.

Tooth notation

The chart numbers teeth the way your practice's country does: Palmer in the UK, Universal in the US and FDI everywhere else. To use another, open Charting preferences (the cog in the strip) and pick it under Tooth notation; the choice is kept on this browser. The numbers along the chart follow it — FDI prints 18 … 11 and 21 … 28, Universal 1 … 16 over 32 … 17, and Palmer 8 … 1 and 1 … 8 either side of the midline, with the letters E … A on the deciduous rows — and so do the tooth menu, the hover panel, the lists, the search box and the Tooth field of Record finding and Plan procedure (16, UR6 or #3). The record stores one identity for each tooth, so the notation changes only how teeth are shown.

This plan or every plan

The chart draws everything in the mouth, and the planned and started work of the plan whose tab is open under the chart. Work planned in the patient's other open plans is left off, and a chip above the chart counts it, for example 2 planned in other plans · Show. Click Show to draw every open plan's work together while the record stays open, and Hide to leave it off again. A denture or splint planned in another plan counts too. Opening another plan's tab draws that plan's work instead.

Rows by age

The chart opens on the rows that suit the patient's age, from their date of birth:

• under 6: the deciduous rows;
• 6 to 12: both dentitions;
• 13 and over, or no date of birth: the permanent rows.

A dentition with anything charted on it shows whatever the age, and so do the supernumerary slots once a supernumerary tooth is charted. Choosing the rows records nothing: no tooth is marked unerupted or missing because of the patient's age — record a tooth's status from its menu when you see it.

The segments switch rows on and off for this patient while the record is open. Nothing is stored, so the next patient opens on their own rows. On the four-row layout the deciduous rows sit outside the permanent ones, lettered in the chart's notation; the two-row layout merges the treatment rows in, so only PD, DD and SD show.

Mixed dentition. On the two-row layout with both PD and DD on, each arch is a single row: the baby teeth at the front and the permanent molars behind them. When a baby tooth is recorded missing or extracted, its permanent successor takes its place.

Supernumerary teeth

Switch on SD to show the supernumerary slots, a row of dashed slots each side of the bite, one beside each tooth position — beside the baby teeth too when their rows are shown, so a tooth by 55 reads 55|SD. With nothing armed, click an empty slot to record a supernumerary tooth there at once — the confirmation reads, for example, Supernumerary tooth added at 15|SD, with Undo. The tooth is named after the slot it sits by, followed by |SD: 15|SD in FDI, UR5|SD in Palmer. It reads that way in the hover panel, the plan and History.

A charted supernumerary tooth works like any other: click it for its own status and diagnosis menu, or arm a code and click it to plan or record work on it. Its marks never mix with those of the tooth it sits by. On an insurance claim it goes without a tooth number, and the plan's PDF names it as supernumerary. One recorded in the mobile app, which has no slots, shows in History only.

The slot records the catalogue's Supernumerary tooth finding; if your practice has archived it, restore it under Settings → Procedure codes.

The chart on a past date

Chart as of in the bar above the chart shows the chart as it stood on a date you pick: the findings that were active that day and the treatment completed by then, read-only. A banner above it names the date, and Back to today returns to today's chart. The plan, notes, images and history beneath the chart stay as they are today.

• A finding counts from the day it was observed until the day it was resolved, replaced by a later finding, or treated. It is treated from the service date of the treatment that treated it — the date the work was done, even when it was charted later — following any repricing of that treatment to its current version.
• Completed treatment shows from its service date, with its current details: a corrected date or practitioner moves it.
• Planned and started treatment is not shown.
• A finding marked entered in error was never true, so it is not shown on any date, even before it was marked.
• A treatment voided later was never done, so it is not shown; a finding it treated stays treated.

On a past chart nothing charts: the treatment list is hidden, a click on a tooth says so instead of opening its menu, and the hover panel lists only what was there.

Roots and root filling

Tick Show roots in Charting preferences to draw each tooth's roots beyond its crown: three on upper molars, two on lower molars and upper first premolars, one on every other tooth. Roots are drawn on the two-row layout only, so turning them on switches to Condensed: two rows, and choosing Separate: four rows turns them off.

A root canal treatment (the default RCT codes) or an existing root filling fills the roots in its colour, hatched while it is planned. Other post-shaped codes, such as a retained root, draw their post without filling the roots. A baby tooth shows the outline of its permanent successor between its roots, and a missing or extracted tooth has no roots.

The treatment list

The list on the left has two bordered tabs, Treatment list and Plan templates. The first holds your catalogue's acts, then its finding codes, each row with a star, the code in its grey column, the chart icon and the name; the category picker, the search box and the sort button (code or name) shape it, and the A–Z rail down its right edge jumps to a letter. Star a code to keep it at the top of the list on this browser. The search box also takes a whole charting command, such as 36 MOD comp — see Quick charting.

Click a code to arm it: its row turns solid blue, and your next click on the chart charts it — see below. Click the code again, press Escape, or click × on the armed chip above the chart to put it down; Escape inside a dialog or a text box leaves it armed. Double-click a whole-mouth code, such as an examination, to chart it at once without touching the chart. A template on the Plan templates tab goes into the plan on screen in one click — see Templates.

Charting in one click

Arm a code, click the tooth: the item is saved at once, with no dialog. Its price, duration, practitioner and invoice wording come from the code and the plan; change them, or add a note, afterwards on the plan's row — see a treatment's details and notes. A crown on 16 is two clicks, and one click on the next tooth charts the same code again.

Where the item goes

The Charting into chip above the chart names where your next click lands: the plan whose tab is open, with its status, and the visit — for example Charting into #76 Restorative · Draft › Visit 2.

• The visit is the one marked Chart here on the plan. Click Chart here on another visit card to switch; the chosen card is outlined in blue. When you open a plan, the first visit that still has unfinished work is chosen, or Not yet in a visit when none has, and removing the chosen visit falls back to Not yet in a visit.
• With Notes, Images or History open, the item goes into the last plan you had open, and the panel switches back to it.
• With no open plan, your first click creates a draft called Treatment plan with its first visit, Visit 1, chosen, priced from the patient's default price list or the practice's only one. Rename it or change its list later with Edit. When neither decides the price list, the new plan dialog opens so you can choose one.
• The location is the plan's, then the patient's, then the practice's only location. When none of these decides it, the chip asks you to pick one on your first click.
• A plan the patient has already seen — presented, accepted or in progress — asks first, because adding to it reopens it as a new version that the patient must be shown and sign again. See Adding to a plan the patient has seen.

Charting stays off until the patient's plans have loaded; if they could not be loaded, nothing is charted — reload the page.

What a click does

The armed code shows in a solid blue chip above the chart, with its colour, its name and a hint that starts with what a click will do: Plan, Record, Record existing (present row) or Hold ⇧ to pick several surfaces.

The row you click decides what happens:

• A treatment row — the grey outer bands, or the single row of the two-row layout — plans the treatment.
• A present row — the two middle rows — records existing work; see Recording existing work.
• A finding code — a status, a diagnosis, caries — is recorded as a finding whichever row you click. A status replaces the tooth's current one, as it does in the tooth menu.

The code decides how much of the mouth a click covers, not the spot you hit: a filling covers the surface you click, a crown or an extraction the whole tooth even when you click one of its surfaces, a quadrant or arch code the quadrant or arch of that tooth, and a whole-mouth code the whole mouth wherever you click.

As you move the pointer, the part a click would chart lights up: blue in a treatment row (you are planning) and slate grey in a present row (you are recording existing work). Moving through the teeth with the keyboard shows the same highlight. A label beside the pointer reads what will happen, for example Plan · FILL-1 Composite · 36 M → Visit 2 or Record existing · Crown · 26.

Each click is saved on its own, in the order you clicked, and shows faded on the tooth until it is saved. A second click on the same spot while the first is still saving is ignored. Once it is saved, clicking again charts it again — sometimes a second identical item is what you want — and the confirmation says so, for example Added again — FILL-2 · 36 MO was already in Visit 2; Undo takes the extra one away.

A click on a treatment whose details are open on the plan with unsaved edits — ⇧-clicking a surface of that filling, say — charts nothing and asks you to save or discard your edits first.

Several surfaces in one item

Hold Shift (⇧) while you click the surfaces of one tooth: each shows faded, and when you let go of Shift (or pause for a moment) they are saved together as one item. The code follows the number of surfaces, so with FILL-1 armed, ⇧-clicking M, O and D charts a single FILL-3 on MOD, priced as FILL-3. The same works for any surface family in your catalogue: codes with the same Surface family under Settings → Procedure codes, each with its number of Surfaces (see Clinical catalogue). The surfaces are saved to the plan and visit where you started, even if you switch plan tab or visit before letting go of Shift. This works on a supernumerary tooth too: its surfaces are gathered into one item of its own, never mixed with the tooth beside it.

When the tooth already has an item of that family in the plan, ⇧-clicking changes that item instead of adding another: a new surface is added to it (moving it up to the matching code), and ⇧-clicking a surface it already covers takes that surface off. The item keeps its place in the plan; the earlier version stays in History.

Recording existing work

With a treatment code armed, a click on a present row records what the patient already has, as a finding under your name:

• a crown code records an existing crown;
• a filling code records an existing restoration on the surfaces you click;
• a root-canal code records an existing root filling;
• an implant code sets the tooth's status to Implanted, and an extraction code sets it to Extracted.

Each treatment records the finding set as its Charts as existing under Settings → Procedure codes, and the codes above come set that way. A code without one — bridges, onlays, veneers and sealants, and your practice's own codes until you set it — records nothing: a message asks you to arm an existing-work finding instead (the findings follow the treatments in the list).

Whole-mouth items

A code charted on the whole mouth, such as an examination, needs no tooth. Double-click it in the list to chart it at once, or arm it and click anywhere on the chart.

Undo

Every charting click shows a confirmation with Undo; ⌘Z (Ctrl + Z on Windows) does the same while it shows. Only the latest action can be undone: the next click replaces the confirmation, and ⌘Z does nothing while a save or a template is still being applied. Inside a note or a text box, ⌘Z undoes your typing as usual.

• A planned item is removed: it leaves the plan, and History keeps it, struck through.
• A ⇧ change puts the item back exactly as it was, with its price and notes.
• A status goes back to the tooth's previous one.
• A finding or existing work is marked in error. Without the right to mark findings in error there is no Undo button.

Undo does not undo a reopened plan; the confirmation says so, for example Added · plan reopened as v3. Undo is withdrawn or refused, with a message, once things have moved on: the plan was presented or signed since, someone else changed the tooth's status, or the item has been charged or is on a claim or an NHS course.

Charting under a supervising dentist

A hygienist or therapist charts under a supervising dentist. The first time you chart on a patient's page, a picker in the chip asks for the dentist; it starts on the patient's own dentist, or else the plan's practitioner. After that the chip reads Supervised by Dr Patel ▾, each click charts at once, and clicking the chip changes the dentist. Templates you apply carry the same supervisor.

When an item is not saved

If an item cannot be saved — the connection dropped, for example — it stays on the tooth as a red dashed outline, and a message stays up until you act on it, such as Not saved: FILL-3 · 36 MOD, with Retry and Discard. Retry never charts the item twice, even when the first attempt did reach Smileline. If someone presented or signed the plan at the same moment, the plan is refreshed and you are asked again. A template that cannot be applied shows the same message, such as Not saved: Single implant, and Retry never applies it twice.

In a dialog. When Record finding, Plan procedure or New plan from charted items cannot confirm that it saved — the connection dropped, or the save was refused, for example because your access changed — the dialog stays open with a Not saved message, and its fields lock so what you see is exactly what is sent. Retry sends it again and never saves it twice, even when the first attempt did reach Smileline. Discard (or closing the dialog) drops it and refreshes the chart and plans, so if the first attempt did save you see it there. To change a field, discard and start again.

Plan visits. When a change to a plan's visits is not saved, the cards go back to how they were. If something else landed on the plan meanwhile, such as an item you charted into a visit, the plan is read again instead, so that item keeps its visit.

Missing prices. A treatment with no price on the plan's price list cannot be charted: the message names both, for example CROWN has no price on Private. An owner or manager sees Set prices, which opens Settings → Fees & prices; add the fee there, then click Retry. Anyone else is asked to have a manager set the price.

Quick charting

Chart from the keyboard by typing a line into the treatment list's search box: the tooth, the surfaces, and a few letters of the code. Press / anywhere on the chart to jump to the box, or simply start typing a tooth number or a letter while the chart or the list has the focus: it lands in the box. The line under the box says what Enter will do, for example 36 MOD → FILL-3 Composite filling, three or more surfaces · Enter to chart, or why it cannot.

How the line is read

• The tooth comes first. Only the first thing you type can be a tooth or a range, written in the chart's notation: 36 in FDI, LL6 in Palmer (which also takes FDI numbers), 19 or #19 in Universal, with A to T for baby teeth. A range joins two teeth with a hyphen or a dash and runs along the arch in chart order, either way round: 34-36 is three teeth, 34-44 is eight across the midline, 55-65 is ten baby teeth.
• The surfaces. One group of the letters M, O, D, B, L and I, each letter once. F (facial) and V (vestibular) mean B, and P (palatal) means L. O and I are the same centre face: typed on a front tooth it is incisal, on a back tooth occlusal. A group with a repeated letter is a word, so fill searches rather than naming surfaces.
• The words pick the code. Everything else is matched against your catalogue: the exact code first, then codes that start with it, then names with a word starting with it, then names that contain it. Capitals and accents don't matter, and your starred codes win a tie. With no words, the armed code is used.

What Enter does

• With a tooth or a range, an act is planned on the treatment row of each tooth and a finding is recorded, into the plan and visit the Charting into chip names. A quadrant or arch code charts its area once, however many of its teeth you typed; a whole-mouth code needs no tooth; a bridge, denture or splint code charts one item over the range (see Bridges, dentures and splints).
• With no tooth, or a surface code with no surfaces, the code is picked up with any surfaces you typed, and you click the tooth.
• The box empties once everything on the line is saved. It keeps its text if you cancel a confirmation, leave a location or supervisor question unanswered, or the save fails — and it never clears anything you typed since. Pressing Enter again on the same line only retries the teeth that were not saved; teeth already charted are never charted twice. A line that cannot be charted keeps its text and says why: No such tooth in this notation (19 ext in FDI), A range stays in one arch (24-34), A range stays in one dentition, permanent or primary (14-54), or No treatment or finding matches.

Keys

• / jumps to the search box from anywhere on the chart. A letter or digit typed while the chart or the treatment list has the focus goes into the box, replacing what was there. Keys typed in a text box, a dialog or a menu, or with ⌘, Ctrl or Alt, are left alone, and Space on a tooth still charts it.
• In the box, ↓ moves to the first code in the list; ↑ and ↓ move between codes, Enter or Space picks up the focused one, and ↑ from the first code returns to the box. Escape clears the text and leaves the armed code armed.
• While the chart has the focus, a line under it reminds you: Type 36 MOD comp and press Enter to chart · / jumps to the search · ⌘Z undoes, with the example in your notation.

Quick buttons

Keep the codes you chart all day one click away. Arm a code — with its surfaces, if you typed them, as in MO comp — and click ☆ on the armed chip (Keep as a quick button). A bordered button with the code's icon, code and surfaces, such as FILL-2 MO, appears above the chart: click it to pick the code up with those surfaces, click it again to put it down, and click its × to remove it. You can keep twelve; ☆ is greyed out while the row is full. Quick buttons are kept on this browser, and a button whose code has been archived is hidden until the code is restored.

Bridges, dentures and splints

A bridge, a partial denture or a splint covers several teeth and is charted as one item. The codes that work this way are marked Charted over several teeth in the catalogue: in the default set, the bridge unit (BRIDGE-U), the partial dentures (DENT-P, DENT-C) and the splint (SPLINT) — see Clinical catalogue. While one is armed, the chip reads Click the teeth · ⇧-click for a range · Enter to chart.

• Picking a bridge. A bridge covers neighbouring teeth: click the teeth at each end and the ones between join it. It needs at least two teeth (A bridge needs at least two teeth) and keeps at least one retainer.
• Picking a denture or a splint. Click each tooth it covers, and click a picked tooth again to drop it; Shift-click (⇧) adds every tooth from the last one you clicked.
• Retainer or pontic. A tooth that is missing or extracted, or has an extraction planned in the plan, starts as P; every other tooth starts as R.
• One arch. Every tooth of a span sits in one arch: a click in the other arch is refused with A span stays on one arch.
• Escape clears the picked teeth first; press it again to put the code down.
• From the keyboard. 34-36 bridge and Enter charts the bridge at once, each part as it starts; 34 bridge picks up the code with 34 already picked. See Quick charting.
• Spans are picked on the treatment rows. A click on a present row charts one tooth at a time, as described in Recording existing work.

What is saved:

• A bridge is one item per tooth, sharing the bridge. Each unit is priced, completed, charged and claimed on its own, and the chart joins the units with a connector and marks each one R or P. On the plan the bridge is a single row; see Grouped treatments. At a practice whose bridge code has a Pontic code, the pontics are charted with that code.
• A partial denture or a splint is one item on its arch that lists the teeth it covers, and is drawn on each of them.
• A full denture needs no picking: it is an arch code, so a click on any tooth of the arch covers the whole arch.

A bridge goes into the plan and visit the Charting into chip names, and on a plan the patient has seen you are asked first, as for any other item. Undo removes the whole bridge in one step.

Removing a bridge

A bridge comes off whole or not at all. Remove on any of its teeth — on the chart's row, the plan's bridge row or the phone app — asks for one reason for the whole bridge and names its teeth, for example 34–36. Every unit is removed together under your name, and the plan updates once. If one unit can't be removed because it has been started, completed, charged, claimed or put on an NHS course, nothing is removed and the message names that tooth. If someone changed the bridge since you opened it, the removal is refused; look again and retry.

The confirmation offers Undo while it shows, to anyone who can chart into plans. Undo puts the bridge back as it was charted: each tooth's own code (retainer or pontic), visit and clinician, at the price list's current fees. A fee someone had changed by hand isn't restored, and a bridge is put back once. If one of its codes has been archived since, nothing is put back and the message names the tooth. The removed units stay in History, struck through, with the reason.

Recording a finding

The finding is recorded as active under your professional registration at that location. Dentists, hygienists and therapists can record findings; a nurse or a front-desk member cannot.

An active finding can be resolved (it no longer applies, with a date and an optional reason) or marked in error (it was never true). Both keep the row visible with its new status.

Planning a procedure

The fee comes from the price list's fee schedule as it stands today, with the list's own override applied when there is one, and stays on the procedure unless it is re-priced on its treatment plan. A code without a fee on that schedule cannot be planned: add the fee under Settings → Fees & prices first. The procedure joins the plan whose tab is open under the chart, in the visit marked Chart here, and asks first when the patient has already seen that plan — the same as charting in one click.

A planned procedure can be started (in progress on a service date), completed (by you, at a location, on a service date) or referred out. Completing starts on today's date at the practice and on the procedure's own location; the date cannot be in the future. Refer out asks you to confirm first. A completed procedure cannot go back or be completed again.

Completing resolves what it treats

Completing a treatment marks treated the findings it deals with, so the chart doesn't keep showing caries under a new filling. A finding is marked treated only when all of these hold:

• the treatment's code Treats that finding (see Clinical catalogue);
• the finding is an active condition or diagnosis — never a tooth status such as Missing;
• it is on exactly the same tooth, root or supernumerary tooth, or the same area of the mouth. A whole-mouth treatment, such as a scale and polish, covers every area and the whole mouth. A bridge's pontic treats nothing;
• the treatment covers every surface of the finding. A treatment with no surfaces covers the whole tooth;
• the finding was observed and entered into Smileline on or before the treatment's date. A finding entered after the treatment stays active for you to resolve by hand;
• you can resolve findings.

The Complete dialog lists what will happen before you confirm, for example Will mark treated: Caries 16 MO, and the list follows the date and location you pick. Once it is completed, the confirmation names what was marked treated with Undo: Undo adds an active copy of each finding, and the treated one stays in History. If you can't resolve findings, the treatment is still completed, nothing is marked treated, and a message names the findings left active.

Voiding a completed treatment doesn't reopen what it treated. Those findings show in History as Treated by a voided treatment — review, with Undo in their ⋯ menu.

A procedure the patient declined on a treatment plan is marked Declined and cannot be started or completed until the patient accepts it in a later version of a plan — see Declining.

Removing a planned procedure

A procedure that was planned but never started or completed can be removed without the password step: click Remove on its row, give a reason, and it is voided under your name rather than under a professional registration. A bridge unit takes its whole bridge with it; see Removing a bridge. It stays on the chart, struck through, like any other void. Anyone who can plan a procedure can remove one; a started, completed or referred-out procedure shows Void only and can only be voided by a clinician. Declining a treatment plan removes its planned procedures the same way.

Voiding, removing, correcting or re-pricing a procedure that a presented, accepted or in-progress treatment plan cites returns that plan to draft as a new version, so it can be presented again with the current procedures.

Beneath the chart

The strip under the chart carries, from the left, the round + (Record finding, Plan procedure, New plan, New plan from charted items) and one tab per open treatment plan, #number name — the selected one solid blue; on the right, Notes, Images (with its count), BPE at a UK practice — showing the latest screening's highest code and date, such as BPE 3* · 12 Mar 2026, or BPE due with a red dot when the patient has no completed BPE in the last twelve months; click it to open the Perio tab, History and the charting-preferences cog. The open panel — the plan, the notes, the images or the history — sits in one bordered card under the strip. With no open plan, the plan panel says so and offers New plan. The plan tab is described in Treatment plans.

Notes

The patient's clinical notes, newest first, exactly as on the record's Notes tab — the All, Draft, Completed and Signed filters, the search and New note included — so you can write up a visit without leaving the chart. A note written here is the same note you see on the Notes tab; see Clinical notes.

Images

Every x-ray and photo filed on the patient, newest first, each card with its type and site under its title. A thumbnail loads when it scrolls into view (each one is a recorded read of that document). A DICOM image shows as a file: Smileline keeps it exactly as received and shows no preview (see DICOM images).

In the UK and the US, the intraoral scans filed on the patient are listed above the pictures under Scans, with View in 3D; their mesh files are not repeated among the pictures. See Scans.

New from imaging

When your practice's imaging computer has sent images that are suggested for this patient, New from imaging (n) lists them above the images. Click File to patient to file one (see Filing an image). Show all waiting lists every image waiting to be filed, whoever it is suggested for; Show suggested goes back. You see it if you can upload documents.

An image is suggested for a patient only when its DICOM header carries the patient's number in your imaging program at that computer's site and their name and date of birth, or when the patient was opened in the imaging program on that computer in the last 30 minutes. An image whose header names someone else is never suggested. A suggestion is only a suggestion: nothing is filed until a person files it.

Filing an image

File to patient (here, or on Images to file) opens a dialog that shows the patient's name and date of birth, a preview of a JPEG or PNG image, or the summary of a DICOM image. Choose the patient (from Images to file), the kind (x-ray or photo), Taken on, the Location and the image's details, as for Adding images, and click File. For a DICOM image, Taken on starts as the header's study date, and Type as panoramic for a panoramic x-ray.

If the image's header names someone else, Smileline asks first, for example: This image's header names SMITH^JOHN, born 1 Jan 1980. File it to Jane Smith anyway? Click File anyway only if you are sure.

Filing is one step that can be safely retried: a second click after a lost connection files the same image once. While someone is filing an image, others see Being filed by their name. If filing stopped part-way, the image waits under Being filed with Finish filing, which completes it, and Release, which puts it back to wait when nothing was filed yet.

Adding images

+ (Add image) uploads one or more files — JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, DICOM or a PDF export, each up to 32 MB (the ceiling is the server's memory while it encrypts the file, not a cost) — with the kind (x-ray or photo), Taken on and the Location, and the image's details: Type (for an x-ray periapical, bitewing, occlusal, panoramic, cephalometric or CBCT; for a photo intraoral photo, extraoral photo or scan), View, the Site (a tooth, a root, an implant, an extra tooth charted beside a tooth, or an area), the Visit and Treatment it belongs to, and Taken by, which starts as Me, if I am a clinician: you, when you are linked to a practitioner. An x-ray filed at a UK site also takes the IR(ME)R fields described under Image details.

The same file uploaded twice onto the same patient is one document, so a retry after a dropped connection never files a duplicate: the dialog says Already uploaded: its details are shown and nothing new is written. Click Details beside it to correct its details.

Viewing and comparing

Click a thumbnail to open the viewer. Zoom with the mouse wheel, a pinch or Zoom in and Zoom out; drag the image to move it; Rotate 90° turns it a quarter at a time and Reset puts it back. With the image focused, the keyboard does the same: + and − zoom, the arrow keys move, R rotates and 0 resets. The previous and next arrows step through the images the filters show, and Open original downloads the file.

Compare with… puts a second image beside the first — last year's bitewing beside this year's, say. Both move together: one zoom, one position and one rotation. Each image is opened as its own recorded read. Stop comparing goes back to one image.

Filters

Above the images, Tooth shows the images of one tooth; Which tooth then chooses between The tooth itself (its tooth, root and implant images) and Extra tooth (the supernumerary charted beside it), so the two are never mixed. Type shows one kind of image, and From and To a date range, on the date the image was taken (or filed, when that is not recorded). Clear filters shows everything again. A link that opens the chart on one tooth's images shows it above them, such as Images for 16; its × shows every tooth.

Image details

Details in the viewer opens the image's details: its site, type, view, visit, treatment, who took it and the Evaluation — the written clinical report on the image. Each Save files a new version of the whole set under your name; the image itself never changes, and History lists every version with who saved it and when. If someone saved newer details while you were editing, nothing is saved and you are asked to open Details again.

Only a clinician — a member linked to an active practitioner — can write, change or clear the evaluation. For anyone else the field is read-only with the note Only a clinician can write or clear the evaluation., and their saves keep it as it is. It keeps its author and date until a clinician changes it.

Once an image's deletion at the end of its retention period has begun, its details can no longer change.

IR(ME)R (UK only). An x-ray taken at a site in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland also records its Justification and its Quality grade (A — acceptable or N — not acceptable), as the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations require; once the x-ray is evaluated both are needed. The rule follows the site the image was filed at, not the practice's country, and neither field is offered on a photo or outside the UK.

DICOM images

A DICOM image is kept byte for byte as your imaging software exported it. Smileline shows its header — Modality, Patient in the header, Patient ID, Born, Study date and Size — and never draws its pixels, which only your imaging software shows correctly. Download (or Open original in the viewer) saves the file to open there.

Open in…

When your practice has set up an imaging program at its site, the images' header offers it:

• Open in Planmeca Romexis opens Romexis on the patient. It needs the right to file documents. The first time a patient is opened in a Romexis database, Smileline asks first: Planmeca Romexis will create or update this patient: Jane Smith, born 2 Apr 1985, number 1042.
• Open Sidexis and Open CS Imaging open the program without a patient, and copy the patient's number for you to paste.

The program opens on this computer through the desktop app, which must be installed, set up for imaging and signed in to your practice. If it doesn't answer within two minutes, Smileline says so; if it refuses — the program isn't set up on this computer, say — Smileline says why.

In a database that keeps its own patient numbers (Linked), a patient needs a link first: Link asks for their number in the program. It may be filled in from your previous system's number, which you check before you link; Smileline never uses that number by itself. A number already linked to another patient is refused. Linked as the number shows the link, and Remove link removes it.

Entered in error and refiling

With the right to file documents, the viewer also offers Entered in error (the image stays on the record as history, under your reason, and leaves the list) and Move to the right patient, exactly as on the Documents tab. A moved image brings its details with it — the site, type, view, who took it, the evaluation and, at a UK site, the justification and grade — but not the visit or treatment, which belong to the other patient. Its details then say Details carried from a refiled image on the date, check the site and evaluation.

History

One table of every finding and every procedure of the patient, newest first: the plan it belongs to, the date, the site, the name in bold with its note under it, the status as a coloured pill and the fee. Superseded, invalidated and voided rows stay, struck through, so the record stays legible. A finding marked treated by a treatment that was later voided reads Treated by a voided treatment — review, with Undo to make it active again. Each row's actions sit in its ⋯ menu, and on a narrow screen the table scrolls sideways. Untick Include uncompleted to see only what was done; the search box filters by name or note.

Who can do what

A button is only half of it: every act is recorded under a professional registration, so an owner or manager who is not a linked practitioner with the right profession is refused when they try, and a nurse cannot record a finding or a procedure under their own name.

Charting from the treatment list — one-click charting and templates — needs all of it up front: the right to plan procedures and author treatment plans, an account linked to an active practitioner, and a profession that may plan treatment at the practice. Without them the list is read-only, with a line saying what is missing: link your account to a practitioner, or your profession cannot chart here. A nurse or front-desk member sees the list read-only.

Every read of the chart and every write is recorded in the activity log against the patient.