Letters and the waitlist

Letters

Letters sit on the Documents tab of the clinical record, under Letters and in All: each row shows the template and version, the intended delivery and whether it went out — Generated until it is marked Sent.

Click New above the list, choose New letter, pick a template (kept under Settings → Letter templates) and the delivery. The template's merge tags are filled from the patient, the practice and its site, the letter is rendered to a PDF and filed on the patient's documents, and the letter is recorded at the template's current version. Open on its row shows it; Mark sent records that it went out.

Filed documents

Files on the Documents tab lists every document filed on the patient, newest first: invoices and statements, letters and prescriptions, treatment plans and payment plan agreements, signatures and anything else filed on them. Open shows the document through a link that works for one minute.

X-rays and photos are not listed twice: Files says how many there are, and Open chart takes you to them under Chart › Images. In All, a letter's or a prescription's PDF appears once, as the letter or the prescription itself.

Upload a file

To keep a document you have on paper or on your computer — a letter from another clinician, a signed consent form, a lab sheet — click New above the list and choose Upload a file. The dialog names the patient and their date of birth. Choose:

• the file: a PDF, or a JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF image, up to 32 MB;
• its kind: Letter, Correspondence, Consent, Referral, Lab, Insurance or Other;
• its title, which starts as the file's name;
• its date, if it has one;
• the location, when the practice has more than one.

Click Upload. The file is listed under Files with its kind, and filing it is recorded in the patient's record history.

Smileline reads the file's type from the file itself. If it isn't one of those formats, or the upload fails, the dialog says why and keeps your choices, so you can click Retry. Uploading the same file onto the same patient again never files it twice. If that file is already filed on the patient as another kind — an invoice PDF sent again as a letter, say — nothing is filed and the dialog says what it is filed as and when, for example "Already filed as Invoice on 11 Aug 2026". Invoices, statements, prescriptions and signatures are filed by Smileline when they are made, so they are not offered here, and x-rays and photos are added under Chart › Images.

Upload a file shows for the roles that can upload patient documents: owners, managers, agency staff, the front desk, dentists, hygienists and nurses.

When the practice has document categories, the dialog also offers a Category. Uploading a file that is already filed on the patient leaves that document as it is, its category included.

Uploads that couldn't be filed

The file is stored securely the moment it arrives, before anything checks it. If it then can't be filed — its type isn't accepted, a field or the category is refused, the record was merged into another, or Smileline couldn't file it just then — you see why at once, and the file is kept under Kept uploads at the top of the Documents tab rather than lost. X-rays and photos added under Chart › Images are kept the same way. An upload interrupted before Smileline could file or keep it — the connection dropped, say — appears there too, within about half an hour. If Smileline couldn't store the file at all, nothing is kept and you're asked to send it again.

• Retry files it as it was sent, image details included: details that were refused are refused again.
• File as… files it as another kind or category, or under another title. Filed as another kind, image details that don't fit it are left out; add them from Details.
• Discard asks why and deletes the file. Only a person can discard a kept upload: Smileline never deletes one by itself. Erasing the patient is such a decision: their kept uploads go with them.

When you merge a duplicate record into this patient, its kept uploads appear here too, and Retry or File as… files them to this patient.

Categories

Your practice's own document categories label filed documents — "ID & insurance", "Referral letters", "Lab". With at least one category, Files shows a Category column and a filter: all categories, one category, or Uncategorised.

Category under a document's More sets or clears its category. A category is only a label: it never changes what kind of document it is, who can open it, or anything that was signed. Any filed document can have one, including invoices, prescriptions and signatures. An archived category still shows on the documents that have it, marked (archived), but isn't offered for new filing. If someone changed the document's category since you opened the list, the change is refused and the list reloads. The roles that mark documents entered in error set categories.

Entered in error, or on the wrong patient

A document filed by mistake is never deleted:

• Entered in error marks it with a reason. It stays on the record as history but leaves Files; Show entered in error lists it again. The same file can then be uploaded again.
• Move to the right patient files a copy on the patient it belongs to — kept for as long as their records are kept — and only then marks the original entered in error. Neither patient's record names the other; the practice's activity log records both.

Invoices, credit notes, statements and payment plan agreements are corrected through their own documents — a credit note, a new statement, a new agreement — so they cannot be marked entered in error or moved, and neither can a signature that a form or a plan decision cites. The roles that upload files can mark and move them.

Waitlist

The Waitlist section of the clinical record's Appointments tab records what the patient is waiting for: an appointment as soon as possible, a short-notice slot, or treatment after a referral. Add to waitlist adds a request with the site, the appointment type, the practitioner, the treatment plan it is for, the window the patient can attend (the earliest and latest days), a priority and a note. Leave the type, practitioner or plan empty for any.

Each request shows its status as a coloured label: Open, Offered, Booked or Withdrawn. When a slot is offered click Offered; when it is taken up click Booked and pick the appointment from the patient's upcoming ones, or Declined offer to put the request back in the queue. Withdraw closes a request that is no longer wanted.

Change on an open or offered request opens the same form with what it says now. Save, and the request waits for the new terms. A request that had an offer out goes back to Open: the offer was made on the old terms, and the form says so before you save. If someone else changed the request while you had the form open, saving is refused with Someone else changed this request, so the list was read again — your changes stay in the form, and Save again applies them to the request as it is now. The record's activity keeps what each change was before and after. A booked request is changed through its appointment instead.

A request is booked only while its appointment stands. If that appointment is cancelled or missed — by the team, the patient, the AI receptionist or your practice management system — the request is back in the queue as Open, to be offered, changed, booked again or withdrawn; if the patient moves it to another time, the request moves with it. Only the patient's own upcoming appointments can book a request, and never one already cancelled.

Everyone waiting at a site, highest priority first, is in the diary's Fill gaps, beside the free time they could take: book them into a gap, add someone, or withdraw a request there. After a cancellation or a no-show, the diary offers Fill this gap when someone waiting could take that time.