Steps to Setup To setup your On Call System
The steps you will need to follow to setup your RingRx On Call system are:
- Create an On Call group
- Modify your Auto Attendant to route callers to the On Call system
- Setup On Call profiles for each provider
- Add shifts to your On Call Calendar
Create an On call Group
An On Call Group is where you define the basic behavior of how the system will work for this group, including the following parameters:
- How many times the system will retry calling the On Call provider
- How many minutes between each retries
- The Caller ID displayed when calls to patients are returned through the system
- Shift reminders
To create an On Call Group
- Log in as an Admin here:
- https://portal.ringrx.com/login
- Go to Settings\On Call Groups, here https://portal.ringrx.com/settings/departments
- Select Add New On Call Group button
- Assign a Name. Something descriptive like “Family Practice On Call”
- Assign an Extension number: Something even and outside of your normal extension range, like 2000, 1200, 1900, or 10000
- Minutes are the amount of time the system waits to retry the On Call provider. 5,10, or 15 are most common
- Retries is the number of times the system will Retry calling the On Call provider
- Shift Alarm Minutes is the number of minutes prior to an upcoming empty shift the Administrator is notified. To turn off, leave at 0.
- Caller ID is the phone number you want displayed when you use the system to return the call of one of the patients leaving a message
- Greeting is the audio prompt that plays when calls first hit the On Call system (this would be after the Auto Attendant greeting). For instructions on creating an on-call greeting, please go here https://support.ringrx.com/knowledge-base/on-call-greeting-script/
- Music On Hold. The default is fine, but if you want to use special music, it can be uploaded to Media Files and selected here
- Mailbox – leave as default.
- The remaining options are optional.
When done, your your On Call Group should look something like this:
Setting up your Auto Attendant
RingRx On Call is a fully automated system which means that calls will route through a series of prompts in order to capture the information from the callers. Of course, your system should be setup so that calls are only handled by the On Call system during relevant time periods – that is, only when some one in your on-call group is scheduled to be on-call. Your phone system must be set and managed in such a way to accommodate these calls. There are two main ways that phone systems can be setup for your On Call system: Integrating it with your Auto Attendant, or simply Call Forwarding your phone to the On Call group.
1) Integrated your On Call system with your Auto Attendant
If you have an auto-attendant, you will have to make some adjustments so that callers have options that will direct them to the On Call system. Normally, this just means adding some language to your auto-attendant recording and adding an option to your after hours menu that transfers calls to the On Call system’s extension.
Instructions:
- Log into the User portal here https://portal.ringrx.com/login
- Go to Settings\Auto-Attendants
- Select the Menu callers will be navigating to the On Call system. (You should make this change on every Menu that callers could use to navigate to the On Call system)
- Add an Option to transfer callers to the On Call extension.
Instructions for modifying your Menu are here: https://support.ringrx.com/knowledge-base/menus/#to-edit-or-create-a-menu
Example. Below is what your Menu would look like if Option 9 was used to transfer callers to your On Call System
The greeting you use for the Menu you modified in Step 4 should be updated to include an option for the caller to select to be transferred. In our example above, you would add something like “If you have an urgent matter and need to reach the On Call provider, Press 9”
2) Call Forward
If you do not have an auto-attendant, then the way for you to connect to the On Call system will just be to call forward your phone number or point a phone number to the system. In this case, all calls that hit the system at anytime of the day will be handled by the On Call system. So turning the system on or off is no more than call forwarding/unforwarding or pointing/unpointing a number to it. Both of these methods can be managed using RingRx’s user portal or star codes.
Set Up Provider Profiles
Each Provider has the opportunity to setup their own customized rules for how they want to be reached when they are on duty. Rules let you specify:
- What phone to call you on
- Whether to keep the caller on the line (“patch) or to take a message
- To be notified of a new message by text or email
- To notify you when your scheduled shift is about to begin
To setup your profile, log in to RingRx, go to My Phone, and select On Call Settings, here
https://portal.ringrx.com/my-phone/on-call-settings
The top section just shows you current scheduled rules, which will be blank initially. Rules are created for time periods on days of the week that will recur every week. Providers can have as many or as few rules as they want. If no Rules are created, On Call providers will have a Default behavior of:
- Patch Caller
- Contact you on your RingRx extension
- Notify you by text and email for new messages
- Notify you by text and email one hour prior to shift
If you do not want this profile, create rules of your own. To create your first Rule:
- Select Add Rule
- Assign a Name, something like “Always” or “Daytime”
- Select which days for this Rule
- Select a Start Time and End Time for the Rule
- Select how you would like to be reached
-
- Ring My Phone – We try to reach you on your RingRx extension (mobile app).
- Simultaneous Ring – We try to reach you on your RingRx extension and the number you enter to Mobile on Phone Settings tab (in My Phone) at the same time
- Sequential – We try to reach you on your RingRx extension first, and then your Mobile
- Forward – We try to reach you on the Mobile
6. Select how you would like caller handled
-
- Patch Caller – we keep caller on line and try to relay on first attempt
- Relay Message – we hang up with caller and relay a message to you
7. Save
Create as many Rules as you want. But, when all rules are combined, they should cover you 24/7 every day of a typical 7 day week
On Call Calendar
Now that you have created your On Call Group, your phone system is setup to send callers to your On Call System, your providers have their profiles setup, its time to enter some On Call shifts. There are two types of shifts: One time shifts, and Repeated Shifts
- One time shifts occur once and never again.
- Repeated shifts are identical shifts that repeat according to some weekly schedule.
One Time Shifts
In the portal, go to the On Call tab. To add your first shift, just click on the first day. Select Add Shift. Enter a start time and an end time for the shift. Shifts should be less than 24 hours. They can start one day and end the following day.
To make it easier to complete a calendar, you can copy shifts from one day to the next. In these cases, shifts will be exactly the same but on different days. So if your times change on some days, like weekends, pay attention to times. You can always copy a shift, then edit it to change the times. To copy a one time shift, select the shift, then under Action, select the Copy icon. You will see a “Copy Mode” popover appear in the upper right of the screen. Select the dates you want to copy the shift to, when done, select “Done pasting shifts” in the Copy Mode popover. Its a good idea to refresh the page before copying more shifts
Back Up Shifts
RingRx On Call lets you schedule multiple providers on any shift. This lets you have a back up in case the first provider cannot answer the call in time. To do this, simply select the Add Shift button again after completing the first shift, as outlined above.
Repeated Shifts
Repeated shifts work if any on-call staff take the same scheduled shifts every week. For example, Dr Johnson is on 5pm-9am every Wednesday. Or if Dr Raney is always on-call. Creating a Repeated Shift is similar to a one-time shift described above. The only difference is that instead of a start and end date/time, you select which days of the week the shift applies to. Create as many Repeated Shifts as you need to fill out your schedule. You can mix and match Repeated Shifts and One-Time shifts as well.