Open Dental stays your practice management system and your chart. The texting runs in our inbox. For two-way messaging, we write Comm Log entries for the messages described on this page, through Open Dental's API. Separately, when a patient confirms a reminder by text, we set the appointment's Confirmed status and add a confirmation note. The appointment reminders page covers that. We don't run a second chart and you don't migrate anything. If you already use Open Dental's Integrated Texting, you can keep it running while you compare the two.
We issue you a customer key. In Open Dental, enable the API (Setup > Advanced Setup > API), paste the key with Add Key, and confirm the eConnector is running on your server. The eConnector is what serves Open Dental's API, and our other Open Dental features use the same connection. Nothing gets installed on workstations, and we don't need database credentials, a VPN or port forwarding.
Staff send texts and emails from the Messaging tab, and patient replies come back into the same thread. Messages your staff type go out exactly as written. Automated reminders can go out in the patient's preferred language. The texting works the same on any practice management system. Only the Comm Log mirroring in the next step is specific to Open Dental.
Say a staff member sends a new text or email from the Messaging tab's send form or from Patient 360 to a patient linked to an Open Dental chart. We write a commlog with Mode set to Text or Email, marked Sent. When the patient replies by text, we write a Received Text commlog. Replies staff type into an existing conversation thread in the inbox are not copied to the Comm Log yet. A text entry shows the message, the name of the staff member who sent it and only the last four digits of the patient's phone number. An email entry shows the recipient's email address, the subject line and a plain-text copy of the body. (HIPAA FAQ: "Text entries in the commlog show only the last four digits of the patient's phone number.") It uses your office's Misc commlog type, so it appears in the Account module's Communications Log with your other entries, and in Chart progress notes if your Chart View is set to show communications.
We never copy automated appointment reminders to the Comm Log, because hundreds of reminder texts would bury the real conversations. An inbound AI receptionist call is logged as a short Phone commlog with the summary and outcome. The full transcript and recording stay in our dashboard. Outbound AI calls are not logged to the Comm Log. If you'd rather keep messaging out of Open Dental entirely, the office-level off switch stops all mirroring and the texting keeps working.
If Open Dental is already connected for another feature, chart mirroring is on by default and you don't need to set anything up. If it isn't connected yet, setup takes three steps and about five minutes. First, get the key from our dashboard. Second, in Open Dental, check in the Service Manager that the eConnector is running, then enable the API and add the key. Third, click Connect, and we test the key against your Open Dental. Messages are written with your office's Misc commlog type, so you don't need to create a new definition. There are three limits to know about. First, a message is mirrored only when the patient is linked to an Open Dental chart, because a commlog needs a PatNum. A text to a number we can't match to a chart stays in the inbox only. When family members share a phone number, a reply is logged on the chart we match to that number, which may not be the family member the original text went to. Second, only new messages staff send from the Messaging tab's send form or Patient 360 are copied. Replies typed into an existing conversation thread in the inbox are not copied yet. Third, we send the copy once, when the message goes out or the reply comes in. If your eConnector is offline at that moment, that message never reaches the Comm Log, though the conversation is still in the inbox.
Some do, for patients linked to an Open Dental chart. A new text a staff member sends from the Messaging tab's send form or Patient 360 becomes a Comm Log entry with Mode Text, marked Sent. Every text reply from the patient becomes a Received entry. Replies staff type into an existing conversation thread in the inbox are not copied yet. New staff emails sent the same way are logged as Email. The entries use your office's Misc commlog type, so they appear in the Account module's Communications Log next to the notes your team already writes, and in Chart progress notes if your Chart View is set to show communications.
Integrated Texting is built into Open Dental, and texts sent with it are already part of the chart. That's enough for many offices, and if it's working for you, there's no reason to switch just for texting. Offices choose ours when they want texting, email, reviews and reminders in one place, plus AI receptionist call summaries if they have the AI Receptionist. Remove the sentence, or say: "Our inbox runs in a web browser, so staff can use it from any computer.", and new staff messages and patient text replies still land in the Comm Log. If you're comparing us with a third-party tool such as Weave, ask whether its conversations end up in the Open Dental Comm Log, and how.
No, and that's on purpose. Reminder texts go to every patient on the schedule, and logging each one would push the real conversations off the screen. New messages staff send from the Messaging tab, Patient 360 and other dashboard send forms are mirrored, and so is every text a patient sends in, including replies to reminders such as 'C' to confirm. The reminders themselves are not mirrored. When a patient confirms a reminder by text, we write that confirmation to the appointment's Confirmed status in Open Dental. The appointment reminders page covers how that works.
We sign a BAA on every plan. PHI is encrypted at the field level at rest and kept separate for each practice. The commlog we write to Open Dental shows only the last four digits of the patient's phone number. You can disable the API key from inside Open Dental at any time. As with any texting tool, your office still decides what staff should and shouldn't put in a text.
Yes. Each office has its own off switch for chart mirroring. With it off, texting and email keep working in the inbox exactly as before, and nothing gets written to the Open Dental Comm Log. Ask support and we'll turn it off for you.
Not right now. New emails staff send from the send form or Patient 360 are logged as Email commlogs, but inbound replies are logged only for texts. A patient's email reply stays in the inbox thread and isn't copied to the Comm Log.
Yes. Two-way SMS and email work the same on every practice management system we support. Only the Comm Log mirroring described here is specific to Open Dental. We don't currently write messaging commlogs into other systems.
The text still goes out, and the conversation stays in the inbox. We try the Comm Log copy once, when the message is sent or received. If we can't reach the eConnector at that moment, that message isn't written to Open Dental, and we don't retry it later. The dashboard shows when the eConnector last responded, so you can see when the connection was down.
Two-way texting is part of Reviews & Messaging, at $199.99 a month. Open Dental offices get chart mirroring to the Comm Log at no extra charge. AI receptionist call summaries need the AI Receptionist plan ($499.99/mo) or Practice Autopilot ($999.99/mo), which includes it. The AI Receptionist plan does not include texting, so an office that wants both texting and call summaries needs Reviews & Messaging as well, or Practice Autopilot. Every plan is month-to-month, starts with a 14-day trial and comes with a BAA.
If your team texts patients and you want those conversations in the Open Dental chart, not just in another app, this covers most of it. New texts and emails staff send from the send form or Patient 360 are written to the Comm Log as Text or Email entries, and so are patient text replies. With the AI Receptionist, summaries of inbound calls are written as Phone entries. We leave reminders out on purpose, and each office can turn mirroring off. There are limits. Messages are mirrored only for patients linked to a chart. Replies typed into an existing inbox thread aren't copied yet. Patient email replies aren't logged. And a message sent while the eConnector is down isn't copied later. If Open Dental's Integrated Texting already does what you need, it's a reasonable choice. This is for offices that want messaging, calls and reviews in one place and still want a record in the chart.
Open Dental is a trademark of Open Dental Software, Inc. Intake.Dental is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Open Dental Software, Inc. Weave is a trademark of its respective owner.
Your team texts and emails patients from one inbox. If a patient is linked to their Open Dental chart, we copy two kinds of message into that patient's Comm Log: a new text or email a staff member sends from the Messaging tab or Patient 360, and every text reply the patient sends back. Each one is saved as a Text or Email entry marked Sent or Received. Replies typed into an existing conversation thread in the inbox are not copied yet. The entries show in the Account module's Communications Log like any other entry, and also in Chart progress notes if your Chart View is set to show communications. Summaries of inbound AI receptionist calls are logged as Phone entries. We leave automated reminders out on purpose so the chart stays readable, and each office can turn the mirroring off.
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