Custom Buttons allow practices to offer 'Forms' or 'URLs' to patients in addition to the existing ‘NHS self help’ or ‘Consult your GP’ options:
The choices offered to patients are in complete control of the practice and enable the Title, Icon, Position and various behaviours of the chosen activity to be customised by you.
Creating a new Custom Button
To create a new button, start by clicking 'Settings' and then 'Custom Actions':
You will be taken to the following screen, where you can view and manage any existing buttons, or create a new one.
To create a new button, click the '+' icon at the bottom of the screen:
At this point, the steps to create either a 'Form' or a 'URL' button, differ slightly:
Forms
In the case of forms, practices can add new buttons to the patient screen, configure the icons and labels shown to patients and select a form to be associated with the button (e.g. a sick note request, PHQ9 etc).
Requests submitted using this route can be configured to have tags applied or be automatically sorted to a specific user, or group.
Practices may also choose whether to make forms available to patients while the service is otherwise closed, e.g. to allow administrative requests to be submitted while the system is closed to new clinical requests.
When creating a new 'Form' button, you will be presented with the options below:
- Title - The title for the button that will appear for patients to select
- Position - Indicates the order in which the buttons appear for patients on their 'New request' screen, 1 means the button will appear at the top, 2 just below it etc
- Custom Action Type - Allows you to specify whether the button will be a form, or a URL link
- Form - Allows you to select the form to make available to patients, from the library of forms currently available within askmyGP
- Automatically assign requests to - When a patient completes the form, you can specify a user, or group to automatically assign the request to
- Automatically tag requests as - When the form is submitted by the patient, you can select a request 'Tag' from the list that you have already created, to automatically apply to the request, such as 'Sick note' or 'GAD-7' etc (Please see this article for more information on creating these Tags)
- Submission message Allows you to customise the automated message that the patient will see when they complete the form in your custom action
- Automatically transfer the new request to - if you were working together with another organisation to manage patient care (and you are linked with them in a Network in askmyGP), you can configure the custom action to automatically transfer the completed form to that provider so that they can manage the request.
- Automatically complete action when form is submitted - Enable the custom action request to automatically complete. This will only be possible if the request generated does not automatically trigger one of the higher priority flags (visit request, urgent, or emergency)
If a custom action button is configured to Auto-complete and has the default 'Routine' flag applied, or has triggered a 'Lower' priority flag, then it will automatically complete when the patient submits their request with no further action needed and will writeback to the clinical record if this is enabled. (see here for more detail) - When transferred requests are completed, or requests are auto-completed, automatically writeback using allows you to specify the name of the staff user under whom the request will writeback when it either auto-completes, or is completed by another provider in the case of a transferred request.
- Action is user selectable - selecting yes will cause the custom action to appear for patients as a button in the patient app. If you were configuring the custom action specifically for a Campaign, you might wish to set this to 'No' so that only those who are specifically being targetted in the campaign are able to complete the action.
- Icon - Use the search field to find an appropriate icon to display on the button for the patients
- Preview - Allows you to see how the button will appear to patients on the 'New request' screen before you click 'Update' to save it
- Availability - Allows you to choose when the custom action button will be visible for patients to choose:
- Same as provider availability: the button will only appear if you are currently 'online' according to the times set in your service times (in settings>system)
- Always available: the button will appear for patients, even when your practice is 'offline' and 'closed to new requests' according to the times set in your service times (in settings>system).
Note: if the system is switched 'OFF' via the switch in the system settings screen, that will override this option.
- Custom - allows you to set custom timings for the button to appear for patients at specific days and times, you can even use the 'availability exceptions' section at the bottom of the screen to add exceptions to the rule, such as days when you are closed for training, or bank holidays where the hours of availability for the button may differ to the usual.
Note: if the system is switched 'OFF' via the switch in the system settings screen, that will override this option.
URLs
For URL (links) buttons, the configuration process is very similar to the above, the main difference being that it will not create a new request within askmyGP and is instead intended to sign post patients to useful external websites, such as local services. Again, the practice can choose if these buttons are displayed while other services are unavailable.
When creating a new URL button, you will be presented with the options below:
The various fields 'Title', 'Position', 'Icon', 'Custom action type', 'Action is user selectable', 'Preview' and 'Availability' all work in the same way outlined above, the 'URL' field being the main difference here and this is where you would enter the URL that you wish your button to link the patient to.
Unread message icons
To help ensure pre-sorted requests are not missed, unread message notification icons have been added to the request screen.
For more information on how these work, please read this article.