The new Phonebar can be used by all Surgery Connect users and brings communications and more directly to your desktop

Version 7 of the Phonebar has taken great steps forward as we have listened to our customers and introduced key feature and usability enhancements. This guide details all of these new features and will teach you how to get the best out of them

Click on your initials to access the menu

The User Menu allows you to access:

You can choose to have your status displayed on the Phonebar or in the Menu. Your status will also always be displayed as a coloured dot, on your initials

To change your status, click on your initials to open the User Menu to amend your status

You can now select the CLI (Calling Line Identification)- the number the caller sees when making outbound calls

You can also choose to withhold the outbound number, if necessary, via a toggle

The Integration Preferences will only be visible to you if you have integrated the Phonebar with your clinical system

You can choose whether to file telephone calls and/or SMS back to the clinical record as well as choose whether inbound calls will give you a patient identification popup

The User Preferences area is where you choose what happens when you log in and log out of your clinical system

NOTE: User Preferences can also be accessed via the Settings cog in the Device Manager

The Audio & Video Setting is where you select which microphone, camera and display you wish to use for the Phonebar as well as selecting your preferred output for the secondary ringer

The Contacts icon accesses both your internal and external contact directories

We have now added the Note field to each contact so you can view any notes by hovering over the blue notes icon

Notes can only be added to contacts via the Configuration Console at present

You can choose whether to see your colleague's availability in the Colleagues directory either in list form or by Group via the Settings menu as demonstrated below

The Phonebar Settings menu allows you to select which icons you display on your Phonebar and which appear in the Menu, via a toggle, to suit your daily tasks

You can choose to have the icons displayed on your Phonebar and also in the menu list by selecting Always display icons in the user menu

You can choose to see your Stat boxes in a separate window, this window can be Launched on Phonebar Start Up, by turning on this setting using the toggle

The Stat Box window opens independently of the Phonebar and can be dragged to a preferred position/screen and size

The Stat Boxes which will appear in the Stat Box window are toggled on or off

The Stat Box Window can display Stat Boxes only or, Groups, which can be favourited by clicking the star in the Group heading

From here you can see which staff are currently available to take calls for that group

This is useful to ensure that calls are not queuing for a group that does not have anyone available to answer the calls

Keyboard shortcuts are sometimes referred to as hotkey commands and are keyboard presses rather than a click of the mouse to take an action

You can still access your other Surgery Connect Consoles directly from the Phonebar, click Consoles to open the console menu then select the Console you wish to open in a new window

The Active Patient icon is only visible when using the Phonebar in conjunction with your clinical system and allows you to call, SMS, send a photo request or video call the patient directly as well as view their Contact history

The Appointments icon is only visible when using the Phonebar in conjunction with your clinical system. It allows you to search for all appointment lists and from each appointment list you can SMS all patients in that list or for individual patients you can call, SMS, send a photo request or video call the patient directly as well as view their Contact History

When you receive a new voicemail you will see a notification dot

If the Call History icon is displayed on the Phonebar there will be a notification dot for new voicemails on the Call History icon

If the Call History icon is listed in the User Menu the notification will appear in the User Menu next to the Call History icon

Once the voicemail has been opened the notification dot will disappear

To listen to your voicemails from the Phonebar open the Call History and select the Voicemail icon, click on the play icon

Call recordings can also be accessed via the Call History by clicking on the play icon

As with the Voicemail shown above, when you click on the play icon there is a playback bar to listen to the call recording

By clicking on the three dots you can choose to adjust the Playback Speed, if you are searching for a specific point in the call, and you can also Download the file for future reference if required

The Device Manager is where you select which device you wish to use to make and receive calls

By clicking the Settings cog you can set your preferences for when you login and out. By clicking on the person icon with a tick next to it you are selecting your preferred device and can therefore choose to be automatically logged into that device

The Auto Login/Logout settings are; Automatic, Requires confirmation or Do nothing

The inbound call popup has been improved to make the patient's telephone number clear, the number they dialled to reach your practice, the Group they chose (if applicable) and the time spent in the queue

If your system makes use of the Personalised Call Routing feature this information will also appear in the inbound popup

This new layout makes it easier to see important details relating to the inbound call

Click Help in the menu to access the online Help Guides

Click Diagnostics in the menu to access the Diagnostics Window

Accessing the Diagnostics window allows you to see at a glance the areas where there may be an issue

Seven status cards show the main areas where issues may occur. These are colour-coded on a traffic light system in order of seriousness so it may be possible to instantly see what the issue is and resolve it, e.g. a device has not been selected

You can add a comment in the box provided and send our team diagnostics at any point should you be facing issues

Click About in the menu to view which version you are on and can check to see if this is the latest version by clicking Check for Updates. You can also click Release Notes to see details of what was included in the most recent update

To minimise your Phonebar either click the Surgery Connect icon in the taskbar or click Minimise from the User Menu. Click on the icon again to restore the Phonebar

To close the Phonebar select Exit Phonebar from the menu. This will change your status to Logged Out and will close the Phonebar so it is no longer visible on your screen