The Phonebar is a small but powerful desktop app that allows access for all telephony functionality to be controlled from the PC screen

For receptionists, it brings up patient records in clinical systems as the call arrives. For GPs and clinicians, it allows single-click calling from the patient records, including the option of video calls, SMS messages and request photos

The Phonebar also allows appointment list management for telephone triage and can ensure that all communication, including call recordings*, can be saved in the patient record

*not currently available in SystmOne

The Phonebar also works independently of any clinical integration to provide a desktop communication tool for internal and external calls, video calls and SMS

This guide will take you through the basics of the Phonebar; starting up, moving, settings, selecting your call device, call functions including directory and patient contact

Your Phonebar should start automatically when you switch on your PC or laptop

If your Phonebar does not appear, you can click on the Phonebar shortcut on your Desktop or type Phonebar in the Windows search box

You must either be logged in to your clinical system or Surgery Connect to make and receive calls

Click on the phone dialler icon to expand the Phonebar and click on the arrows to collapse it

You can also drag the Phonebar from side to side using your mouse

The Device Manager is where you select which device you wish to use to make and receive calls, click on the current device to bring up the Device Manager window

Your current device will be highlighted in green

To change your device, hover over the selection in the list, as you hover over each device they will turn blue, click your preferred device to select it

If you use the same deskphone or a selection of deskphones on a regular basis, you can favourite them by clicking on the blue star so they appear in your Device Manager list

Clicking on the person icon next to a device indicates that you have chosen to automatically log into that device when you activate the Phonebar

Your device options are:

Softphone

Mobile

Deskphone

By clicking the Settings cog in the Device Manager window you can set your preferences for when you login and out

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

The Phonebar dialler is where you manually dial or paste copied telephone numbers you wish to dial, when the call icon turns green click it to dial the number

If the number input is a mobile number you will be given the option to call, SMS or vide call that person

The Phonebar allows access for all telephony functionality to be controlled from the PC screen

Depending on your selected call device, the following options are possible

Clicking on the Contacts icon on the Phonebar accesses both your Colleagues and Directory contacts

This tab displays all of the internal colleagues within your organisation. These can be displayed either by their Group or in alphabetical order. To change the display settings for your Colleagues, access the Phonebar Settings and select Contacts. From here, you can toggle View Colleague Contacts in Groups to be on or off

Within the Colleagues tab, a User's availability to take calls is indicated by a coloured status dot:

Green - Available

Amber - Direct Calls Only

Red - Do Not Disturb

Purple - Outbound Calls

Users that are not logged in will be greyed out and at the bottom of the Colleagues list - you will not be able to call these individuals. If a contact is currently on an active call, this will be indicated by the following icon

To make a call to a contact, click the blue call icon

The Directory tab displays all external contacts. These are available to everyone within your organisation - there is no personal call list

Favourites can instead be selected at a User level, to allow you to set your commonly called contacts to be displayed at the top of the Directory list. To select or deselect a favourite contact, click the Star icon next to the contact. Once favourited, the star will change to blue. Deselecting this contact will turn it back to white

These contacts can be added individually or in bulk via the Configuration Console. From here, you can also search, edit and delete external numbers already in your Directory

Each contact (both Internal and External) has a notes icon displayed next to it. For contacts with an existing note the note icon will be displayed as blue, and hovering over the Icon will show the note. If there are no notes against that contact, the icon will be greyed out, and a message will be displayed to confirm this

Click on your Call History icon or access Call History from the User Menu to see your recent calls

To call a user back click on the blue dialler icon to initiate the call

Calls are recorded as a default, to access your non-patient call recordings from your Call History click on the play icon next to the call to playback the recording of that conversation

When you receive a new voicemail you will see a notification dot, either on your Call History icon or in the User Menu

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

Listening to call recordings in the same way by clicking on the play icon

The Communications Window acts as a inbox for communications, including Photo Requests / Photos received and Voicemail. This area is either accessed via the User Menu, or via the icon on the Phonebar (the icon displayed in the Phonebar can be turned On/Off via Phonebar Settings). New items within the Communications Window are indicated by an orange notification dot on the Phonebar icon, the User Menu and the desktop Phonebar icon

Photos that have been sent back in response to requests will be displayed within this tab. From here, you can view the Patient's name and DOB, the date and time the photo was sent, the amount of time left in storage and the details of he request that initiated the response

Selecting View Image will allow you to open the image on your screen, and zoom/rotate if necessary. From this tab, images can also be Deleted and Filed to Record

Selecting the Requests tab shows a list of photo requests that have not yet received a response

When you select a request, the item turns blue and the following information is displayed:

If the Photo Request has expired, a red triangle warning will appear next to it

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

Once a User has been added to a group via the Service Delivery Console, they are able to step in and out of Groups as desired via the Phonebar status area

The features below are only available when you are using clinical integration

The inbound call popup attempts to identify the caller by their CLI and shows the name(s) of the patient(s) potentially calling in, together with the telephone number they are using, the number they dialled to reach your practice, the Group they chose (if applicable) and the time spent in the queue

It also shows you who they last spoke to and when which can be invaluable

Active Patient offers you single click communication options with the patient you have open in your clinical system

Click on the call icon to dial them, the SMS icon to send them a message, the camera icon to send a photo request or the video camera to initiate a video call

You can also access their previous contact history by clicking on the Contact History icon

The Appointments feature allows users to view appointment lists and make calls, video calls, send SMS messages and photo requests directly from the appointments list

Click on your initials to access the menu

The User Menu allows you to access:

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

You can change the basic settings and application preferences to suit your needs

Integration settings are only available when you Phonebar is integrated with your clinical system and allows you to choose whether to file patient communications back to the patient record

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

Audio & Video is where you select your microphone, secondary ringer output, camera and which display you want your Phonebar to appear on (if you have more than one display (Monitor)

Contacts is where you choose to see your colleagues either by Group or by status in the Directory

Phonebar is the Settings menu which allows you to select which icon you display on your Phonebar and which functions you access via the User Menu

Shortcuts is where you will find a list of keyboard shortcuts (also known as hot keys)

Stats Boxes is where you choose which Stats Boxes you wish to display in the Stats Box window

About is where you check which version you are on and whether there are any updates available

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

Clicking on Help opens our online Help Centre where you will find all our user guides

If you can not identify why your Phonebar isn't working as you would expect, you can send our Support Team a diagnostics report

Press Ctrl + Alt + D on your keyboard to open a diagnostics window

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

In the event that you need to use your Phonebar without clinical integration you can seamlessly switch to Phonebar only mode allowing you to use telephony functionality

To switch modes, right click on the Surgery Connect icon in your application tray, select Switch Mode and select Phonebar only