Task Automation (Processes)

Developing repeatable processes is an essential part of growing a business, and it becomes specially important when trying to scale in an unpredictable and nonuniform field such as healthcare. IntakeQ is here to help you create, automate and track these processes efficiently.

If you are not familiar with our Task Management module, we recommend that you read the following article first: Task Management

Process Templates

Process Templates are an essential part of building repeatable processes. It is comprised of one or more task templates that can be used to create an actual tasks, with a due dates, assignees, an associated client and other information. You can think of a process template as a recipe that needs to be consistently followed in certain situations.

Let's say that for every new client who books an initial consultation, you need to:

• Check their insurance eligibility;
• Review their intake form at least 1 day before the appointment;
• Create a session note after the appointment;
• Sign off on the progress note;
• Create and share a treatment plan up to 7 days after the appointment;
• Follow up in 1 month.

The image below shows how this process would be turned into a process template in IntakeQ.

And to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks, you would want to apply this process automatically by creating an automation rule. The image below shows an automation rule that will create the tasks in this process every time an Initial Consultation appointment is created.

Creating a Process Template

To create a new process template, make sure you have enabled the Task Management module and navigate to "More > Processes".

To start, click on the "New" button located on the left of the page.

You will notice that a new process template was created with a title and one task for you to edit.

Editing or adding a new task will allow you to define the template for that specific task.

Let's review two important fields in the task template form:

Assignment Type: this field allows you to indicate who should the task be assigned to. You can assign it to the practitioner who owns the client, a specific user (practitioner or assistant), or the practitioner who is associated with the event that triggers this process. For example, if a process is triggered by an appointment that was booked, the practitioner associated with the appointment will be the assignee of this task. Additionally, you can set this task to be assigned to anyone, which will leave the task unassigned.

Dynamic Due Date: this field allows you to indicate how the due date for a task should be determined. It can be based on 2 factors:

• Task creation date: tells the system to set the due date based on the date that the event was triggered. In the example of an appointment being created, it will base the due date on the date that the appointment was created. It allows you to create rules like "set due date to 12 hours after the appointment was booked". 
• Task source date: the source of a task is the object that triggered the process. In the case of a process that is triggered when an appointment is created, the source object is the appointment, and the source date is the date of the appointment. Use this option if you want to create a task that is due based around the appointment date/time. For example, "this task should be due 2 hours before an appointment".

You should create process templates with automation in mind. Ask yourself: what set of tasks can be grouped together based on a single trigger? This leads us to the next section.

Process Automation

Once you have created a list of task templates for a process, you can go to the next tab and create one or more triggers that will spin off that process for a client.

To create a trigger, open the process template, click on the "Automation" tab and then on the "Add New Trigger" button. 

As the image above shows, the first step is to choose an event that will trigger the process. The list of triggers include things like "form submitted", "appointment created", "appointment missed", etc. This list will keep growing as the system evolves.  

You can also narrow things down by adding conditions. For example, you may want to only trigger this process when a specific type of service is booked, or a certain questionnaire is submitted, or the event is associated with a given practitioner.

Tracking Automations

Once you have set up your automations, IntakeQ will take care of creating tasks automatically based on the triggers you have defined. Depending on the level of activity in your practice, you may end up with dozens or hundreds of pending tasks in your list. To help you navigate them, we display tasks in convenient spots, like in the client profile or on the object that triggered the process.

The 2 images below show an example of tasks that were created automatically when an appointment was created for a client. When you open the appointment, you will be able to see the tasks associated with it. This particular link shows in red because at least one task is overdue.

Clicking on the tasks link will open the task list fly-out showing only the specific tasks associated with this appointment.