Communications

Settings → Communications is where you control which messages patients receive - confirmations, reminders, cancellations, and reschedule notices - and over which channel. A separate page, Settings → Overdue Reminders, handles automated nudges about unpaid balances.

Email

Email is included on every plan, including Free. Open Settings → Communications and find the Email card at the top.

• Enable Email Notifications is the master switch. Turn it off and no email of any kind goes out, regardless of the toggles below it.
• Four message-type toggles sit underneath: Email Confirmation, Email Reminder, Email Cancellation, Email Reschedule. Each fires independently for its own event.

Turn on only what you want patients to see. A clinic that wants confirmations but not automated reminders can leave Email Reminder off.

SMS and WhatsApp (Pro plan)

SMS and WhatsApp are Pro-plan features. On the Free plan, the Communications page shows a single upgrade card in place of both channels, with a link to view plans.

On Pro, each channel gets its own card:

• If a provider is already connected, the card header shows a green Connected badge (CommPeak for SMS, WhatsApp for WhatsApp) and the same four toggles as Email - enable plus confirmation, reminder, cancellation, and reschedule.
• If no provider is connected yet, the card shows a short explanation and a Set up in Integrations button instead of the toggles. Channel connections - phone numbers, provider credentials, WhatsApp Business linking - are configured on Settings → Integrations, never on the Communications page itself.

Reminder timing

Email, SMS, and WhatsApp all follow one shared reminder schedule - there's no separate timing per channel. The Reminder Timing card appears once at least one Pro channel is connected; for email-only clinics, the default 2-hour offset applies automatically.

Choose one of two modes:

• Relative (before appointment) - send the reminder a fixed amount of time before the appointment starts. Options range from 30 minutes to 24 hours before, with 2 hours as the default.
• Fixed time on appointment day - send every reminder at a set clock time (for example, 09:00) in your clinic's timezone, on the day of the appointment. If an appointment falls earlier than that time, Dentare falls back to the relative mode so the reminder still goes out.

Changing the mode reschedules every pending reminder across all three channels to match the new schedule.

When reminders fire without a confirmation

A reminder only sends to a patient who already received a confirmation on that same channel. If you turn on Reminder for a channel but leave Confirmation off for that same channel, the Communications page shows an advisory note under the reminder toggle.

Owner reports

If your plan includes owner reports, an Owner Reports card appears at the bottom of the Communications page, visible only to the clinic owner.

• Weekly report - sent after the last working day of the week, covering the seven days up to it.
• Monthly report - sent on the first day of the month, covering the month before.

Both are a summary of how the clinic is doing - appointments, money collected, new patients, no-shows - delivered by email. Only the owner receives these; team members and admins never see this card, and the settings have no effect on anything they see in the app.

Overdue payment reminders

Settings → Overdue Reminders (https://dentare.io/clinic/dunning_settings) is a separate page from Communications. It automatically nudges patients who have an outstanding balance, on the channels they've agreed to be contacted on. The reminder text stays friendly and never includes a payment link.

Overdue reminders are off by default. Because turning them on means Dentare will start messaging your patients about money they owe, the page requires confirmation before enabling.

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