Enquiries
Somebody messages your page and asks what a visit costs. You answer, they say they will call back, and that is the last anyone hears of it. A week later the same person writes again and nobody knows they were ever spoken to.
Enquiries is where those people are written down. Not patients — patients are people you treat — but the ones who asked, with their number, what they wanted, every call you made and what happened. When one of them books, one button turns them into a patient file.
Where to Find It
Click an address to open that screen on your own clinic. The first click asks which clinic you are, then remembers it. Addresses holding a {id} need a specific record, so they are shown but not linked.
| Screen | Address |
|---|---|
| Enquiries | /enquiries |
| New enquiry | /enquiries/create |
| Connect your page | /enquiry-settings |
| Turn the plugin on | /plugin-settings |
| One enquiry | /enquiries/{id} |
Turning It On
Enquiries is a plugin, and it is off until you switch it on. Open Settings → Plugins → Front Desk and turn Enquiries on. The tables it needs are built at that moment, and an Enquiries entry appears in the menu.
Give the staff who answer your page the Manage Enquiries permission, under Staff and Roles. Without it they will not see the menu entry at all.
Enquiries do not count against your monthly allowance
Your plan limits how many new patients you register each month. An enquiry is not a patient, so recording a hundred of them costs nothing. The allowance is spent only when you convert one into a patient — see Plans and the Monthly Allowance.
Writing Somebody Down
Press New Enquiry and fill in what you know:
- Name — as they gave it.
- Phone — the useful one, but not always available.
- Came from — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, a phone call, or somebody who asked at the desk.
- Their page name — for a person who wrote from Instagram and never gave a number. You need either a phone or this.
- Asked about — a price, a doctor, a free slot. Free text.
- Followed up by — who is chasing this one. Defaults to you.
- Next follow-up — the day to call them back.
Saving records the enquiry and the first contact, because writing somebody down is itself the first time you dealt with them.
If the number is already known
While you type the number, the screen looks for it. If somebody already recorded this person, or if the number belongs to a patient, you are shown who — with their status and who is following them up.
You are never blocked. Open the existing record, or save a separate enquiry anyway. You know whether it is the same person; the system does not.
The Enquiry Record
An enquiry opens on tabs, and each one answers a different question:
| Tab | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Details | Name, number, what they asked about, the status and the next follow-up date |
| The conversation | Messages from your Facebook or Instagram page, and the reply box. Only on an enquiry that came from a connected page |
| Contacts | Every call and message your staff logged by hand — one row each |
| Activity log | Who changed what on this enquiry, and when. Shown to staff who may read logs |
Following Up
Press Log a contact every time you deal with the person — from the header, or from the Contacts tab. A window opens with:
- When — defaults to now, and you can back-date it. Logging yesterday's call this morning is normal. A contact in the future is refused; that is what the follow-up date is for.
- Type — did they contact us, or did we contact them.
- Result — answered, no answer, asked to be called later, booked, not interested.
- Notes — what was actually said.
- Next follow-up — set it here, while the call is fresh.
Last contact is never something you type. It is always the newest entry in this log, so deleting the newest entry moves it back on its own.
The Contacts tab lists them newest first. Press a row and it opens what was recorded — not a form, because most of the time somebody is checking what was said last time. Edit and Delete are inside that window. On an enquiry that already became a patient the history is read-only: you can still log a fresh call, you cannot rewrite an old one.
The follow-up list
The number of overdue enquiries sits at the top of the screen, and clicking it filters the list. Overdue means the follow-up date has passed and the enquiry is still open — an enquiry that became a patient, or that said no, is nobody's next step.
WhatsApp
Press Open WhatsApp on an enquiry with a number and a chat opens in a new tab, ready to type. The system sends nothing by itself. When you come back, it offers to record the contact you just made — decline and nothing is written.
Statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| New | Nobody has dealt with them yet |
| Contacted | Somebody spoke to them |
| Following up | An ongoing conversation |
| Booked | They agreed to come |
| Not interested | They said no |
| Unreachable | Nobody can get hold of them |
| Became a patient | Converted — see below |
Every status can be changed back. A person who said no in March may write again in June.
Became a patient is the exception: it is never picked by hand. It appears the moment you convert somebody, and it cannot be undone.
Turning an Enquiry Into a Patient
Press Convert to Patient. The ordinary Add Patient screen opens, already filled in with what the enquiry knows — name, phone, country, notes — and you complete the rest exactly as for any new patient: the same fields, the same photo, the same custom fields. Saving it creates the patient and converts the enquiry in one step; there is no separate conversion form.
A phone number and a date of birth are required, as on any patient. An enquiry may live without a number — the ones that came from your page never have one — so this is the moment to ask.
Cancel takes you back to the enquiry, and nothing is created.
After converting:
- A patient file exists, and the two records link to each other.
- The enquiry becomes read-only, and its whole follow-up history is kept — it is how this patient arrived.
- It cannot be deleted, and it cannot be converted twice.
- You can still read the conversation, and still reply to it.
If your monthly allowance is used up
Converting creates a patient, and the patient allowance applies. If it is spent, the conversion is refused with the same message you would see on the patient screen, and the enquiry is left untouched. Convert it when the allowance renews, or change your plan.
Connecting Your Facebook or Instagram Page
This part is optional. Without it, Enquiries works exactly as described above — you type, it remembers.
With it, one button brings everyone who messaged your page into the list, with their name and their whole conversation.
Facebook never gives out phone numbers
Messenger and Instagram hand over a name, a profile picture and Facebook's own internal id — never a phone number, on either platform. So a pulled enquiry arrives with an empty phone field, and asking for the number stays a human job. What the connection saves you is the typing of who wrote, when, and what they said.
What you need
You connect your page with a token you generate yourself, from your own Facebook app. Nothing about this platform is involved: we never post on your page, and we never message anybody by ourselves.
Open Enquiries → Settings (owner only). The walkthrough is on that screen, numbered, and already open until a page is connected — because you will have Facebook's console open in another window while you follow it. Every step that happens on a Facebook screen carries a link straight to that screen, so you never have to search for the right console.
You will paste two things: your Page ID and the page access token. The Page ID is the number on your own page, under Settings → Page setup → About — not the page name and not its link.
A page, never a personal profile
This reads the inbox of a Facebook or Instagram page — a business page you own. It cannot read, and must not be pointed at, anybody's personal Messenger. Two mistakes are refused outright rather than half-connected:
- Pasting your App ID (the long number on the Facebook developer dashboard) instead of the Page ID. We ask Facebook what that number actually is, and refuse anything that is not a page.
- A personal access token instead of a page access token. Facebook itself will not hand over a page's conversations to it.
If you paste the wrong one, you get told at that moment — not later, when somebody presses the pull button.
Is this safe?
Yes, and it is worth knowing exactly why:
- You create the token, on your own Facebook app. We never ask for your Facebook password and never have it.
- The token is stored encrypted and is never displayed again — not to your staff, not to us, not even masked. The only two things anybody can do with a stored token are replace it and disconnect.
- Nothing runs on its own. No background sync, no scheduled job, no webhook. Messages arrive only when a member of your staff presses the button.
- We never write on your page. No posts, no comments, no first messages. The only thing this platform ever sends is a reply a staff member typed to somebody who wrote first, inside the 24 hours Facebook allows.
- The permissions are the three the reading needs — read the page's conversations and its metadata. Nothing about ads, nothing about your friends, nothing about the personal profile that manages the page.
- Disconnecting is instant and complete: the token is deleted, and every enquiry and message already brought in stays yours. When you save, we ask Facebook whose page that token is for and show you the page name — so you can see immediately if you pasted the wrong one.
The token is stored encrypted and is never shown again. The only things you can do with a stored token are replace it and disconnect.
Bringing messages in — one button
Once a page is connected, a Bring in new messages button appears on the enquiries screen. Any staff member with the enquiries permission can press it, and that press is the whole mechanism: everyone who wrote to your page becomes an enquiry in the list, with their name and their conversation, and nobody retypes anything.
On the list, each row shows the last thing that was said — a question waiting for an answer reads darker than your own last reply — so the desk can pick which conversation to open instead of opening all of them. Beside it, a speech-bubble button opens the recent messages in a chat window, laid out the way a phone lays out a conversation, without leaving the page you have scrolled to. From there you can go through to the full record.
The record itself shows the conversation in the same bubbles, above the timeline of calls your staff logged.
On an enquiry, Open the chat on Facebook takes you to that same person in your page's own Meta inbox. Useful after Facebook's 24-hour reply window has closed: our reply box shuts with it, the conversation is still there to read.
- Nothing arrives on its own. There is no background sync — messages come in when somebody presses the button.
- Pressing it twice changes nothing. A person already recorded is not recorded again, and a message already stored is not stored again.
- On a busy page it works through the conversations a batch at a time, showing what it has done, and you can stop it. Press again to carry on.
- The first time, it reaches back about three months.
- If it fails halfway, everything already brought in is kept and pressing again picks up where it stopped.
When the connection breaks
Facebook stops accepting a token when it expires, when it is revoked, or when the page owner changes their password. When that happens:
- The button says the page needs reconnecting.
- Every enquiry and message already brought in stays exactly where it is — that information is yours, not Facebook's.
- The clinic owner reconnects with a fresh token from the settings screen.
Disconnecting a page deletes the token and nothing else. All the people and conversations you already have are kept.
Reading and Answering a Conversation
An enquiry that came from your page shows the whole conversation on its screen, with the calls you logged in the same timeline, in order. A hand-typed enquiry shows the calls only — there is nothing to reply to.
The 24-hour rule
Facebook allows a page to reply for 24 hours after the person's last message, and refuses afterwards. This is Facebook's rule, not ours.
So the time you have left is shown before you start typing, and the reply box closes with an explanation when the window has passed. If it closes while you are writing, your text stays on the screen so you can copy it into a phone call.
After 24 hours, call the person or ask for their number. There is no way around it from inside the system.
Quick replies
The clinic owner can save the answers you type all day — the price list, the address, the working hours — under Enquiries → Settings. Picking one fills the reply box so you can edit it before sending. Nothing sends by itself.
Refreshing one conversation
The Refresh button on a conversation fetches just that thread. It does not affect the clinic-wide button, so refreshing one enquiry never causes anybody else's new messages to be skipped.
What the Owner Sees
The top of the enquiries screen carries the counts: how many are open, how many became patients this month, and how many are overdue.
The settings screen keeps the last ten times somebody pressed the button — who pressed, when, how many conversations came back, how many were new, and whether it worked.
Deleting
Deleting an enquiry takes it off every list and out of every count, and the deletion is recorded in your clinic's activity log with who did it. The record itself is kept out of sight rather than destroyed, for two reasons: the one deleted by mistake is usually the one you most want back, and it stops tomorrow's button bringing the same person back in as a brand new enquiry.
An enquiry that became a patient cannot be deleted at all.