Schedule Alerts (sometimes also referred to as Telephony Alerts) notify your office when caregivers fail to clock in on time for their schedules.
How Alerts Work
The HomeTrak Telephony service runs in the background on the database server and creates and processes E-TimeCards from telephony calls. It also monitors current schedules to determine if incoming calls match to these schedules.
Here is how Schedule Alerts work: After a period of time passes after the start of the schedule, a "No Call" alert message is sent to warn that the caregiver is late or has failed to clock in. This period of time is usually 8 minutes, although it can be changed in the Schedule Alert setup. An email is sent to the office staff specified to receive alerts. If your office is hosted on our Cloud Server and has texting features enabled, you can opt to have alerts sent as SMS text messages.
If the caregiver still has not clocked after a specific period of time after the first "no call" was sent, a second alert is generated to warn that they still have not clocked in. This period of time is usually 13 minutes from the start of the schedule, or 5 minutes after the first alert. This is the last alert message that is sent out. These alerts indicate that action is required to verify that a caregiver is attending the client.
If a caregiver does clock in late, after a first "no call" has been sent, but before the second alert, the system sends a "caregiver has clocked in" message. This indicates that the caregiver has arrived and no further action is required.
Note: You can opt to disable the second alert and the "clocked in" message in the setup of the Schedule Alert Period.
Send Alerts for Only Certain Clients or Caregivers
You may have certain clients or services that are not critical to receive late clock-in alerts for. There are several ways to configure the system to send alerts for only certain groups of people (using classifications), or to exclude a specific client or service (call type) from any alerting.
Sending Alerts for only Specific Groups of Clients or Caregivers
In the setup of the Schedule Alert Period, you can opt choose one or more classifications to filter the alerts.
Alerts will be sent if the either the Client or Caregiver involved in the schedule has any of the listed classifications attached to their profile.
If neither the Client nor the Caregiver has any of the listed classifications, then no alert will be sent.
Exclude Specific Clients from Alerting
To disable alerts for a specific Client, edit the Client's profile and un-check the "Uses Telephony" check box and save their profile.
Alerts will not be sent for any schedules involving this client, even if the client or caregiver involved has an attached classification that is included in the schedule alert period setup.
Exclude Specific Services from Alerting
To disable alerts for a specific service (Call Type), edit the Service in the Agency Office Module, Required tab. Check the "Exclude from Reminders/Alerting" check box and save the setup.
Alerts will not be sent for any schedules for this Service, even if the client or caregiver involved has an attached classification that is included in the schedule alert period setup.
Note: this will also disable Event Reminders for schedules for this Service.
For more information on how to set up your schedule alerts, please see Schedule Alerts Setup.