How to set up custom actions for pediatric school form re…

You need three things before you can build a custom action for school-form intake:

1. Your practice’s knowledge base already contains information about which forms you offer (e.g., physical exam forms, immunization records, medication authorization) and what details you require. If you haven’t set that up yet, start with the Pediatric Care guide, then come back here.
2. A destination for the requests — the person or tool that will receive the intake. That could be a shared email address (frontdesk@yourpractice.com), a Slack channel, or a webhook from your EHR or practice-management system. Chatref will fire the action to that destination once the parent completes the chat.
3. A clear list of the fields you must collect so the action never sends an incomplete request. At minimum: child’s full name, date of birth, parent/guardian name, parent phone or email, and the specific form type.

1. Open Custom Actions in your Chatref app. From the left sidebar, choose Custom Actions. You’ll see any actions already configured for your practice’s agent.

2. Create a new action. Click Add action and name it something that makes sense for your team — for example, Request School Form.

3. Define the intake prompt. This tells the agent when to start the action. Write a natural-language trigger, such as: “When a parent asks about school forms, sports physical forms, or immunization records for their child.” The agent watches for that intent in the conversation.

4. Add the information-collection steps. This is the core of pediatric custom actions. In the step builder, add a sequence of fields the agent will ask for, one at a time:

   • Child’s full name
   • Child’s date of birth
   • Parent/guardian name
   • Parent phone or email
   • Form type (use a dropdown if you offer a fixed list: e.g., “School physical,” “Immunization record,” “Medication authorization”)
   • Urgency or deadline (optional, but helps the front desk prioritize)
   • Additional notes (free text) For each field, mark it as required unless it’s optional. The agent won’t finish the action until every required field is filled.

5. Connect the action to your team. Below the fields, choose an Output — the method Chatref uses to send the collected information. Most pediatric practices start with Email because it requires no extra integrations. Enter the front-desk email address and a subject line like New school form request: {child_name} - {form_type}. You can also choose a Webhook if your practice management software supports receiving intake payloads via HTTP. Paste the webhook URL and Chatref will POST a JSON object with the collected field values.

6. Review and save. Confirm that the fields and output look right, then save the action. Your agent will immediately use it when a parent’s question matches the trigger phrase.

• Go to your website (or the Chatref playground) and start a new conversation as if you were a parent.
• Type something like, “I need a school physical form for my daughter.”
• The agent should respond by asking for the child’s name, then the other fields, one at a time, guided by your action steps.
• After you supply every required field, the agent should confirm the submission and tell you the request has been sent.
• Verify that the destination you set up (email inbox or webhook receiver) received the intake exactly as expected — all fields present, no truncation, correct form type.

The agent never triggers the action.
Open the action’s trigger phrase and broaden it if parents ask in different ways — e.g., add “school paperwork,” “form for camp,” or “need a letter for school.” Also check that the knowledge base has content about school forms; the agent often looks at both the trigger and the related docs to decide when to invoke the action.

The agent asks for fields out of order or skips one.
Inside the step builder, make sure every required field is marked required. If a field is optional, the agent may skip it unless the parent specifically mentions it. If order matters (e.g., you need the child’s name before date of birth), use the field-ordering arrows to set the sequence.

The action completes, but the email never arrives.
Double-check the email address in the output configuration — a single typo will break delivery. If it’s correct, test with the webhook or a different email provider; some practice firewalls or spam filters may flag automated intake emails. Whitelist Chatref’s sending domain (notification@chatref.ai) in your mail system.

Parents get stuck in a loop.
When a parent can’t provide a required field (e.g., they don’t remember the child’s date of birth), the agent doesn’t give up gracefully. Add a fallback step in the action: after two retries on a field, let the agent say “No problem — please call our front desk at [phone] and we’ll help you directly.” This keeps the experience human.

What causes pediatric school form request intake problems for Pediatric Care?

Most intake problems come from phone-only workflows: a parent calls the front desk, staff juggle check-ins and other calls, information gets written on sticky notes, and follow-up requires playing phone tag. Incomplete or illegible details force staff to call back, and after-hours callers either wait until morning or book elsewhere. Without a structured intake system, every request adds to the call queue, triage is inconsistent, and the practice loses the chance to capture the request asynchronously and accurately.

How do I improve pediatric school form request intake for Pediatric Care?

Build a Chatref custom action that fits directly into the practice’s pediatric care knowledge base — the agent knows exactly which forms you offer and what you need. The action collects every required field in a logical order, then sends a clean, digital intake ticket to your front desk (or into your EHR via webhook). Parents can complete the request from your website day or night, even on weekends. Meanwhile, your team reviews the intake in their inbox or dashboard instead of managing a ringing phone. The combination of a well-trained knowledge base and a tightly scoped custom action turns school-form intake from a daily bottleneck into a handled, self-service flow that reduces call volume and catches every request without missing details.