Setting up e-mail appointment reminders in Linuxmint

Day-to-Day Users
#1

mschap wrote on Thursday, August 13, 2015:

I am currently running 4.2 and I am now trying to set up e-mail notifications to patients of upcoming appointments. I have gone to:
http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Sms_and_Email_Notification_Howtos
and followed the instructions.
I added the lines to the crontab file in the /etc folder, but I am not sure of the syntax - image shows what I have added (rms)

I have added - as my e-mail requires SSL

  • " If I remember right, gmail requires SSL, and we donā€™t have a global to turn that on. Try adding

$this->SMTPSecure = ā€œsslā€;

to line 50 of library/classes/postmaster.php (inside the bracket)."

Is there any code to send automatic email to patient about its appointment one day before
#2

mschap wrote on Thursday, August 13, 2015:

#3

fsgl wrote on Thursday, August 13, 2015:

Aside from Arnab Naha I donā€™t recall anyone else successfully setting up the email reminders. Arnab uses Mercury Mail in XAMPP & Windows.

Better luck with Twilio as explained here.

#4

fsgl wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

From the Wiki Active Projects page:

There is currently a mechanism in OpenEMR (for Appointment Reminders), which is broken: Sms and Email Notification Howtos .

#5

mschap wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

No luck I guess. SMS I canā€™t use as we e-mail patients. Sort of fits - I canā€™t get documents that I select to upload either. Once in a while it works and then not. Has been a fun two months with openEMR.

#6

mdsupport wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

EMR relies on operating system to send emails. Are cron logs delivered to an external email address? If that works, look at the PHP error logs to diagnose the problem.

#7

mschap wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

Thanks MD support -it looks like a have a syntax error in my cron file (image above) as a I get a syntax error in the syslog file. If you could take a quick look at it that would be great.

#8

mdsupport wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

Can a php script run directly? Google ā€˜php cron script mintā€™ for mint specific help. It should come up with something like :

/usr/bin/php -f /var/www/openemr/interface/patient_file/reminder/cron_reminder_emails.php [script params]

#9

fsgl wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

If you simply cannot do without email reminders for the office, there is the possibility of installing a VM running Windows 7 as guest. Avoid Windows 10 like the Bubonic Plague. Windows 10 is a gigantic vacuum sucking up personal data of your practice & patients (even with the opt-outs).

Itā€™s impossible to install a VM without the hardware support. See this.

If you have Virtualization Technology in the BIOS, LM had an update for installing VirtualBox 5 this morning. Fairly easy to install VB if you have the Windows 7 install disk. VB documentation is excellent. Arnabā€™s tutorial for setting up email in Mercury Mail is bit more complex. He probably would help if you ask him.

Canā€™t run OpenEMR in WINE unfortunately, if you donā€™t have the hardware support.

Far simpler to run OpenEMR in Windows vis-Ć -vis backup, upgrade, reinstall & command line. Sounds heretical, I know.

#10

mschap wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

Is this why when I go into ā€˜Patient Remindersā€™ and select ā€˜process remindersā€™ nothing appears for upcoming appointments? Though there are appointments within the times that I have the 60 h in advance notification set in the e-mail settings. Or is ā€˜Patient Remindersā€™ for events that are directed like upcoming pap?

#11

mdsupport wrote on Friday, August 14, 2015:

Just a reminder - Appointment reminders are cron based (your upcoming appointment). Then there are rule based reminders (e.g. annual pap). They use different mechanism for selection and delivery. Both of them work in Linux and Windows. Just some tweaking needed based on your email service.

#12

fsgl wrote on Saturday, August 15, 2015:

That Patient Reminders is for Meaningful Use as explained here.

Be grateful you are in Canada & not the U.S. where MU is derided as ā€œMeaningless Useā€.

Edit 8/15/15
Patient Reminders, however, can be leveraged for your purpose. This module should have been entitled ā€œPatient Recallā€ to minimize confusion. Unfortunately OpenEMR developers were obligated to follow bureaucratic dictates.

First a Clinical Decision Rule must be created as explained here.

Administration/Globals/Notifications will need to be set up. See attachment.

The Wiki article about Patient Reminders.

Itā€™s about the same amount of work with this method or with Mecury Mail in a Windows VM/dual-boot. Pick your poison.

#13

fsgl wrote on Saturday, August 15, 2015:

If you canā€™t install a VM for Windows, dual-boot is another option.

Will need a quick mechanism to transfer OpenEMR from LM to Windows.

Iā€™ll have to work out how to run the restore script in Windows for the LM emr_backup.tar. Maybe as simple as having both in same folder, hold down Shift, select ā€œRun Command Prompt from hereā€ & enter restore.

Will place in Wiki if it works.

#14

fsgl wrote on Sunday, August 16, 2015:

If above suggestions sound like drudgery, the fallback is to send emails without integration with OpenEMR. In Thunderbird the add-on, Mail Merge, will facilitate sending batch emails.

If production copy is breached & email had been integrated, donā€™t want to make it easy for hackers to contact patients under the disguise of oneā€™s practice.

#15

sergiors wrote on Tuesday, September 22, 2015:

If someone solved the issue with email sending, please let me know. It worked in the past, but it does not work now. Email automation is a very requested feature.
Also, it would be useful to have a ā€œMail Sending Testā€ button, because sending mails requires many adjustments, both in sender and receiver.
Thanks!

#16

juggernautsei wrote on Friday, September 25, 2015:

I am working on Email notifications using hMail Server.
I am up to the point where I need to test outgoing messess from BatchCom.

I looked at the code on BatchEmail.php and it has
$headers .= ā€œX-Mailer: PHP mailer\r\nā€;

I get and error
Could not send email due to a server problem. 197 emails not sent

I know the mail server works because I have setup the info in outlook and I am able to send outbound mail.

Yes it is an internal mail server (just in case that was a question) and yes it is on a different machine than the oemr.

I followed Arnabā€™s tutorial as much as I could to make sure that I mimicked the connections to hMail server.

So ask me a question see if we can figure this out.

No logged error.

#17

arnabnaha wrote on Friday, September 25, 2015:

The Email works fine in openemr. I am sending emails regularly to patients for the following - 1. Patient Appointment reminders (its a cron and goes automatically from the automatic_notification table in database and the best thing is, it can be stylised using html codes). 2. All the patient clinical reminders 3. Patient portal login credentials.

I use Xampp - Mercury Mail for sending Patient appointment reminder email and currently an email update in openemr was done which allows for sending patient clinical reminder emails and portal logins directly from openemr.

P.S. I am on windows

#18

juggernautsei wrote on Friday, September 25, 2015:

I am looking for a viable way to test if messages are going out that is why I went to the batchcom but I have not assurance that it is working or broken.

hMail is sentially the same as Mecury Mail. The configurations are all the same. Just the interfaces are different.

How did you test to know that messages are being sent.?

#19

noscrodamus wrote on Tuesday, June 07, 2016:

Can anyone confirm E-mail notifications work on Linux Machines?

1 Like
#20

tmccormi wrote on Tuesday, June 07, 2016:

If you mean running from ā€œbatchcomā€ then yes.