Contact and conversation tags in Spruce let you categorize patients and conversations with custom labels - such as 'NewPatient,' 'InsuranceIssue,' or 'FollowUpNeeded' - for organized inbox management and quick filtering. Tags are shared across the team and can be applied manually or automatically via auto-tagging rules.
IN THIS ARTICLE
Contact Tags vs Conversation Tags
There is an inherent difference between Conversation Tags and Contacts Tags. You can think of Contact Tags as labels on a patient's chart, while Conversation Tags are labels on items within the chart (imagine a folder vs a piece of paper in the folder). In a nutshell, Conversation Tags are a useful tool for providers to filter and sort messages exchanged with patients by topic, urgency, primary doctor, and more and can make it easier to follow specific conversation threads. Contact Tags exist in the patient’s Contact Card (or chart, if you will) and can serve a slightly different purpose. They can denote things like a “VIP” contact, primary doc associated with that contact, location of contact/which office they are associated with, and more. The real differentiator here is that with a Contact Tag, you can pull a list of all contacts with a specific tag and message them in bulk. This can be very useful if you need to send an office update, or a message about a shared primary doc. These two types of tags allow for all sorts of customized organization controlled by you! It is helpful if everyone in your organization uses the same tags; if one person uses NY to denote the New York office but someone else uses NYC it will make searching for these tags more complicated; be sure to discuss as a team!
Read on for more.
How to Tag a Conversation
- Go to the Contact Card, Conversations section, and tap on the conversation of interest.
- Click the “i” at the top right of the screen, locate “Conversation Tags”, and click on “Add Conversation Tags”.
- Add the word or words that best describe this thread. As you type you will see your existing tags appear so you can choose one you have already used or you can select "create" if you are adding a new tag.
Tagging the conversation with the name of the primary doctor for instance, denotes that this is a conversation between the patient and that doctor. This patient may have another conversation with a second doctor and that conversation may be tagged independently so that it is easy to find by filtering with tags containing that second doctor’s name.
Why Conversation Tagging Works
This feature ultimately delivers a succinct path for providers to tag the interactions with patients and have that interaction directed to a unique inbox or simply demarcate what the conversation is about for future identification. It’s a terrific tool for managing multiple conversations with the same patient—whether topic based, an administrative need, identifying a specific condition, or connecting a conversation to a specific clinician.
Once you tag conversations, you can then create an inbox filter to show all conversations tagged with a specific term or terms. If you tag a doctor, that filter will show all conversations tagged with that doctor. Based on the Spruce Link the patient signs up with, you can even set up automatic tags to tag conversations with the doctor associated with that Spruce Link. The same is true if you have multiple entry points. Perhaps “Doctor A” has a Spruce Link and a Spruce phone number. It provides a way to segment conversations by phone or by link. This is very helpful for practices with multiple providers and locations. In summary, tagging can be manual or automatic.
Contact Tagging
A Contact Tag is a layer of tagging that exists on the contact level. For instance, say your patient is a VIP, you can tag that contact in their high level contact card - regardless of conversations - and that information will always be attached to the card/patient record. The benefit of creating tags at the contact level is that you can filter those charts and bulk message the group with important updates that apply to the collective. You may also sort by more than one tag, i.e., they see Dr. A and have X condition. You can get very granular with your sorting/ filtering parameters. The benefit of contact tagging versus conversation tagging is that it’s the only way to create a list of patients with a common denominator and message them. Any properties about the patient, such as the patient's condition may be a good reason to apply a tag to the contact.
Note that you can filter by contact tags both under "Contacts" and as a criteria for an "Inbox filter." To make a new Inbox Filter based on contact tags select "Add Tag Rule" and select "Contacts Must Be Tagged With" from the drop down menu. This will include all conversations linked to a contact with the specified contact tag.
How to Tag a Contact
- Go to your Contacts.
- Select the contact of interest and open their Contact Card.
- Click on the section marked “Contact Tags”.
- Type in free form text (without spaces or characters) and save it. As you type you will see your existing tags appear so you can choose one you have already used or you can select "create" if you are adding a new tag.
Now if you go back to the high level contact card you’ll see the tag you’ve created!
Between Conversation tagging and Contact tagging you have a set of flexible tools for organizing your interactions. In the above example, a VIP tag is applied to the contact but not the conversation. And rest assured that you, as the provider, will see it, but the patient will not.
Using Contact Tags to Organize Contacts and Inbox
Watch this video to learn about how to use contact tags to better organize your Spruce set up:
How to Bulk Add or Remove Tags
We have made it simple to manage all the tags for your practice in Settings/Organization Preferences. Here you will find all the Conversation and Contact Tags in use, how many conversations or contacts have these tags, and you will be able to delete tags, which removes them from all conversations, or see the full set. Here is a video showing this:
You may also have reason to search for a tag or create a filter showing everything with a certain tag.
Find tags by Search
Within the Spruce search bar enter the tag name and hit enter or return to pull up a list of all conversations and contacts with that tag name. This will also pull up that tag name if it also appears with in the text copy of the conversations or contact information. If you would like to have more specific results we recommend creating a conversation or contact filter (see next section). In addition to searching by one tag you can also search by multiple tags and decide if you want pull up results that contain all those tags (and logic) or any of those tags (or logic).
To find conversations that contain all of a list of tags, use the search term "tag:" before each tag name and and then list the tags each individually with a space between each "tag:name" set. For example, the search "tag: A tag: B tag: C" would return all conversations that have all of the tags A and B and C.
To find conversations that have any of a list of tags, use the search term "tag:" before each tag name and then list the tags with a comma between them. For example, the search "tag: A, B, C" would return all conversations that have at least one of the tags: A or B or C.
Find Tags by Creating Filters
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I add a tag to a conversation in Spruce?
Open the conversation, tap the tag icon, and select or create a tag. Tags are visible to your whole team.
What is the difference between contact tags and conversation tags?
Contact tags apply to the patient record and appear across all conversations with that person. Conversation tags apply to a specific thread only.
Can tags be applied automatically in Spruce?
Yes. Tags can automatically be applied from various places in your settings, depending on how the tag should get auto-applied. Most commonly tags are automatically applied when interacting with a Spruce phone number, via SMS or call, or via a Spruce Link, via secure messaging.