Using a Template

Your administrator may have created message templates for you to use. These templates enable you to send emergency messages quickly, as the text and recipients have already been defined for you.

  1. In the Secure Messages screen, tap the Compose icon at the top right of the screen.

    If message templates have been created for your environment, a list of these templates appears.

  2. If you have a large number of templates, type text in the search field to display a list of the templates that contain this text.

    If you have templates that you use regularly, you can set them as favorites. Favorite templates appear at the top of the list of templates. See Setting a Favorite Template for more information.

  3. Tap the name of the message template that you want to use. The template is displayed.

  4. To add additional message recipients, tap Add Recipient to display the Select User / Group screen.

    When the Select User / Group screen appears:

    1. Filter the recipient list using one of the following options, available at the top left of the screen:
      • Favorites: Show favorites only.

      • Contacts: Show all contacts.

    2. If you have a large number of contacts to choose from, use the Search field to type the first few characters of the name of the contact to which you want to send a message. The contacts that match your search characters are displayed.
    3. Tap on a contact name to include the contact in the message.

      Each contact has presence and availability information provided that tells you whether the contact is at your facility and can receive your message right away. See Presence and Availability for details.

      Note: If a message recipient is having messages forwarded to another contact, that contact is automatically added to the list of recipients when the message is sent.
    4. To remove a contact from the message, tap the contact name in the To field to select it and tap the backspace key. Tap a selected contact name again to cancel the remove operation and continue with the message.
  5. In the Subject field, if no message subject has been provided in the template, type the message subject. If subject text has been provided, you can edit it.
  6. If your system administrator has implemented the Engage patient context adapter, you can add a link to information on a specific patient to the message. See Real-time Situational Awareness for details. To add patient information:
    1. Tap the Tap to attach patient info link. The Select Patient screen appears.

      If no patient information is available, this link does not appear.

    2. Tap My Patients to see a list of patients assigned to you, or tap All Patients to view a list of all patients for which information is available.
    3. Type text in the search field to limit the patient list to patients whose name matches your search text.
    4. Tap the name of the patient whose information you want to add.

    A link to the patient information is now displayed in the message.

    Note: If you have attached patient information to your message, and there is no text in the Subject field, the patient name appears as the subject in the Secure Messages screen.
  7. The Message field contains the message text that has been provided as part of the messaging template. You can edit this text if you like.
  8. Below the Message field, your administrator may have created additional fields in which you can provide information. Fields whose name is marked with a red star are required. Here is an example:

    In this example, Situation and Recommendation are required. For more information on the templates and fields in use in your environment, contact your administrator.

  9. After the custom fields, the message settings fields are displayed.
    1. Tap Priority to change the message priority.

      Select one of Normal (the default), High, or Urgent.

      See Sending a Message for details on how these priority levels are handled.

      Important: On some devices, messages sent with Urgent priority may be spoken out loud to some recipients. Sending confidential patient health information with either of these priorities may violate privacy regulations.

      If your device is using iOS 12 or later, and you receive a message of Urgent priority, it may be sent to you using Apple iOS's Critical Alert capability. See Critical Alerts for more details.

    2. Tap Notification Expiration to specify a time limit for this notification, after which the message conversation will expire. Select Never (the default) if the notification never expires, or select 2, 5, or 10 minutes. You can also specify a custom number of minutes before the notification expires.
      Note: Once a message conversation has expired, the message will no longer be delivered to VCS and VMP Web Console users that have not yet received it and will not be retrieved the next time they log in.
    3. Tap Response Expiration to specify a time limit for the response request. Select Never (the default) if the response request never expires, or select 2, 5, or 10 minutes. You can also specify a custom number of minutes before the response request expires.
    4. Tap Notify Me if you want to receive a notification if you do not receive a response within a specified time. In the Notify me screen, select Send Notification to enable response notification. Select a time period, which can be 2, 5, or 10 minutes. You can also specify a custom time period.

      If the message is not responded to during this time period, a notification banner is displayed at the top of the screen, and a red star icon is displayed in the message link in the Secure Messages screen:

      Tap Close to hide the notification.

    5. Select Deliver to on-campus users only if this message is to be delivered only to users who are on-campus. This ensures that emergency messages are sent only to those people who can immediately respond to them.
  10. After the message settings, a Response Options section is available if you want to specify a selection of multiple choice options from which your recipients can choose. To add a response option, tap in the first entry in the Response Options section, and then type the text of the response option.

    When you add a response option, a new field appears that enables you to type an additional option if needed. Repeat this until you have created all of the options that you want. To remove a response option that you have added, tap the red icon to its right..

  11. Tap Send to send the message.

    If the message is not sent successfully, Vocera Collaboration Suite will attempt to resend the message for two minutes before giving up.

    Note: If you are sending a message to a Vocera badge, response options can be a maximum of 15 characters.

When you send a message using a template that includes custom fields in which you have provided text, the custom fields are displayed as part of the text of the message: