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Send instant messages

One of the most flexible tools available to you is the ability to send instant messages to your colleagues inside of ICE.

Collaborations is the tool you'll use to do it. Whether you're reminding a hygienist about a patient's special request, asking a clinician to clarify something in their latest treatment note, or discussing a challenging diagnosis with your colleagues.

In this activity, we're going to use collaborations to send a quick message to a coworker in order to confirm the details of an appointment they wanted to reschedule.

⏱ The activities should take 3 to 10 minutes to complete.

📣 Before you start make sure you have:

  • A username and password to an ICE Health Systems environment.
  • Optional: an activity handout PDF to keep track of your progress, focus on the activities, and record questions or interesting points for future reference.

📖 Key terms introduced or important in the training.

  • Collaboration An instant messaging conversation inside of ICE between one or more people.
  • Task An instant messaging conversation used to request and track work. Similar to a Collaboration but with due date, and in-progress or complete status options.

💡 Support materials if you have questions or want to know more as you're exploring.

Quickly message team members​

The Provider Collaborations area and Collaborations panel in ICE allow you to send internal messages to your colleagues. You can ask questions, discuss treatment, and even send task requests with due dates. All without switching away from ICE.


Let's take a look at where collaborations appear and how to start a conversation between two people. We'll create more complex task requests later.

Now that you've seen the steps, try it for yourself.

Start a new conversation​

When you passed a coworker in the hallway they asked you to reschedule a patient, but you've forgotten the date. Start a collaboration with them to confirm the date and time.

Task 1: Start
  1. Start a new collaboration and send a message to your coworker

After you create a new collaboration it will appear for you and your collaborators in the Collaborations panel and the Provider Collaborations area. You can check either spot to confirm that the collaboration was sent.

After you create a collaboration, you can send follow up messages within the same collaboration.

Task 2: Reply
  1. Open the new entry that appears in your list of collaborations
  2. Send a follow-up message inside the collaboration you just sent

While you wait for your coworker to respond, you don't need to see this collaboration cluttering up your My Collaborations list.

Task 3: Archive
  1. Archive the collaboration you started
  2. Confirm that it now appears under Archived

When your coworker responds to the archived collaboration you won't miss it. The envelope icon in the top right corner will show a red badge with the number of unread collaborations you have and the collaboration will pop back into to the My Collaborations list.

Now you know how to start and continue a conversation within a single collaboration, as well as tidy up your My Collaborations list, so you can stay focused on the messages that need your attention.

Message multiple people​

Now try creating a collaboration between multiple people.

There's cake in the break room for your birthday, let all of your favourite coworkers know quickly before it's all gone.

Task 4: Expand
  1. Start a new collaboration that includes multiple people and send them a message.
  2. Open the new entry that appears in your list of collaborations
  3. Add one extra collaborator who wasn't included in the original message

People added to a collaboration later will still see the full message history.

The effective communicator​

You've let everyone know about the cake and they've all had a piece! Now hopefully someone sends a response in the collaboration to make sure everyone rinses and flosses afterwards.


Before you pick the next topic to explore, consider the following questions:

  • What other kinds of messages might you send to your colleagues?
  • When is it beneficial to include a link to a patient's record with your message?
  • What questions do you have about sending and managing collaborations?

Write down your answers for future reference or bring them to your next training session.

Next steps​

When you're working:

  • Use collaborations to connect with a colleague at work.
  • To help get yourself started, use one of the examples you came up with in the question section above.

For training:

  • Choose the next training module you want to try.
  • Learning about tracking and requesting tasks in collaborations is a great next step. Check out Collaborate on tasks.