Patient Communications
Last updated: November 9, 2026
The Patient Communications plugin handles how your practice reaches patients outside the visit: appointment texts and emails, forms and intake patients complete in the portal before a visit, consents they review and sign, secure messages with staff, and the tasks that tell staff when a patient has done something. Admins set it up in one place, Notifications Admin, and staff work with it from a panel in the patient's chart.
This guide describes Patient Communications 0.19.10. Your Canvas team can tell you which version your practice runs.
What's included
Feature | What it does | Guide |
|---|---|---|
Appointment notifications | Texts and emails for confirmations, reminders, telehealth join links, no-shows, and cancellations | |
Forms and intake | Questionnaires and intake sections patients complete in the portal, assigned by staff or automatically before a visit | |
Consents | Consents patients sign on the portal or in DocuSign, including consents a provider countersigns | |
Messaging and tasks | Secure messages with patients, message notifications, and tasks for patient messages and completed paperwork | |
Portal invite and password reset emails | Your own wording for the emails Canvas sends with a portal login link |
Where to find it
Who | Where | What it's called |
|---|---|---|
Admins | Provider menu | Notifications Admin |
Staff | Patient chart, right-hand panel | Patient Communications, with Secure Messages, Forms, and Notifications tabs |
Patients | Patient portal menu | Forms |
Patients | Patient portal home | A welcome banner, plus an Action Required banner when a consent is waiting |
Notifications Admin
Notifications Admin opens a full page with four tabs:
Campaigns: every message the plugin sends, each as a card you turn on or off and edit. Also holds the Completed Paperwork Notifications and Patient Message Tasks settings.
Visit Type Overrides: turn appointment messages off for a visit type, or give a visit type its own wording, channels, and timing.
Pre-Visit Forms: choose the intake sections, questionnaires, and consents each visit type sends before the visit.
Consents: link consents to DocuSign, choose which consents every new patient gets, and set up provider countersignature.
One Save button, in the tab bar, saves every tab at once. Nothing changes until you click it.
The top of the Campaigns tab shows Integration Status: whether Twilio SMS and SendGrid Email are Configured. This only checks that the settings are filled in, not that the accounts work.
Any staff member who can sign in to Canvas can open Notifications Admin and save changes. Let your team know who should be making changes there.
Before you begin
Set up text and email delivery. Your Canvas team adds your Twilio and SendGrid details (see Plugin secrets below). Check that both show Configured under Integration Status.
Turn off Canvas's built-in appointment reminders before turning on the plugin's reminders, or patients get both. See Appointment Notifications.
Check patient contact details. Texts go only to a phone number marked as consenting to messages and not opted out. Emails go to an email address that is not opted out.
Give staff an email address on their staff record if they should get completed-paperwork emails.
Turn on the campaigns you want in Notifications Admin, review the wording, and click Save. Every campaign is off until you turn it on. Completed Paperwork Notifications and Patient Message Tasks are on from the start.
Install the Plugin
Your Canvas team installs and configures this plugin. Ask them to turn it on for your practice.
Plugin secrets
Admins set these in Canvas admin settings, under Plugin_Io > Plugins > patient_communications. None is required to install the plugin; each feature below works once its secrets are set.
Secret | Needed for | When it's empty |
|---|---|---|
| All text messages. Texts come from | No texts are sent. Integration Status shows Twilio as Not configured. |
| All patient emails, and completed-paperwork emails to staff. Emails come from | No emails are sent. Tasks are still created. |
| Filing signed consents to the chart | Consents are recorded in the plugin but not filed to the chart. |
| Saving gender identity, race, preferred language, and emergency contact from the intake form | Those intake answers are not saved to the chart. |
| The contact categories used for emergency contacts and release of information | Built-in defaults are used. Ask your Canvas team to confirm them for your instance. |
| The provider a patient-reported history note is filed under when the patient has no default provider | Another active staff member is used. |
| Which consents the plugin offers, by coding system (comma-separated) |
|
| Signing consents in DocuSign. All five are needed. | Consents are signed on the portal signature pad, and provider countersignature cannot be turned on. |
| A fallback DocuSign template for each consent | Only templates chosen on the Consents tab are used. |
| Sharing templates created from the Consents tab with a DocuSign group | Templates are not shared. |
| Hearing from DocuSign the moment a consent is signed | Signatures are still picked up when the signing screen closes and by a check every 15 minutes. |
| Your colors on the plugin's pages and portal banners, as hex values such as | Canvas colors are used. |
| Your font on the plugin's pages. The URL must be a Google Fonts stylesheet. | The system font is used. |
Troubleshooting
What you see | What to check |
|---|---|
Nothing is sent for any campaign | Integration Status shows Twilio or SendGrid as Not configured, or the campaign is off. Every campaign starts off. |
A patient gets no texts | Their phone number is not marked as consenting to messages, is opted out, or is missing. The patient's Notifications tab in the chart shows each attempt. |
A patient gets no emails | Their email address is missing or opted out. |
A setting went back to how it was | Changes save only when you click Save in the tab bar. |
A link in a message is blank | The link to the portal Forms page needs your instance's address, which your Canvas team sets up with the plugin. Contact them. |
For problems with a specific feature, see the troubleshooting section of that feature's guide.