How to set up custom actions for pharmacy prescription tr…

You need a Chatref agent already set up for your pharmacy. If you haven’t built one yet, start by adding your practice information—hours, services, transfer policies, and accepted insurance—so the agent can answer routine questions before a transfer request appears. A basic knowledge base helps the agent ask for only the missing details instead of repeating what it already knows. For more on preparing pharmacy-specific content, see Pharmacies & Drugstores.

You should also know which fields your pharmacy requires for a transfer: patient name, date of birth, prescription name, strength, quantity, refills remaining, the transferring pharmacy’s name and phone number, and ideally a contact method for the patient. The custom action will mirror that intake form. If your pharmacy management system accepts an API call or an email when a transfer request comes in, have the webhook URL or email address ready.

1. Open the Custom Actions panel
   From your Chatref dashboard, open the agent you use for the pharmacy and go to Custom Actions. You’ll see any existing actions and a button to create a new one.

2. Create a new action for prescription transfers
   Give it a clear name like “Prescription Transfer Request”. Under When to trigger, pick Manually, because you want the action to fire only when the patient asks to transfer a prescription—not on every message. (Automatic triggers based on intent aren’t available; the agent identifies the need and then runs the action at the right moment.)

3. Add intake fields
   Build the form the agent will present. For a typical pharmacy transfer, include:

   • Patient full name (text, required)
   • Date of birth (text, required—or date picker if your widget supports it)
   • Prescription name (text, required)
   • Strength and quantity (text, optional)
   • Transferring pharmacy name and phone (text, required)
   • Your contact phone number (text, required, to reach the patient if the pharmacist has questions)
     Mark the essential fields as required. Chatref will validate them before proceeding.

4. Write the success message
   After the form is submitted, the agent shows your confirmation message. Keep it specific: “We have your transfer request for {Prescription name}. A pharmacist will call {Transferring pharmacy name} and follow up at {Your contact phone number} within one business day.” Curly braces insert the user’s input, so the message feels personal and sets expectations.

5. Choose what happens next (the action)
   Under After submission, select Webhook to send the collected data to your pharmacy system. Paste the webhook URL your system provides. Chatref will POST the field values as JSON. If your system doesn’t accept webhooks, pick Email and enter your staff’s email address (e.g., rx-transfer@yourpharmacy.com). The email will contain all the form fields.

6. Save and activate
   Save the action. Make sure it’s toggled on. The agent will now offer this form when it recognizes a transfer request during a conversation.

Switch to the Playground tab for your agent—you’ll find it right next to the widget preview. Start a chat as if you were a patient and say, “I need to transfer my prescription to your pharmacy.” The agent should eventually present the form you built. Run through it:

• Fill the fields partially—see how required-field validation behaves.
• Submit the form and confirm the success message appears.
• If you configured a webhook, watch your receiving endpoint logs (or test email delivery) to verify the payload arrived with the expected field names and values.

If the agent doesn’t offer the action, check that the agent’s knowledge base includes content about prescription transfers—the agent needs to know that transfers are a thing you handle before it can surface the action. Add a short document explaining your transfer policy, then test again.

• Action never appears
  The agent’s knowledge might not mention prescription transfers. Add a sentence or two about your transfer process to the agent’s training data. Without that context, the agent has no reason to trigger a transfer-related action.

• Webhook fails or returns an error
  Verify the webhook URL accepts POST requests and responds with a 2xx status. The payload Chatref sends uses the field keys you defined (e.g., patient_name, transferring_pharmacy). If your system expects different field names, go back and rename the fields in the custom action to match exactly.

• Required fields block submission
  Patients can’t skip required fields. If your pharmacy can work with incomplete data, toggle required off for non-critical fields (like strength or quantity) so the conversation moves forward.

• Transfer requests pile up without follow-up
  A custom action only captures the request; it doesn’t guarantee the pharmacist sees it right away. Route the webhook or email into your daily workflow—create a ticket in your helpdesk, or assign a staff member to triage the inbox folder.

• Agent answers incorrectly before the action
  If the agent gives a static answer about transfers instead of offering the action, the knowledge base may contain a competing response. Edit the content to be more descriptive of your policy without giving a final answer, or add a short rule: “When a patient asks about transferring a prescription, collect the needed details using the Prescription Transfer Request form.” The agent tends to follow the most specific guidance.

What causes pharmacy prescription transfer chat problems for Pharmacies & Drugstores?

Most issues come from incomplete intake: the form misses fields your pharmacist needs, or required fields stop a patient before the form is submitted. Another frequent cause is a knowledge base that says “call us for transfers” but never offers the custom action, so the agent shuts down the conversation instead of collecting the request.

How do I improve pharmacy prescription transfer chat for Pharmacies & Drugstores?

Start by making sure your agent’s training docs describe your exact transfer process and mention that a form will handle it. Then build a custom action that mirrors your real intake form, connecting it to your pharmacy system via webhook or email. Test end-to-end from the patient’s perspective, and adjust field requirements and the confirmation message until the experience feels like your staff handled it directly.