The Power & Potential of Your Open Dental Wiki
Why Your Open Dental Wiki Might Be the Most Important System You’re Not Using
If you’ve ever wished your team would just remember the right way to do things — or that your SOPs weren’t scattered across Google Docs, sticky notes, screenshots, and your team’s collective memory — the Open Dental Wiki is about to become your new best friend.
Yes, your practice can have its own internal version of Wikipedia.
And once it’s built out, it becomes the central home for everything your team needs to run your office the same way, every single day.
Let’s break down why the wiki matters, how it works, and what belongs inside it.
What the Wiki Actually Is (And Why It Matters So Much)
The Open Dental Wiki is a built-in documentation system your team can open right inside the software. Think of it as a searchable, linkable, always-accessible digital handbook.
It’s where you store:
Your financial policies
Your workflows
End-of-day checklists
How to post payments
Insurance verification steps
New hire training
Troubleshooting notes
Literally anything you never want to explain twice
All in one place.
All in the same format.
All visible to your entire team.
No more:
“Where is that form?”
“I didn’t know that’s how we do it.”
“Oh, I thought she was handling that.”
A wiki is clarity… and clarity is what keeps your systems running.
How to Open the Wiki
You can access the wiki in two ways:
Main Menu → Tools → Wiki
Shortcut: CTRL + Shift + W
(Shortcut not available in Open Dental Cloud.)
This opens your Wiki Home Page — the starting point for every SOP, policy, and workflow you create.
Why the Wiki Matters More Than You Think
1. It Becomes Your Single Source of Truth
When everyone references the same page, everyone does the same thing — consistently.
2. It Protects You From Turnover
When someone leaves, their knowledge stays.
When someone new starts, training begins here.
3. It Builds Team Confidence
Clear documentation = fewer questions, fewer mistakes, and smoother communication.
4. It Solves the “We Don’t Have Time to Train” Problem
You don’t need more time.
You need a library.
The wiki is that library.
A Quick Tour of the Wiki Toolbar (In Normal Human Words)
Most practices only use a few tools, but they’re powerful:
Home: Returns to your main wiki page.
Add: Creates a new page (perfect for new SOPs).
Edit: Updates an existing page.
Rename: Cleans up titles and makes navigation easy.
Archive: Hides outdated policies without deleting them.
History: See every past version — your safety net.
In-Links: Shows where a page is referenced.
Lists: Auto-updating checklists for daily/weekly ops.
Search: Instantly find what you need.
And if you want to get advanced…
Advanced Wiki Tools That Feel Like Magic
Internal links:
[[Refund Protocol]]connects directly to that page.External links: Perfect for PDFs, insurance portals, or shared folders.
Tables: Great for comparisons or step-by-step workflows.
Images: Add screenshots, diagrams, or visual training.
Bookmarks: Jump to sections within long pages.
Drafts: Edit behind the scenes before going live.
Bonus: The wiki auto-saves drafts even if Open Dental crashes.
What You Should Put in Your Wiki (Start Here)
When SKF builds or audits a wiki, these are the foundational pages:
Financial policy (internal + patient-facing)
Insurance verification workflow
Refund and adjustment protocols
RCM workflows
Daily, weekly, and monthly checklists
New patient intake steps
Treatment plan prep workflow
Claims follow-up guide
Posting payments SOP
Phone scripts + communication standards
New team member onboarding library
If your office doesn’t have documentation, you don’t have systems — you have habits.
A wiki turns habits into structure.
Why Most Offices Don’t Use the Wiki (And Why You Should)
Most offices avoid the wiki because:
They don’t know it exists
They don’t know what belongs in it
They don’t feel confident writing SOPs
They assume documentation takes too long
But the truth?
A wiki saves dramatically more time than it takes to build.
Every SOP eliminates repeated questions, repeated mistakes, and repeated training.
It is the highest-ROI system inside Open Dental.
Final Thought: Your Wiki Is a Training Library Waiting to Happen
You don’t need fancy learning platforms or expensive software.
You already have everything you need — it’s built right into Open Dental.
All you’re missing is structure.
And that’s where we come in.
👉 Our team builds custom training libraries inside the Open Dental Wiki so your team always knows what to do, how to do it, and where to find the answer.
If you want a team that feels confident, aligned, and supported… Start by building the library that holds your systems together.
Ready to turn your wiki into your practice’s most powerful tool?
