How to Automate XLDent

XLDent runs a dental practice from the chair, with XLChart holding the record and the eSolutions layer covering eligibility, claims and attachments. The restorative half of the week depends on an outside laboratory with its own website, which sits outside the practice software entirely. Reading it is what WebRun does.

Written by Aiko Tanabe Product researcher

Reviewed by Marta Ellison Automation strategist

Updated Aug 14, 2026 · 4 min read

XLDent was built around a tablet at the chair

XLDent came from an early and specific bet: that the dental record belonged on a tablet in the operatory rather than on a desktop at the front desk. The company describes its suite as the first designed for Tablet PC and wireless technologies, and the product line still shows it.

XLChart carries the tooth charts, restoration graphics, periodontal exams and progress notes. Image stores the radiographs and attaches them to the record. XLCheckIn lets a patient check themselves in and complete forms on a tablet, prompting for the updates their own history calls for. XLNotify is the interoffice message that saves somebody walking down the corridor, XLTimeclock tracks staff hours, and there is a cloud edition as well as an in-house one.

The practices running it are general and restorative dental offices, and restorative work is what fills their week: crowns, bridges, implant restorations, dentures. Which means the practice has a partner it does not employ and cannot see.

A crown spends most of its life out of the building

The laboratory is the second half of every restorative case, and it is somewhere else entirely.

A tooth is prepared, an impression is taken or scanned, and the case leaves. What comes back, and when, decides whether the appointment already in the book is a seat or an apology. In between, the case is on somebody else's bench, tracked on somebody else's website, and the only signal the office gets is a box arriving.

Everything around it is just as scattered. Shade photographs meant to travel with the case and still sitting in the imaging folder. An intraoral scan waiting in a scanner's own portal to be matched to a chart. A restoration marked for remake, which quietly restarts a clock nobody reset. A predetermination that needs codes, a narrative and images assembled before an insurer will look at it. And behind all of it, the treatment plans presented last month that the patient nodded at and never booked, which is the largest number in any restorative practice and the one nobody keeps a list for.

Lab cases that cannot slip quietly Every open crown and bridge case set against the appointment it is meant to fill, with the late ones named each morning.

Shade photos caught before the case ships Cases going out today checked for the photographs actually being attached, so the laboratory is never guessing.

Treatment plans that get a second call Everything presented and never accepted, listed with the procedure, the amount and how long it has been sitting.

The eSolutions layer answers the insurance half

The suite is not thin here, and it covers more of the payer side than most offices switch on.

Real-Time Eligibility and Benefits Verification connects to commercial and government payers for benefit information. Electronic Claim Processing and Claim Status handles the submission and the answer that comes back. Dental Claim Attachments send x-rays, intraoral photos, perio charts and clinical notes electronically, which is more or less the packet a predetermination needs. The XLConnect Reminder Service automates appointment confirmations and patient recalls and offers online scheduling, with electronic prescribing, secure email, statements and remittance advice alongside it.

That is a real answer to the insurance half of the practice. The laboratory half has no equivalent, because a laboratory is neither a payer nor a patient. It is an independent business with its own case-tracking website and its own view of when it will be finished. XLDent knows the appointment is on Thursday. It has no way of knowing the case is still on a bench in another state.

Thursday's appointment stops depending on a box arriving

The restorative schedule turns into something you can promise the moment the laboratory's own tracking page is read alongside the chart each morning.

Every open crown and bridge case listed against its due date and the appointment it is meant to fill, late ones at the top, so a seat is moved a week out rather than discovered on the day. Cases going out today checked for the shade photographs actually being attached, because a laboratory guessing at shade is a remake nobody budgeted for. Remakes spotted and reordered the same morning instead of stalling for a fortnight in a pile of good intentions.

Incoming scan files matched to the right patient, so a case moves to design rather than sitting in an inbox. Implant restorations sorted by phase, so the ones ready for an impression and the ones ready for delivery are two lists instead of a memory. Predetermination packets assembled with the codes, the narrative and the supporting images already gathered. Presented treatment plans that were never accepted, with the procedure, the amount and how long it has been, which is a call list rather than a report.

Anything that reaches a patient, an insurer or a laboratory is drafted and left unsent, and a person decides whether it goes.

The laboratory's website is somebody's first job of the day

A coordinator does all of this before the first patient, or intends to.

WebRun is an agent that drives a real Chrome browser, signed in exactly as your team is. It reads XLDent, opens the laboratory's tracking site, the scanner portal or the payer when a run calls for it, and comes back with a list that puts the late cases first.

It runs on your schedule in a private environment of your own, sessions are not shared between tools, and a workflow can be restricted to a named list of domains. You can watch a run and stop it partway.

Each one below spells out which sites it visits and what comes back.

Questions people ask

Can it read our dental laboratory's case tracking site?

Yes, and it is the usual reason to run it. It signs into the laboratory's own site with your credentials and reads the status the way your coordinator does, then sets that against the appointment in XLDent. Most laboratory portals offer no other way in.

Does it change anything inside XLDent itself?

By default it reads. Where a workflow does create something, such as starting a chart from a new consult request, that is set deliberately and stays inside what you allow. Clinical entries and claim submissions are prepared for a person rather than applied.

Will a patient be texted about an appointment on its own?

No. Confirmations, scheduling notes and treatment plan follow-ups are written with that patient's own case details and left unsent for the front desk. Sending to a patient stays a decision somebody at the practice makes.