Support
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about Siilo? You can probably find the answer here! Feel free to reach out to us via info@siilo.com if you’re not finding what you need. Don’t be shy 🙋🙋♂️ Thank you!
General
Siilo is the secure messenger for healthcare. Medical professionals and teams can communicate and share information in a secure, encrypted environment. It is our mission is to connect you with your peers to discuss challenging cases together, share the latest news and views and stay on the ball when a patient requires that extra attention during your busy work schedule.
Siilo is compatible with the majority of devices, OS and browser versions. The mobile app supports iOS version 13.0 or Android 7.0 (Nougat) and higher. Unfortunately, Android Go is not currently supported.
Siilo Web can be used on Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox and Opera. Siilo Web can also be run on Internet Explorer 11 and above, but we no longer support it and recommend you to switch to another browser for a better and safer experience.
You can use Siilo for directly contacting colleagues without traditional details like phone numbers. Most members take advantage of features like our Siilo Medical Directory for medical crowd sourcing, i.e. asking a group of trusted peers for advice on challenging cases. Siilo can also be treated as a portfolio tool, where you can create and share cases for educational purposes.
Siilo is Finnish for ‘silo’. Silos are vertical structures that carry one-of-a-kind material, e.g. grain. Figuratively speaking, silos are groups of people from one department, profession or background. In (healthcare) management, the word‘silo’ is oftentimes used negatively to describe a group of people who do not share information with others. In medicine, silos are both a curse (silos prevent collaboration) and a blessing (sensitive information does not flow freely).
Siilo contains two i’s — referring to our mission to strike the perfect balance between collaboration and information security in healthcare.
No, it’s not! We believe our platform has value for every professional who has a role to play in healthcare. However, we do make a distinction between professionals with a medical registration number and the professionals without one during our verification process. A professional who has verified their medical registration number with Siilo is identified by a blue shield on their profile, while a professional without a medical registration number who has verified their identity with Siilo is identified by a green check on their profile.
Identity verification is typically the right level of verification for administrative roles and healthcare professionals who play a critical role in patient care, but don’t have a medical registration number.
Medical verification is the right level of verification for all medical professionals who are registered with a government.
Using Siilo
Verified account
- You can use Siilo with the contacts from your contacts list on your phone.
- You add new contacts in Siilo by exchanging phone numbers, sending a contact request via the‘Invite’ button at the top right of the‘Chats’ tab or by joining a group.
- Via the Quick Launch button at the bottom right of your screen you have the option to start a‘New Chat’. Here you will find all contacts from your chats, group chats and networks.
Medically verified account
- As a medically verified user, you get access to the complete Siilo directory containing all healthcare providers. Users without a medical registration do not have this option. They cannot contact users who are not in their address book.
- To find a colleague or other medical professional you can use the search function in‘chats’ where can you search by name, specialization or area.
Tap the Quick Launch plus button in the bottom right corner of your screen. From there, you can select‘New Group Chat’, select the people you want to add from your contacts list, and create your group! Make sure to come up with a good name, picture and description so that people know what they’re getting into when you invite them.
Do you wish to delete your account? In order for us to delete your account we ask you to send Team Siilo a deletion request. A request can be made in the support settings in the Siilo app.
When you open the Siilo App please go to profile, in the top right you will see a cogwheel. Pressing this cogwheel will take you to the settings. In the settings, select ‘Support’ and press ‘Delete account’.
Team Siilo will get a request to delete your account. Our team will delete your account as soon as possible and send you an SMS to confirm.
Did you know that you (for safety reasons) can only use one Siilo account per phone number? Due to the end-to-end encryption of messages and data within the Siilo app, it is not possible to use multiple Siilo accounts on one phone. This means that if you get a new phone number you have to create a new Siilo account. This is to ensure the security of the app and the data of our users.
If you get a new phone and keep the same phone number, we recommend that you create the Backup & Restore Code before using the Siilo app on your new phone. Under the FAQ ‘How do I install the Backup & Restore Code?’ you can read how to create the code. Using the Backup & Restore Code, you can then transfer all the data from your old phone to your new phone.
Did you know that (for security reasons) you can only use your Siilo account on one device? We can imagine that you may want to continue using the Siilo app on your phone. Therefore, we recommend that you use the web version of Siilo on your tablet. In your tablet browser, go to http://web.siilo.com/ and log in by scanning the QR code with your Siilo app on your phone (on the Siilo chat screen on your phone, press the plus (+) and “Scan QR code”).
The Siilo app for tablets is primarily for client organizations that have signed up for the additional functionality of Siilo for tablets. If you still wish to use the Siilo app only on your tablet, please let us know via direct message or email info@siilo.com.
Media
Pictures and videos will be stored encrypted within the app on your phone in the Siilo Media section. It is not possible to access these files outside of the Siilo app, so you don’t need to worry about degloving images getting mixed up with Grandma’s 90th birthday pics!
You can blur faces, special tattoos and names or birth dates with tools within the app. After opening or snapping an image, you can select the ‘Edit’ icon. With the blur tool, you can obscure parts of an image, and with the arrow tool, you can place a red arrow to indicate something important in the photo. Don’t worry about messing up. There’s an ‘Undo’ function to clean up the mess — if only that existed irl!
Security and privacy
The PIN code is to block unwarranted trespassers when your phone is unlocked. When one enters the code incorrectly 3 times, the app will be blocked for 3 minutes. 3 more incorrect PIN entries will get the app blocked for 15 minutes. You can always enter the app directly during these blockages with your fingerprint, but do your best to remember the PIN code you created.
We want our high-level encryption to be the stealthiest encryption ever. Encryption happens all the time: when you send a message, when you open a new message, when you take a photo, you open the app… basically, if you’re using Siilo, your actions are encrypted!
We always let you know if there’s any uncertainty, though. For example, if you send a message to a colleague who has recently gotten a new phone, they need to be verified by Siilo again before they can receive messages. That means your messages won’t get to them and vice-versa.
Siilo Web & Desktop
You can also use the Siilo app as a desktop version. This way, the Siilo app is fixed on your desktop and you can easily use the same functionalities as in the mobile app. Download Siilo for Desktop here.
Actually, there is not a big difference. The only difference is that you open the web version of Siilo in your computer’s browser while you download Siilo Desktop as a fixed application on your computer. The functionalities remain the same.
Siilo Web is accessible on Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. We recommend using Google Chrome, if possible. Internet Explorer is not supported at this time.
There are two ways you can access Siilo Web on your computer.
- Visit siilo.com and click on the ‘Siilo Web’ button in the top right corner of the home page
- Visit web.siilo.com
Once you navigate to the Siilo Web lock screen, you will be presented with a QR code. Scan this code by selecting the Scan QR Code option from the Quick Launch menu in the Siilo mobile app and you will be automatically logged into your Siilo account.
Once you have logged into your Siilo Web account, navigate to the conversation or tile that you would like to share a photo or file in. Once here, click on the + symbol to the left of the chat bar at the bottom of the screen and select ‘Send from Computer’. Select the required photo(s) or file(s) and click ‘open’. If you need to send more than one file or photo, click the plus at the bottom of the screen to add more. Once you have chosen the required docs, click send. You can upload a maximum of three photos or files at once.
For information about the benefits and features of Siilo Web, you can follow this link to learn more about the browser version of Siilo, and its unique features.
If you reinstall Siilo on a new phone or forget your PIN code, you will lose all your old chat history. This is because we want to prevent unauthorized people from seeing your private conversations. However, your “Backup and Restore Code” will help you recover your entire chat history:
We know the process is a bit tedious, but it is very, very safe!
Important to know!