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eConsult Settings Portal
eConsult Settings Portal

How to close eConsult immediately, schedule future closures, manage your admin request opening hours, and manage your smart Inbox users.

Ruby Culmer avatar
Written by Ruby Culmer
Updated this week

What is the eConsult Settings Portal?

The Settings Portal allows you to:

  • Schedule an immediate eConsult closure

  • Schedule a future eConsult closure

  • Change your administrative request opening hours

  • Manage your Smart Inbox users


Accessing the Settings Portal

You can access the Settings Portal by clicking on the 'Settings' Cog at the left hand side of the Smart Inbox, or by clicking the button below.

Please note that only users with admin access are able to schedule closures, make changes to administrative opening hours, and manage Smart Inbox users.

To check your practice admin, head to ‘user management’ on the left hand side of the settings portal where you will be able to view which users are admin.

If you would like to update your admin users, please let us know here.

You can log into the settings portal using either your NHSmail (@nhs.net) credentials or the email/password you created for your Smart Inbox account.

Non Smart Inbox Users

If you are not a Smart Inbox user, your emergency contacts will have admin rights in the settings portal and can log in using their usual NHSmail login credentials.

If you are logging in for the first time and do not have an NHSmail account (e.g. you have an @nhs.scot or @wales.nhs.uk domain) please follow the below steps to create a login:

  1. Head to the settings portal

  2. Select ‘login with another email’

  3. Select ‘forgot password’

  4. Enter your email address

  5. You will then receive an email from auth@econsult.health, please click 'confirm' in the email.

  6. You will then need to create a new password

  7. You can now login to the settings portal

If you're unable to obtain access please use the live chat feature in the bottom right corner to speak to the team.

Accessing the Settings Portal for Multiple Practices

If you have access to multiple practices and eHubs, you will be able to switch between the user lists for the different practices via the drop-down menu in the top left hand corner.


Managing Immediate and Future Practice Closures

To manage your practice closures, head to Demand management on the left hand side of the Settings Portal.

Scheduling an Immediate Closure

If you would like to schedule an immediate closure:

Set the start date as today, the time as now (in 24 hour clock format) and the end date and time for when you would like normal service to resume.

If the closure has been successfully added it will appear in the table below. Your patient facing page will also show that the practice has successfully closed.

Scheduling a Future Closure

You can also schedule a closure for up to 5 working days at any point in the future, using the same functionality.

During a closure:

  • Patients will be unable to start any consultation (including admin eConsults) on the practice's eConsult page

  • eConsult Lites can still be submitted by a practice user.

  • Long term condition reviews can still be completed, if you have the option enabled to allow patients to submit these when the practice is closed. However, these won’t be accessible from the eConsult practice website, and the patient will need to be provided a direct link (If you would like to have this option enabled for your practice, please contact us at practice.support@econsult.health)


Managing your Smart Inbox Users

To manage your Smart Inbox users, head to User management on the left hand side of the Settings Portal.

How to add staff as Smart Inbox Users

To add a member of staff as a Smart Inbox user, simply click Add new user in the right hand corner of the Settings Portal.

You will then see the below pop-up box, which will prompt you to enter the user's full name and email address. Once entered, click Add user.

The user will now be added, and you will see them appear at the top of the user list.

If you log into the Settings Portal and have not been granted Admin control for your practice, you will not be able to add new users. If this is the case, you will see the below prompt to Contact your practice admin:

You will be able to see on the Settings Portal exactly who is your admin user and if you need to have access to add/remove users then please head here for the steps.

How to delete Smart Inbox Users

To delete a Smart Inbox user, simply click on the bin icon besides the user.

You will then see a pop-up to confirm that you are sure you want to delete this user. If you are sure you want to delete this user, simply click the blue Delete button.

The user will then be deleted and disappear from the user list.

If you have not been granted permission to have admin control for your practice, you will not be able to delete users. If this is the case, you will see the below prompt to Contact your practice admin. To obtain admin permission please follow these instruction.


Managing your Administrative Requests Opening Hours

Some practice want the ability to continue allowing the eConsult admin requests to be submitted when they have closed the clinical pathway.

To manage your practice administrative request opening hours, head to Demand management on the left hand side of the Settings Portal.

Here, you can choose to keep administrative requests available to patients when your clinical eConsults are closed.

You can choose to keep administrative requests open:

  • During your practice's eConsult opening hours

  • During your practice's physical opening hours

  • Always open (24/7)

For questions about your practice eConsult hours or physical hours please email practice.support@econsult.health.

If you do not have access to the Settings Portal please check how to access here.


Customise your Signposting Teams in the Smart Inbox

You can also customise your Smart Inbox teams via the settings portal.

Your Smart Inbox teams are shown in the signposting section, and can be used to allocate work to particular teams in the practice (e.g. GPs, Nurses, Social Prescribers, Reception).

We recommend saving your custom teams for the first time towards the end of the day when you have finished your triaging activity, as updating your teams will also update these values on any eConsults that have already been signposted to a team.

  1. Log into the settings portal

  2. Head to 'other settings' at the left hand side

  3. Enter the custom teams you would like in the order you would like them to be shown, separated by commas

  4. Click 'Save custom teams'


FAQs

Adding a user to multiple practices

If you need to give a member of staff access to multiple practices, please get in touch with our support team via our live chat or at practice.support@econsult.health. Please provide their email address as well as the ODS codes for all practices they need access to.

Error message when deleting yourself

To ensure there is always an administrative user, you are not able to delete yourself. If you do need to delete yourself, please ask another administrative user or contact our support team via our live chat or at practice.support@econsult.health.

Error message when deleting a user

If a user has access to multiple practice's or eHubs, you will not be able to delete them from your Smart Inbox. Please get in touch with our support team via our live chat or at practice.support@econsult.health and provide their email address and your practice ODS code or eHub name so that we can remove them for you.

Unable to edit users

At the moment, the feature for editing existing users is not available but we are working on releasing this soon! In order to edit users, please delete the user and re-add them with the necessary amendment to their name or email.


If you have any questions or you feel that this article could be improved, please feel free to give us some feedback by emailing us, pressing the emojis below or using the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of this page to speak to one of the eConsult team.

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