How to Set Up Your Practice on Virtual Consultant Online in Under an Hour

Getting a new orthodontic software platform live should take hours, not weeks. Virtual Consultant Online is designed to go from sign-up to a fully operational practice profile — with your team configured, your branding applied, your first patient assessment live, and your public listing visible — in under an hour. No lengthy implementation project, no third-party consultants, and no downtime for your existing patient book.

This guide walks through the complete practice setup process step by step: what you need before you start, what the platform configures automatically, and where to focus your first sixty minutes to get maximum value from day one. If you are evaluating whether to switch from your current system, or simply want to understand what onboarding looks like before committing, this is the clearest overview available.

What You Need Before You Start

Preparation makes the difference between a smooth 45-minute setup and a session interrupted by hunting for information. Gather the following before opening the platform:

Having this information ready removes the main cause of setup delays. Most practices that extend beyond an hour do so because they are gathering details mid-session rather than arriving with them prepared.

Step 1: Create Your Account and Practice Profile (10 minutes)

Registration begins with your practice administrator creating the account. Enter your practice name, primary contact email, and a secure password. You will be prompted to verify your email address before proceeding — keep the confirmation tab open so you can complete this immediately rather than returning to it later.

Once verified, you move to the practice profile. This is the foundational record that underpins everything else on the platform — your public listing, your patient-facing communications, and your internal team structure all reference the practice profile. Fill in every field rather than leaving optional ones blank: a complete profile performs better in the platform's practice directory and gives patients the information they need to make a decision about contacting you.

Key fields to complete at this stage:

The practice description is worth taking two minutes over. It is the first thing a prospective patient reads on your listing — a clear, benefit-led two-sentence summary of what makes your practice the right choice for them performs considerably better than a generic statement about providing quality orthodontic care.

Step 2: Add Your Clinicians (5 minutes)

Navigate to the Clinicians section and add each treating orthodontist. For each clinician, enter their name, GDC registration number, professional title, and a short biography. The biography appears on the practice listing alongside the clinician's name and is one of the most-read sections by patients researching a practice — a two to three sentence summary of qualifications, experience, and specialisms is sufficient.

The GDC number is validated against the public GDC register. If a number fails validation, check that you are using the current registration number rather than a previous or provisional number. Clinicians are linked to specific locations if your practice operates across multiple sites, so ensure each clinician is assigned to the correct location or locations at this stage.

Patients use clinician profiles to build trust before their first appointment. Our overview of the clinicians listed on Virtual Consultant Online shows how complete profiles perform relative to incomplete ones — practices with full clinician biographies and qualification details receive meaningfully higher enquiry rates from the platform directory.

Step 3: Configure Team Access and Roles (5 minutes)

Invite your team members by entering their email addresses and assigning each person a role. Virtual Consultant Online uses role-based access control, meaning each team member sees only the features and patient records relevant to their function.

Invited team members receive an email with a secure registration link. They set their own password independently — their credentials are never visible to the practice admin. Each team member's login is personal and auditable: the platform logs all access and actions against the individual account, which is a GDPR compliance requirement for any system handling patient health data.

Step 4: Set Up Your Treatment List and Patient Portal (10 minutes)

The treatment configuration determines what options appear to patients during the assessment process and how the platform categorises incoming enquiries. Add each treatment your practice offers — fixed braces, clear aligners, lingual braces, retainers, and any specialist services — and configure the relevant details for each: typical duration, indicative price range (optional but recommended), and any patient-facing description you want to display.

Price ranges are not fixed quotes — they are displayed as indicative ranges to help patients understand cost territory before contacting the practice. Practices that include pricing information receive higher-quality enquiries from patients who have already assessed affordability, and lower rates of enquiry abandonment at the cost conversation stage. If pricing transparency is not your current approach, even a broad "from £X" figure significantly improves the enquiry-to-consultation conversion rate.

The patient portal settings are configured alongside the treatment list. Key decisions at this stage:

For practices concerned about the administration of patient documentation, our article on why most dental software is failing practices covers the common gaps in legacy systems that a properly configured platform resolves — including the documentation and consent management issues that create compliance risk.

Step 5: Configure Your Assessment Pipeline (10 minutes)

The assessment pipeline is the engine of the platform — it manages incoming patient enquiries, remote assessment submissions, and the workflow that takes a prospective patient from first contact to booked appointment. Configuration at this stage determines how smoothly that workflow operates from day one.

The key configuration decisions are:

A well-configured assessment pipeline significantly reduces the risk of enquiries falling through the cracks during busy periods. The platform's built-in queue management ensures no assessment sits unreviewed beyond the configured response window. For context on how practices have improved their lead-to-appointment conversion using structured pipelines, see our article on how to qualify more leads before the first appointment.

Step 6: Go Live and Promote Your Listing (10 minutes)

Once the core configuration is complete, activate your practice listing. Your profile becomes visible in the Virtual Consultant Online practice directory — searchable by patients using the orthodontic treatment near me finder — and your assessment submission link is active and ready to share.

The most impactful immediate actions at go-live:

What Happens After Setup

The initial hour gets the platform operational. The weeks following go-live are where you refine and optimise based on how real patients are using it. The most common post-setup improvements practices make in their first month:

Support is available throughout the setup process and beyond. The Virtual Consultant Online support team can assist with configuration questions, troubleshoot any issues encountered during setup, and provide guidance on optimising the platform for your specific patient mix and workflow. Most configuration queries are resolved within one business day.

For practices that have already been through onboarding and are looking to get more from the platform, our article on using virtual tools to drive orthodontic efficiency covers the operational improvements that follow a successful setup — from reduced no-show rates to higher consultation-to-start conversion.