Settings & training Elva

This is where you set Elva up: how she sounds, what she knows, what she’s allowed to do, and how she behaves on each channel. Everything lives under Settings, in a left sidebar grouped into Setup, Behavior, and Channels. Work through the pages once, save, and Elva runs your practice’s way from then on.

How Settings is organized

Open Settings and you’ll see the sidebar pages grouped into three sets:

• Setup — Personality & character, Knowledge base, Capabilities
• Behavior — Emergency detection, Practice rules, Compliance
• Channels — Call, SMS, Email, Chat

Click any page to open it. The page you’re on shows a green dot beside its name. At the bottom of the sidebar a small status reads Live config when everything is saved, or Unsaved changes when you’ve edited something and haven’t saved yet.

Personality & character

This is who patients meet when they reach your practice through Elva — her name, her voice, her tone, and what she says when she answers.

Name

Under What should we call her?, the Name field is what Elva uses in greetings, voicemails, and when she introduces herself. Short names of one or two syllables work best for voice. Most practices keep Elva.

Voice

Under How Elva sounds on the phone, you’ll see five preset voices. Tap any voice to hear a sample, then select the one that fits your practice:

• Ara — Female · Warm, friendly. Balanced and conversational. Default for most US dental practices.
• Eve — Female · Energetic, upbeat. Engaging and enthusiastic. Suits welcoming, high-energy practices.
• Rex — Male · Confident, clear. Professional and articulate. Good fit for cosmetic and specialty practices.
• Sal — Neutral · Smooth, balanced. Versatile across contexts. Useful when you want a neutral, calming presence.
• Leo — Male · Authoritative, strong. Decisive and commanding. Works well for established, traditional offices.

Warmth and formality

Under How Elva carries herself, two sliders set her default tone:

• Warmth — from Professional (crisp) to Warm (conversational).
• Formality — from Casual (friendly neighborhood practices) to Formal (clinical and specialty offices).

Elva adapts mid-conversation regardless — she softens for anxious callers and tightens up for frustrated ones — but these sliders set her starting point.

Greetings

Under What Elva says when she answers, you write the first thing every caller hears:

• Business hours greeting — played during your open hours. Keep it short.
• After-hours greeting — played outside open hours; it offers booking, voicemail, or a callback.

Elva adapts the wording for SMS, email, and chat automatically, so you only write these once.

Multilingual

Under Multilingual support, turn on Respond in the patient’s language so Elva mirrors whatever language a patient uses — switching to Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, or any of 20+ supported languages mid-conversation.

How to change Elva’s voice

1. Go to Settings ▸ Personality & character.
2. Scroll to How Elva sounds on the phone.
3. Tap the play button next to a voice to hear a sample.
4. Click the voice row you want — the selected voice shows a filled green marker.
5. Save your changes from the bar at the bottom.

Knowledge base

The Knowledge base — what we call the Brain — is the set of custom answers Elva uses for practice-specific questions. When a patient asks something, Elva searches it in real time and answers from the matching entry. This is what lets her give your hours, your fees, and your policies instead of a generic answer.

At the top you’ll see counts for Total entries, Active, and Categories. Below that, a Search entries… box and category filter chips (All, Practice info, Services & procedures, Fees & pricing, Insurance & payment, Policies, Providers & staff, Forms, Frequently asked) help you find an entry. Entries are grouped by category, each showing its title, body text, and when it was last updated.

Each entry has an active toggle and an edit button. Turn the toggle off to take an entry out of service without deleting it — Elva won’t draw on inactive entries. Inactive entries appear dimmed in the list.

How to add a knowledge entry

1. Go to Settings ▸ Knowledge base.
2. Click Add entry (top right).
3. Give the entry a clear title (for example, “Cancellation policy”).
4. Choose a category so it files under the right group.
5. Write the body — the actual answer, in plain language, the way you’d want a patient to hear it.
6. Make sure the entry is set to active so Elva can use it.
7. Save your changes.

Capabilities

The Capabilities page is a grid of everything Elva can do, with one row per action and one column per channel — Phone, SMS, Email, Chat. A toggle sits at every row-and-column intersection, so you decide each action per channel. At the top, a counter shows how many actions are on for each channel. Turning an action off for a channel means Elva redirects that request elsewhere — for example, turning off Cancel an appointment for Email means she points email cancellation requests to the phone.

The actions are grouped:

01 · Scheduling and managing appointments
– Book a new appointment (returning patients) — existing patients only; Elva uses the patient’s chart for context.
– Book a new appointment (new patients) — creates a new patient record and books their first visit.
– Reschedule an appointment — moves an existing appointment to a new time.
– Cancel an appointment — removes an appointment, subject to your cancellation policy.
– Confirm appointments — responds to confirmation outreach with yes/no/reschedule.
– Book for the whole family — schedules multiple family members in one conversation.

02 · Adding and updating patient information
– Add a new patient — captures name, DOB, contact info, and insurance for a new record.
– Update existing patient contact info — changes phone, email, or address on a verified record.
– Gather insurance information — captures or updates insurance details so they can be verified before the visit.

03 · Sharing facts and answering questions
– Share provider availability — tells the patient when their preferred provider next has openings.
– Provide pricing — quotes fees for procedures, using entries from your Knowledge base.
– Share in-network insurance list — tells callers which carriers you accept.
– Detect appointment reason — asks what the visit is for so the right slot type is booked.
– Respond to FAQ questions — answers any question that has a matching Knowledge base entry.

At the bottom, How should Elva quote prices? sets a Quote style — Starting at…, Exact price, Range (low–high), or Refer to staff — so pricing matches your transparency norms.

How to turn an action on or off for a channel

1. Go to Settings ▸ Capabilities.
2. Find the action’s row and the channel’s column (Phone, SMS, Email, or Chat).
3. Toggle the switch at that intersection on or off.
4. Save your changes.

How to let Elva book appointments over SMS

1. Go to Settings ▸ Capabilities.
2. In 01 · Scheduling and managing appointments, find Book a new appointment (returning patients) (and Book a new appointment (new patients) if you want first-time patients too).
3. Turn on the toggle in the SMS column for those rows.
4. Save your changes. Elva can now book appointments by text.

Emergency detection

The Emergency detection page defines what counts as urgent at your practice. Elva uses your criteria to triage every incoming call and decides when to bypass standard scheduling, page the on-call provider, or escalate to staff.

Defining an emergency

Under What counts as an emergency at your practice?, write a plain-English description — symptoms, pain levels, time windows, and post-op signals (for example, “Severe pain rated 7 or higher out of 10. Visible facial swelling. Trauma to teeth or jaw from an accident.”). Elva reads this text to triage every call.

Below it, Triage rules Elva extracted shows each line turned into a discrete clinical rule, marked Enabled, Needs config, or Rejected, with an explanation. Review these before going live. Use Re-analyze at the top after editing your text to refresh the list.

Emergency handling options

Under How Elva schedules emergencies, direct controls apply to every call she classifies as urgent:

• Allow double-booking emergencies — lets Elva squeeze an emergency into a slot that’s already taken; the provider sees both patients back-to-back.
• Reserved emergency slots per day — slots kept open at the start of each day for true emergencies (0–4).
• Skip insurance verification — skips the eligibility step for true emergencies and verifies after the appointment instead.
• After-hours emergency routing — what Elva does when an emergency comes in outside open hours: Page the on-call dentist, Refer to nearest ER, First-thing-morning callback, or Voicemail with urgency flag.

Practice rules

Practice rules is where you write your office policies in plain English — everything you’d tell a new front-desk hire. Elva reads your rules, maps each one to a setting or behavior, and tells you which are applied, which need configuration, and which fall outside her scope.

At the top, four counters summarize the last analysis: Enabled, Needs config, Rejected, and Conflicts.

Writing your rules

Under How should Elva behave at this practice?, type your policies in the text box — one rule per paragraph works best, and no special syntax is needed. Examples: “Never give medical advice. Always offer a clinician callback for clinical questions.” or “Refuse to schedule on Sundays — we’re closed.” A timestamp shows when the rules were last analyzed.

Analyzing your rules

Click Re-analyze rules to have Elva read your text and map each rule. The results appear under What Elva found in your rules, each as a card marked:

• Enabled — the rule maps cleanly to a setting and is in force.
• Needs config — the rule mirrors something you should also confirm elsewhere (for example, a provider’s hours).
• Rejected — the rule needs a prerequisite that isn’t in place; it won’t be applied until you fix it or edit the text.

Cancellation controls

Under How should Elva respond when a patient tries to cancel?, three direct controls apply on every cancellation call:

• Penalty window — how far in advance a patient must cancel before a late fee applies (12, 24, 48, or 72 hours).
• Late enforcement tone — Soft guilt (remind, don’t fine) or Strict policy (quote the fee).
• Save aggressiveness — a slider (0–5) for how many times Elva tries to reschedule before letting a patient cancel outright.

How to write a practice rule and analyze it

1. Go to Settings ▸ Practice rules.
2. In How should Elva behave at this practice?, add your rule on its own line — for example, “When a patient seems anxious, slow down and offer reassurance.”
3. Click Re-analyze rules.
4. Find your rule under What Elva found in your rules and check its status.
5. If it shows Needs config or Rejected, read the explanation and follow the suggested fix, then re-analyze.
6. Save your changes.

Compliance

The Compliance page covers privacy and recording boundaries. Some are hard limits enforced for every practice; the rest are dials your office sets based on state law, practice norms, and risk tolerance.

Hard limits

Under Hard limits that can’t be turned off, these protections are always Enforced on every channel: never provide medical advice or diagnoses, never recommend medications or dosages, never promise insurance coverage outcomes, always redirect life-threatening emergencies to 911, and refer self-harm or crisis signals to 988 and a live person.

Toggles you control

HIPAA and patient information sharing:
– Verify identity before sharing chart info — Elva confirms identity with name plus one verifier before sharing appointment details, balances, or chart info.
– Include patient names in outbound voicemails — off keeps names out of voicemails to avoid a privacy leak if someone else hears the message.
– Share patient information with anyone other than the patient — when off, Elva only shares with a third party (spouse, parent) if the patient previously authorized that contact in writing.

Money conversations:
– Quote specific fees without insurance verification — off has Elva quote a range and offer to verify; on lets her quote the standard fee directly.
– Discuss outstanding balances over the phone — off has Elva direct patients to the front desk; on lets her share the amount.

Call recording and AI disclosure:
– Record all calls for quality and training — recordings are encrypted and retained for 90 days by default.
– Require two-party consent for recording — Elva announces recording at the start and pauses for consent. Required by law in several states; leave on if unsure.
– Disclose AI nature on first interaction — on a patient’s first call, Elva says she’s the AI receptionist. Best practice everywhere.

Channel settings (Call, SMS, Email, Chat)

Each channel has its own page under Channels. Voice, tone, and greeting come from Personality & character; the channel pages cover what Elva can do on that channel, how she verifies patients, where she hands off, and channel-specific touches like signatures and quiet hours.

Shared across every channel

What Elva can do — the same actions as the Capabilities grid, but just this channel’s column. Toggle actions on or off; edits here also update the master grid.

How Elva verifies patients — choose which verifiers she’ll accept before sharing chart info. Elva needs the patient’s name plus at least one of:
– Phone number — last 4 digits. Quick and the most patient-friendly.
– Date of birth — month, day, and year. Highest confidence, slightly more friction.
– ZIP code — 5-digit ZIP on the record. A useful fallback when DOB isn’t recognized.
– Full name — exact match including spelling. The lightest method, useful for low-risk channels like chat.

Warm transfer rules — each rule pairs a topic Elva watches for with where she sends it. On the Call page, each rule also includes a phone number to transfer to, and Elva briefs the receiver before connecting. On SMS, Email, and Chat, a matching rule creates a note for staff to review (and on Chat, Elva sends a friendly transition message to the live-chat team). Add a rule with Add transfer rule / Add escalation rule, or remove one with the trash icon.

Call settings

The Call page (titled Phone channel) has the shared sections: What Elva can do on phone calls, How Elva verifies phone patients, and warm transfer rules under When Elva hands the call to a human — the only channel where each rule includes a destination phone number.

SMS settings

The SMS page adds SMS signature and timing:
– Signature — appended to outbound texts Elva initiates (skipped on replies in a continuous thread). Keep it short.
– Honor quiet hours for outbound texts — pauses outbound texts during your quiet window; inbound conversations are still answered any time.
– Quiet hours start / Quiet hours end — in 24-hour format. Outbound texts queue after the start time and resume at the end time.

Email settings

The Email page adds Email signature, response time, and acknowledgments:
– Signature — appended to every outbound email; multi-line is fine.
– Target response time — how fast Elva aims to reply during business hours (Within 5 minutes up to Same business day).
– Auto-acknowledge new emails — sends a quick “we got your email” within 30 seconds of receipt.

Chat settings

The Chat page (titled Web chat channel) adds Welcome message and offline coverage:
– Welcome message — shown the moment the chat widget opens.
– Pre-chat form — asks for the patient’s name and phone before the conversation starts; useful when you want callable contact info.
– When the practice is closed — what Elva offers when a patient wants a human and the front desk isn’t staffed: Offer to schedule a callback, Take a message via the chat form, or Direct to the phone line.

How to add a warm-transfer rule for clinical questions

1. Go to the channel’s page — for example, Settings ▸ Call.
2. Scroll to the warm transfer section (on Call, When Elva hands the call to a human).
3. Click Add transfer rule.
4. In the topic box, describe what to watch for — for example, “Clinical questions that need a provider’s judgment.”
5. On the Call page, enter the phone number to transfer to.
6. Save your changes.

How to set quiet hours for texts

1. Go to Settings ▸ SMS.
2. Scroll to SMS signature and timing.
3. Turn on Honor quiet hours for outbound texts.
4. Set Quiet hours start and Quiet hours end in 24-hour format (for example, 21:00 to 08:00).
5. Save your changes. Outbound texts now pause overnight; inbound texts are still answered.

Saving and discarding changes

Your edits stay pending until you save — nothing reaches live calls before then. The moment you change anything, a green dot marks each edited field, the sidebar status switches to Unsaved changes, and a bar slides up from the bottom of the screen reading You have unsaved changes, with a count of how many fields you’ve updated.

From that bar:
– Save changes — applies your edits to live calls and clears the pending state.
– Discard — throws away your edits and returns everything to the last saved version.