---
title: "Turn on Front desk"
summary: "Activate the add-on, connect a number, set the greeting and your hours, then go live. Ava answers your phone from then on."
source: https://practor.app/en-za/help/ava/turn-on-front-desk
published: 2026-09-14T06:45:13.790Z
updated: 2026-09-29T07:14:58.980Z
category: "Ava"
---

Front desk is Ava on your practice phone. Setting it up lives under **Settings → Front desk**, and the page opens with **Finish setting up Ava**, a checklist of six steps with the percentage you've reached. Three are required, three shape how Ava behaves, and the optional ones are badged **OPTIONAL** on the list.

The settings under the checklist sit on five tabs, so each step below says which one to open.

| Tab | What's on it |
| --- | --- |
| Persona | **Greeting** |
| Availability | **Business hours**, **Who can answer transfers**, **Call handling** |
| Skills | **What Ava can, and can't, do** |
| Plan | **Ava front desk**, **Phone numbers** |
| Activity | **Recent calls** |

## Activate the add-on

A monthly subscription, with call minutes charged on top of it as you use them. The checklist won't clear without it.

![The front desk page, with its six-step checklist](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/front-desk/checklist.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#1440x900 "Three steps are required and three are optional.")

## Connect a phone number

On the **Plan** tab, **Phone numbers → Add a number** takes a country code and, if you want one, an area code. That number is what callers dial to reach Ava.

Until you connect one the card reads **No number connected**, and Ava has nothing to answer.

Releasing a number later asks you to confirm, because the number goes back and callers who have it will no longer reach you.

## Personalise the greeting

**Greeting**, on the **Persona** tab, holds a **Standard greeting** and an **After-hours greeting**. Write `{practice_name}` anywhere in either and Ava says your practice name there.

Optional. Ava uses a greeting of her own if you leave them alone.

What you write is only the opening. Ava always says two more sentences after it, in these words:

> Just so you know, I'm an AI assistant and I keep a written transcript of our call.
>
> Are you a new patient at your practice's name, or an existing patient?

Neither can be removed or reworded, so there's no need to write your own version of either. The first is why a caller is told about the transcript on every call.

![The greeting card, with a preview of what a caller hears](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/front-desk/greeting.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#848x696 "The preview shows the two sentences Ava adds.")

## Set business hours

**Business hours**, on the **Availability** tab, decides which greeting a caller gets. Outside them, Ava switches to the after-hours one.

Optional, and worth pairing with **After hours: messages only** under **Call handling** if you don't want colleagues' phones ringing out of hours.

## Choose who answers transfers

**Who can answer transfers**, on the same **Availability** tab, lists the team members Ava can hand a caller to. She only rings the ones who are online when the call comes in.

Optional, though a practice with nobody on the list can never take a transfer. Ava takes a message instead.

![The list of colleagues Ava can transfer a caller to](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/front-desk/transfers.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#846x290 "Each colleague has their own switch.")

## Go live

**Answer inbound calls**, under **Ava front desk** on the **Plan** tab, starts Ava taking calls.

The checklist counts this as done only when answering is on and the **Emergency kill switch** is off, so a practice that has flipped the switch reads as not live.

## The rest of the page

**Call handling**, at the foot of **Availability**, is one card in two halves. **Abuse protection** holds the allowed country prefixes, the blocked numbers and the daily call-minute cap. **Transfers & retention** holds how long a transfer rings and how long transcripts are kept.

**Skills** is one card, **What Ava can, and can't, do**, listing her capabilities and the guardrails on them. **Activity** is **Recent calls**, the last few, with the whole list under **Front desk → Calls**.

Above the tabs, a strip shows whether Ava is answering, the number connected, and the call minutes used against what the add-on includes.

## Related

- [What Ava can do](/help/ava/what-ava-can-do)
- [Set up your practice](/help/getting-started/set-up-your-practice)