The i-consult dashboard lets you see every patient episode in one place, create episodes manually, and check where each patient is up to. This is a quick orientation to what's on it.

```callout kind="success"
**The dashboard is optional, and most clinicians never open it.** Because the structured history flows into i-scribe automatically, you don't need the dashboard for day-to-day work. Open it only when you want to look deeper. For how the everyday flow works, see **How i-consult fits your day**.
```

```video provider="selfHosted" media="3"
```

## The episode list

The **Dashboard** is the main screen. It lists your patient episodes in a table with these columns:

- **Patient**: the patient's name.
- **Appointment Date**: when their appointment is scheduled.
- **Status**: where the episode is in its lifecycle (see below).
- **Clinical Focus**: what the questionnaire is targeting.

If you're a secretary, you'll also see a **Clinician** column showing which clinician each episode belongs to.

If you haven't created anything yet, you'll see an empty state: *"No patient episodes found"* with *"Create your first patient episode to get started."*

```image media="1" caption="The i-consult dashboard: each row is a patient episode, with its appointment time, status and clinical focus."
```

## The Status column

The **Status** column tells you, at a glance, where each episode is up to. The labels are **Pending**, **Completed**, **Declined**, and **Under Review**.

```callout kind="info"
For exactly what each status label means, see **What the episode statuses mean**.
```

## Filters and search

To narrow the list down:

- **Search**: use the *Search by patient name...* box to find a specific patient.
- **Status filter**: filter by **All Statuses**, **Pending**, **Completed**, **Declined**, or **Under Review**.
- **Clinician filter** (secretaries only): use the **All Clinicians** trigger to focus on one clinician's patients.
- **Clear Filters**: reset everything back to the full list.

## Create Patient Episode

The **Create Patient Episode** button (top of the dashboard) lets you add a patient manually, for example when an appointment wasn't synced automatically from your EMR. You enter the patient and appointment details, and i-consult schedules the questionnaire SMS for you.

```callout kind="info"
For a full walkthrough of the form fields, see **Create a patient episode manually**.
```

## The status stepper

Open any episode to see its **status stepper**, a visual track of how far the patient has progressed, in this order:

```steps
1. **Created**: the episode exists.
2. **SMS Scheduled**: the questionnaire link is queued to send.
3. **SMS Sent**: the patient has been sent their link.
4. **Chat Started**: the patient has begun the questionnaire.
5. **Chat Completed**: the patient has finished answering.
6. **History Generated**: the structured history is ready (and is in i-scribe).
```

```image media="2" caption="An episode's status stepper, from Created through to History Generated."
```

This is handy when you want to know whether a patient has engaged yet, or whether their history is ready to review.

## Where to go next

- For the everyday, no-dashboard workflow, see **How i-consult fits your day**.
- To understand the status labels, see **What the episode statuses mean**.
- To add a patient by hand, see **Create a patient episode manually**.