EMMA is Collecting Enquiries But Not Submitting Forms to the Dashboard

Purpose of Document

Form submission failures are one of the highest-volume support tickets across all live practices. When EMMA tells a patient their request has been submitted but nothing appears in the dashboard, practices interpret this as a product failure and lose confidence quickly. Staff must be able to triage this fast, explain it clearly, and resolve or escalate without delay.

Background: How EMMA Submits Forms

EMMA captures patient requests over the phone and submits them to the practice's public-facing online consultation forms. These are the same forms patients use when they visit the practice website directly.

This means EMMA's ability to submit depends entirely on whether those public-facing forms are open and accepting submissions at the time of the call.

There are three form types:

A critical distinction staff must know: the practice's internal consultation tool software (what the team logs into each day) and the public-facing online forms are separate things. The internal tool can be running all day while the public forms are closed to new submissions. EMMA reads the public-facing form status, not the internal tool.

Common Causes and What to Check

1. The practice's public-facing admin or routine form was switched off

This is the most common cause. If the admin or routine form is switched off, EMMA automatically disables herself and all calls route to the surgery. However, if a call was already in progress when the form was switched off, EMMA completes the call and attempts to submit. If the form is now unavailable, EMMA falls back to email.

What to do:

• Ask the practice to visit their own website as a patient would and check whether the consultation form is open
• If the form shows as closed or at capacity, that is why submissions are not appearing in the dashboard
• Advise the practice to re-enable their public-facing form
• Contact our team to re-enable EMMA once forms are confirmed back on. EMMA will not re-enable automatically during the same day
• Remind the practice that admin and routine forms must remain open at all times for EMMA to operate

2. Submissions are going to the fallback email inbox instead of the dashboard

When EMMA is already mid-call and the form becomes unavailable, EMMA submits the patient's details via email to the fallback email address provided during onboarding. These submissions will not appear in the dashboard as normal enquiries.

What to do:

• Ask the practice to check the fallback email inbox configured during onboarding
• If they are unsure which email address was set up as the fallback, check the configuration in the internal system or ask the tech team
• Remind the practice that email fallback is not a standard operating mode. It is a safety net only. Requests submitted via email bypass the triage system and may not be actioned as quickly
• Strongly recommend the practice keeps admin forms on at all times to avoid this

3. The form submission email address for the practice is incorrect or outdated

Several HubSpot tickets (including Custom House Surgery and Newgate Medical) show cases where forms were being submitted to an old or incorrect email address rather than the current triage inbox.

What to do:

• Confirm with the practice what email address they want EMMA submissions sent to
• Check the current configuration in the internal system
• If it is incorrect, update it and confirm with the practice once done
• Test with a submission to verify the updated address is working

4. Accurx form submission failure due to a missing required field

In March 2026 a fix was released after some Accurx form submissions were being silently rejected due to a missing required field in the submission payload. Affected submissions failed without the practice or the patient being notified.

What to do:

• If the practice uses Accurx and is reporting missing submissions with no other obvious cause, confirm whether this occurred before or after March 2026
• If before, this may have been the cause. Reassure the practice the fix has been applied
• If submissions are still failing after March 2026, escalate to engineering with the affected enquiry IDs and the practice's ODS code

5. Medical capacity was reached and the patient was routed away from a form submission

When the medical cap is reached, EMMA does not submit a new medical form. Instead EMMA informs the patient and either offers a routine appointment flow or transfers to reception. No submission will appear in the dashboard for those calls.

What to do:

• Confirm with the practice what their current medical cap is set to
• Check whether the cap may have been reached earlier than expected
• Remind the practice that the cap should be set slightly below their actual clinical capacity to allow for in-progress calls
• Confirm that admin and routine submissions are unaffected by the medical cap

6. The submission was made but is not visible in the dashboard due to a filter or inbox setting

The practice may have received the submission but is not seeing it because of an active filter on the enquiry inbox.

What to do:

• Ask the practice to clear all filters in the enquiry inbox and check again
• Confirm the enquiry type and date range they are expecting to see
• Walk them through using the filtering and sorting options if needed

Step-by-Step Triage Process

1. Ask the practice to describe the issue precisely. Did EMMA tell the patient the form was submitted? Is the dashboard showing zero submissions or just missing some?
2. Ask the practice to visit their own website and check whether public-facing forms are currently open and accepting submissions.
3. Check the fallback email inbox for the practice to see if submissions arrived there instead.
4. Check the configuration in the internal system to confirm the correct submission email address is set.
5. Check whether the practice uses Accurx. If so and if submissions are missing, consider the March 2026 payload fix as context.
6. Check the enquiry inbox filters on the dashboard to rule out a display issue.
7. If none of the above resolves it, escalate to engineering with the surgery name, ODS code, affected enquiry IDs if available, consultation tool used, and a description of what the practice is seeing.

What to Tell the Practice

Keep communication clear and factual. Example wording:

"We are looking into this now. The most common cause is that the public-facing consultation forms were temporarily unavailable, which means submissions were either held back or sent to your fallback email. Can you check whether the forms on your website are currently open to patients? We will also check the configuration from our side and come back to you shortly."

Do not suggest the system has lost patient data until a full investigation has been completed.

Common Mistakes

• Telling the practice nothing was submitted before checking the fallback email inbox
• Assuming the internal consultation tool being open means the public-facing forms are also open
• Not checking the dashboard filters before escalating
• Escalating to engineering without first checking the form status and email configuration
• Confusing a medical capacity cutoff with a form submission failure

Escalation Guidance

Escalate to engineering if:

• All public-facing forms are confirmed open, the fallback email is correct, filters have been cleared, and submissions are still not appearing
• Multiple practices report missing submissions at the same time
• Suspected silent submission failures for Accurx surgeries that postdate the March 2026 fix

When escalating, always include:

• Surgery name and ODS code
• Consultation tool used (Accurx, eConsult, System Connect, Klinik, Anima, AskMyGP)
• Any affected enquiry IDs
• Date and time the issue was first reported
• What the practice sees in their dashboard and inbox
• Whether the fallback email was checked and what was found

Last Reviewed: May 2026 Owner: Support and Customer Success