This article is for organisation admins. Individual clinicians can set their own defaults in their own personal Preferences tab.
What are organisation-wide defaults?
Organisation-wide defaults are settings that apply to every new user who joins your organisation. They save your team from having to configure Lyrebird individually from scratch - particularly useful when onboarding multiple clinicians at once.
Defaults can be changed at any time, and they do not override settings a clinician has already personalised.
Accessing organisation defaults
Sign in to Lyrebird and go to Settings
Select Organisation → Preferences
You will see 2 columns against each settings:
New User Default - this determines the configuration which will apply to users automatically when they join the organisation.
Restrict User Changes - turn this on if you want to lock this setting so people within the organisation cannot change it own their individual account's preferences.
Default settings you can configure
Default note type
Set the note template that loads automatically when a clinician starts a new consult.
Options: SOAP, Chief Complaint, Multiple Complaints, or any custom template your organisation has created.
Recommendation: Set this to whichever template the majority of your clinicians use for standard consultations. Individual clinicians can switch templates mid-consult if needed.
Default visit type
Set the default visit type that loads at the start of each consult.
Options: In-person, Telehealth, Phone
Default note storage period
Set how long completed notes are retained before automatic deletion - this can be adjusted based on your preference and can be found under the "When should Lyrebird delete saved items?"
Option | Use case |
24 hours | Maximum privacy — notes deleted the following day |
7 days (default) | Sufficient time to retrieve and transfer notes to your EMR |
14 days | Longer access window for busy clinicians |
6 months | Maximum retention — useful for practices with review workflows |
NOTE: All notes are permanently deleted at the end of the retention period. Ensure your team transfers notes to your EMR or patient file before the period expires.
Default consent setting
Configure whether patient consent is pre-set to Yes or left to be confirmed per consult.
Overriding defaults at the individual level
Any clinician can change these settings in their own Settings panel, given the Restrict User Changes toggle is not ticked.
Personal settings take precedence over organisation defaults and are not affected when organisation defaults change.