Network, messaging and self-booking link errors when working from home/laptop

This issue happens when working from home or on a laptop. Even though you're connected to the Health and Social Care Network (HSCN), you may see an error saying "wrong network" or some parts of the tool may not work correctly.

Many NHS services require your computer to be on the HSCN. Computers at a practice are usually on this network by default, while laptops or devices used outside the practice connect to it via a VPN.

HSCN is a secure, high-performance, scalable private network that supports the exchange of healthcare data across NHS and social care organisations - essentially a private network for the NHS that isn't accessible via the internet.

When you connect via VPN, your IT department sets explicit routing rules, for example:

Traffic from tool X goes via this route (which leads to the HSCN)
Traffic from anything else (e.g. public websites) goes via this other route (which leads to the internet)

If the Abtrace Proactive Monitoring tool isn't working correctly from home, it's likely because its traffic is being routed to the internet instead of the HSCN. This means your computer can't communicate with our APIs - the part of our infrastructure that makes the tool work.

How to fix

Your IT department needs to update the VPN rules so that traffic from the Proactive Monitoring Tool is routed via the HSCN. This sounds technical, but it's a quick fix.

Simply email support@abtrace.co and we'll send you a list of our current API addresses. You can forward this to your IT department (feel free to copy us on the email) and ask them to route traffic to these addresses via the HSCN.