Embodiments of the present invention may allow each of the surgical steps of a surgical procedure to be defined and associated with a function of the surgical console using a GUI. The defined surgical procedure can then be saved and later invoked by a user of the surgical console to conduct the surgical procedure. When the saved surgical procedure is invoked representations of the defined surgical steps are displayed to the user using a GUI so the user can conduct the surgical procedure by navigating through the representations of the surgical steps such that when a representation of a surgical step is selected the surgical console is configured according to the functionality associated with that surgical step.