Setting Up Intake Forms

Intake forms collect health history, consent and contact details before a client arrives. Build a form once, attach it to the appointment types that need it, and it goes out with every booking. You read the answers on the client's profile before you see them.

Step 1: Open Intake Forms

Go to Settings, open the Notifications & Templates tab and click "Intake Forms". This area is for clinic owners and admins. Each form in the list shows whether it's Active, how many have been completed and are pending, and which appointment types it Applies to. The three icons on the right open the form builder, the form's settings, and archive the form.

The Intake Forms list with three active forms, Progress check-in, Treatment Consent and New Patient Intake, the last two applying to the Initial Appointment, each with completed and pending counts and the build, edit and archive icons

Step 2: Start from a template

Click "Use Template". The templates are written for Chinese medicine: TCM Comprehensive New Patient Intake covers medical history and the Ten Questions; TCM Treatment Consent covers the modalities you use, and there are focused forms for pain, digestion, stress and anxiety, female and male fertility and a Work Injury, and three follow-up forms: a Quick Follow-up Form, a Menopause Check-in and a Cycle Check-in. Click "Use Template" on the one you want and it opens in the form builder, ready to change.

To start from nothing instead, click "New Blank Form", give it a name and click "Create & Build".

The Choose a Template window with the TCM Comprehensive New Patient Intake, the TCM Treatment Consent and the condition-specific intakes, each with a Use Template button

Step 3: Make it yours

The form builder shows your form in the middle exactly as your client will see it, the field types down the left, and the settings of whatever you pick on the right.

Click a field type to add it. It goes in under the field you've picked, or at the end.
Click a field on the form to pick it, then change its Question, Help text, Placeholder and whether it's Required. For radio buttons, checkboxes and dropdowns, type the choices under Options.
Drag a field by the handle on its left to move it.
Duplicate copies the field you've picked, and Remove takes it out.
With nothing picked, the panel shows the form's Name and Description.

Every change is saved as you go, and the bar under the form says so. Click "Preview" to open the form the way your client will.

The form builder for New Patient Intake: the field types on the left, the form in the middle as the client sees it with First Name picked, and its settings on the right

Step 4: Use the purpose-built fields

Some field types do more than the ordinary field they look like, so reach for them first:

Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy show the text you've set in your Online Bookings settings (the privacy policy with the section Daobook adds at its end), and record that the client agreed.
Treatment Consent writes its consent wording from the modalities you tick, and you can change it in the panel on the right.
Marketing Opt-in updates the client's marketing preference.
Signature lets the client sign with a finger or mouse.
File Upload lets the client attach a file, such as a referral letter or test results.
Referral Source answers "How did you hear about us?" from your own list of referral sources (Settings → Practice Info → Referral Sources), so the answer counts in your referral reporting.
Measures add a question that feeds one of your measures, a rating such as Pain or Sleep or a Number question for a measurement such as weight, whose answers line up visit by visit on the client's case and profile. See Tracking Progress with Measures.

Step 5: Send answers to the client profile

Pick a question and choose a profile field under Map to client field — date of birth, mobile, address, emergency contact and so on. The TCM Comprehensive New Patient Intake template comes with its contact and personal questions already mapped.

When a client submits, their mapped answers are copied to their profile automatically, and a blank answer never overwrites anything already there. If you'd rather check each form first, turn off Automatically apply answers to the client profile under Messages → Automatic messages → Intake forms.

The settings panel for First Name: Question, Help text, Placeholder, Required ticked, and Map to client field set to First name

Step 6: Choose when it's sent

Click "Settings" at the top right of the builder (or "All settings…" in its panel when nothing is picked, or the pencil icon on the form's row in the list):

Send Via — Email only, SMS only or Both.
Appointment Types — tick every appointment type this form should go out with, such as your initial consultation. With more than one location, the types are listed under each location's name: tick the type at every location that should send the form.
Active (available for booking) and Notify me on completion, which emails you when a client submits.

Click "Save Changes".

A form made from a template starts out attached to no appointment type and set to email only. Until you tick at least one appointment type it shows "Not attached to any appointment type", and it is never sent with a booking.

The Edit Intake Form window with the form name, Send Via set to Both, the Initial Appointment ticked under Appointment Types, Active and Notify me on completion ticked, and a line saying where sending with bookings is set

Step 7: How forms reach your clients

Online bookings — when a client books one of the form's appointment types, the form goes with their booking.
Bookings you make in the calendar — sent when With bookings made in the calendar is ticked, under When they go on Messages → Automatic messages → Intake forms (owners and admins). It's one setting for all your forms. Owners and admins can override it for a single booking with Send intake forms to client in the booking window.
No second copies — if the client already has the form waiting, sent within Send an unfinished form again for on the same page (30 days to start with), a booking sends that same copy again with their answers kept instead of a new one. Each form is checked on its own, so a form they haven't finished never holds back the others.
In the booking confirmation — the form arrives inside the client's booking confirmation email, in a Forms to complete before your visit box at the top with a Complete this form button, so they get one email rather than two. If no confirmation email goes (it's off under Messages → Automatic messages → Booking confirmation, or the client has turned confirmation emails off), the form comes in an email of its own instead. A form set to go by SMS still comes in a text of its own.
Chased by the reminders — every reminder email lists the booking's forms not yet filled in, with the same links, until they're done.

To check what each booking sends, look at Which forms go on Messages → Automatic messages → Intake forms: every appointment type at your location is listed with its forms, and the types that send none are named underneath. Click a form's name to open its settings and change the types it goes with.

Each form that goes out is recorded on the client's Communications tab, whichever email carried it.

Automatic sending follows your automatic messages: while they're paused (the Pause button beside the title of Messages → Automatic messages), or for an appointment type with Send Client Communications unticked, the form isn't sent with the booking.

Step 8: Send one yourself

Open the client's profile and click Intake Forms. Send Email and Send SMS each list your forms; pick one to send it now. Fill Out In-Clinic opens the form on your device, so the client can fill it in at reception or you can complete it with them.

You can send the same form as often as you like. A form the client hasn't finished goes out again with their answers kept; once they've completed it, the next one is a fresh copy, so a check-in form can be filled in visit after visit.

The Intake Forms section of a client profile with the Send Email, Send SMS and Fill Out In-Clinic buttons and a completed New Patient Intake with a download icon at the end of its row

Step 9: What your client sees

The client opens the link on their phone or computer. Anything already on their profile is filled in for them, their progress saves as they go, so they can come back to it, and they finish with "Submit Form".

The New Patient Intake open on a phone, with the client's name and contact details already filled in

Step 10: Read the answers

Completed forms sit under Intake Forms on the client's profile. Click one to open the answers, section by section, or click the download icon at the end of its row for a PDF copy. A form still waiting is listed under Pending Forms as Awaiting completion. If it went out by mistake, or a client who booked several times has extra copies, click Remove beside it: the link your client was sent then says the form is no longer available. A completed form can't be removed; it stays on the profile.

A completed New Patient Intake opened on the client profile, showing the Personal Information answers

Retiring a form

Click the archive icon on a form you no longer use. It stops being sent and leaves the list, and completed copies stay on client profiles. To bring it back, open the ⋮ menu, tick Show archived forms and click "Unarchive".

Tips:

A Word or PDF form can't be uploaded and turned into an intake form. Start from the closest template and change it to match.