Digital Forms

1. How to Copy Questions from One Form to Another

Are you looking to save time by copying specific questions from one of your intake questionnaires to another? To do this follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to "My Forms" and open the form you want to copy questions from.
2. Select the questions you want to copy by checking the box to the left of each question.
3. Click on "Copy to" (the red menu item that appears) and select the form that you want to copy the questions to.

Just to make sure it's looking right, go to the other form (the one you copied the questions to) and if you need to move the newly added question up/down, follow the instructions in the following article: How to Rearrange Questions

2. How to Get the Public URL of an Intake Form

To get the public URL of an intake questionnaire (or form package), which allows you to integrate your intake forms with your website as well as other uses, follow these steps:

1. Go to "My Forms" in the top menu bar.
2. Click on the name of the intake form you want to add to your website, which opens the form template editor.
3. Click on "... > Get URL".
4. Check the option that says "I want this intake form to be accessed through my website".
5. If your organization has more than one practitioner, choose which practitioner submitted forms should be routed to.
6. Use the given URL to create a link on your website, add one to an email, or for another purpose.

In order for mapped fields to populate forms automatically, you will need to check "Require Email Verification". However, if you're using devices in your office, you can instead choose to “Authenticate the Office Device" to enable this feature.

In case you want to redirect your clients back to your website after they have completed and submitted the form, read the following article: Redirect Client After a Form is submitted.  

3. Adding a Custom Header to Your Forms

It's easy to create your own custom form header without knowing anything about HTML.

To create a default header for all your intake forms, navigate to "More > Settings", check the box that says "Enable Custom Header" and then click on the button titled "Header Helper". You will be presented with the form below:

As you can see, you can fill out your contact information, upload and resize your logo, choose background and text colors, and include social media icons. Once you click on the button "Use this header", the header HTML will be created and added to the text editor. This allows you to make any other tweaks you may find necessary.

If you'd like this header to be used on the downloadable PDF version of your forms, as well as in treatment notes, please see the following article: Custom Headers in PDFs. 

4. How to Send More Than One Form at Once

If you want to send more than one form to a client at once, you can do that by creating an intake package that includes all the forms that should be sent together.

An intake package is made of any combination of at least one form - may it be Intake Questionnaire or Consent Forms. You can have unlimited Consent Forms attached to one Questionnaire. There are four possible scenarios, and we will cover all of them below.

A) Package containing one Questionnaire + any number of Consent Forms:

1. Navigate to "My Forms" and click on the desired Intake Questionnaire.
2. Click on the "Consent Forms" button located on the toolbar.
3. Check the forms you want to attach to the Intake Questionnaire (they will appear in the order they are ticked).
4. Click on "Save".

B) Package containing more than one Questionnaire (with or without any Consent Forms attached to it):

1. Create a new Questionnaire by going to "My Forms" and then clicking on the green button "Create New" that is under "Intake Questionnaires" - enter a name for it, this will be the new form basis for the Package.
2. Now go back to the menu "My Forms" and click on the Questionnaire you wish to have its content included on the Package.
3. Tick the very first box (right by the form's name) on the top left.
4. Click on the red button that says "Copy to" and choose the newly create form - you will have the whole form copied to the new package.
5. Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 with the second (and so forth) form you want to add to this package.
6. If you also want to attach Consent Forms to the package, go back to it, click on "Consent Forms" and tick the boxes for such forms.
7. Click on "Save".

C) Package containing parts (not the whole) of different Questionnaires

1. Create a new Questionnaire by going to "My Forms" and then clicking on the green button "Create New" that is under"Intake Questionnaires" - enter a name for it, this will be the new form basis for the Package.
2. Now go back to menu "My Forms" and click on the Questionnaire you wish to have its content included on the Package.
3. Tick the boxes to the left of each of the questions that should be copied to the new package.
4. Click on the red button that says "Copy to" and choose the newly create form - you will have all these questions copied to the new package.
5. If you wish to add certain questions from another form to the package, repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 with the other form's content.

D) Package containing no Questionnaires + any number of Consent Forms

1. Create a new Questionnaire by going to "My Forms" and then clicking on the green button "Create New" that is under "Intake Questionnaires" - enter a name for it, this will be the new form basis for the Package.
2. Click on the "Consent Forms" button located on the toolbar.
3. Check the forms you want to attach to the Intake Questionnaire (they will appear in the order they are ticked).
4. Click on "Save".

Consent forms will show up at the top of your intake package by default, but some users prefer them to be at bottom, after the main questionnaire. To move the consent forms to the bottom, see the following article: How Do I Place Consent Forms at the Bottom of an Intake Package?

If you have Rules/Skip Logic applied to a questionnaire, those won't be copied with the questions, but you can re-add such rules by following instructions in the following article: Conditional Questions and Skip Logic

5. Interactive Form Mode

IForms has an interactive form mode, which presents your questionnaire in a Wizard style (i.e. one question block at a time).

Benefits of Using Interactive Mode

• Reduces cognitive load by allowing the user to focus on a single question block at a time.
• Interactive forms have been shown to be more engaging and less overwhelming.
• Performs better on slow devices.
• Most less tech savvy users find it easier to click next than to scroll down.
• When returning to an existing form, user will automatically start in the page they had left off. 

When Not to Use Interactive Mode

• If your audience is more tech savvy, and your forms are long, the classic mode may be preferred.
• The interactive mode is not optimal when a form requires the user to move back and forth between questions.

How to Enable Interactive Mode on a Form

To enable the Interactive Mode for a form, navigate to My Forms, open a questionnaire template, then click on "... > Settings" and check the box "Enable Interactive Mode".

Tips for Optimizing Your Forms for Interactive Mode

The general tips for improving your forms still apply to the interactive mode (things like like removing unnecessary questions, using rules to keep the form compact, etc). In addition, these two tips will help improve your interactive forms.

• Instead of starting with a question or consent form, make use of the Form Intro feature to show your clients a welcome message before they begin filling out your form.
• In the Interactive Mode, the "Section Title" block type will be placed on its own page. In the classic long form mode, section titles are useful to break questions down into groups, but in the interactive mode, they become less necessary. When converting a form to the interactive mode, pay close attention to the section titles and ask yourself if they are still necessary.

6. How Do I Send an Intake Form to a Client?

To send an intake form to a client, follow the steps below:

1. Log in to IForms.
2. On the dashboard, click on the big orange button named "Send Form to Client".
3. Select the appropriate form from the dropdown list.
4. Type the client’s name and email.
5. Optionally, you can add a note to your client. This note will be displayed above the first question of the intake form.
6. Click on "Send Form".

That’s it. You’ll be notified when your client completes the form.

If you need to see the form you just sent, click on "Lists > Intakes" and search for the client name.

You can also send forms by adding forms to your website, or by placing a link to forms on an iPad/tablet device.

7. How to Create Intake Questionnaires and/or Treatment Notes

This guide will go through the various tools you have at your disposal for creating and editing intake questionnaires and/or treatment notes within the IForms system. Intake questionnaires are forms that you send to clients, while treatment notes are forms you use internally to make notes on a client's timeline. Each of these follow the same basic creation/editing template, just take note that some sections won't apply to treatment notes.

1. Getting Started

When you first start creating a new intake form, it's very typical to want to ask your client for their personal details. Most want this information to populate into the client profile, so we created a question preset to save you time. Below you'll see the initial screen you'll see when creating a new form, to add the initial block of client questions, click the green "Add Contact Information Section" button.

2. Adding Questions

To add a question to your form, click on the large green "Add New Question" button in the top right corner of the screen. You will be given numerous choices of the types of questions you can place on your form, hovering over the "example" link will show you a sample of what that question type can do.

Below is more information on each of the various questions types:

• Mixed Controls: This question type gives you the ability to add numerous questions into one block. You can arrange the questions as you wish, setting their size and layout. You can make individual questions required, and map them to the client profile as well. The options for the question types you have are: Text box, check boxes, radio buttons, date, email, address, phone, numeric, dropdown, multi-select dropdown, large text box, and paragraph. For more information read the following article: Mixed Controls for a Better Layout
• Open Answer: This would be a simple text box for clients to type information into. It defaults to a one line text box, but you can enable a larger text box by checking "Provide multiple lines for answer".
• Multiple Choice - Single Answer: This is a simple radio button question where clients are presented with numerous selections and can only choose one of them.
• Multiple Choice - Multiple Answer: This is a simple check box question where clients can choose multiple selections (as many as needed), not just a single one.
• Matrix - Single Answer per Line: This question allows you to setup table style questions, where your clients can select one response per line. You are able to "Enable Score Calculation" as well, which gives you the ability to assign a score to each response, and display the total score at the end of the question.
• Matrix: This is a more robust version of the single line matrix question. Here you are still using the table style questions, but can set each column to have a different input type (i.e. text box, date, numeric, radio button, etc.). Clients would be able to provide a response in each of the columns (except if using radio buttons).
• Section Title / Note: This option isn't a question, but is used to create section titles or notes throughout your intake form. Entering text in the "Section Title" box will present it on your form in a larger font, this would be used to denote sections of an intake. Adding text into the "Section Text (Optional)" box will display this as normal text on your form, stylized in a grey background to make it stand out.
• File Attachment: This question type allows your clients to attach files to your forms. They will be presented with a button that will open up their computer's file finder, where they can select the file to attach. If you want to allow clients to attach multiple files, check off the "Allow multiple files" setting. Here is a guide on using this question type: Using File Attachments
• Smart Editor: This question type allows for more advanced functionality, such as adding HTML and other code (take note that not all code will work).
• e-Signature: This question adds an e-signature field to your form for clients to sign. You can add multiple signatures to a form, and describe what they are for in the "Text" section. if you want the date that the client signed on to display on PDF printouts, check the "Display Date field on printed forms" setting. Here is more information on this question type: Things You Can Do With the E-Signature Question Type
• Body Map / Drawing: This question type available in intake questionnaires and treatment notes allows you to add certain body map and other images to your forms that clients can draw on. This is typically used to denote specific ailments on the body, but any image can be used so it can be used in varying use-cases. Learn more here: Body Map / Drawing Questions

3. Rearranging Questions

During the form creation or editing process you may want to move your questions up and down, this is explained below:

Main Questions: Click on the bars and drag them up or down.

Items Within Questions: Click on the up/down arrows in the question option menu (blue gear).

4. Question Options

Each question type has various question options that can be set. The below image shows how to access these options for each question, the settings differ based on the type of question you're editing.

Here is a complete list of all the options you will see across various question types:

• For Office Use Only: If you check off this option, the specific question you're editing will not be visible to the client who is completing the intake form. You'd use this in the instance where you want to add questions to forms that only you or your staff would complete after the client has submitted their completed intake form. More information on this process can be found here: Questions "For Office Use Only"
• Pin To Client Profile: This option will make it so that when a client submits the intake form, that specific question and it's response gets added to the client timeline as a "pinned note". You can learn more about how pinned notes work in the following article: Pinned Notes
• Start on a New Page (PDF): This option will force the current question your editing to start on a new PDF page, which means that in the PDF printout a page break is added just before the question. Some people use this to ensure that a certain section of their intake form can be printed and stand on it's own, apart from the other questions on the form.
• Start on a New Page (Web): On longer forms you may want to break up some questions, forcing the client to hit the "Next" button to view the next set of questions. By default we break up long forms into multiple pages to ensure there aren't loading issues, but this option allows you to force a page break where needed.
• Columns: For both of the "Multiple Choice" question types, you are given the ability to set how many columns you'd like the option selection to appear on. The default is 3, but you can manually set it to 1 or 2 as well. Changing this setting can better layout questions that have longer option names.
• Display Score to Client: This option is used on a "Matrix - Single Answer per Line" question in conjunction with the "Enable Score Calculation" setting. Checking this will display the score total at the bottom of the question (i.e. Score: 10 out of 30). Read more on this here: Rating Scales
• Show Grand Total: This option is used on a "Matrix - Single Answer per Line" question in conjunction with the "Enable Score Calculation" setting. Checking this will display the grand total score at the bottom of the question (i.e. Grand Total: 30 out of 50). The grand total adds up all score totals of any matrix questions before it, so long as you didn't set to display the grand total on a previous question. Each time you display the grand total it resets and starts counting a new grand total again for the next set of matrix questions with score calculation enabled.
• Duplicate Columns: This option is available on "Matrix" questions only. It is used to save space on PDF printouts by allowing the system to show the numerous rows in side-by-side columns. For more details and to view how this will look, see the following article: Duplicate Matrix Columns

5. Attaching Consent Forms

Often times you will not only have an intake questionnaire, but you'll have documents that your clients need to sign-off on as well. These are typically things like company policies, payment agreements, consent for treatment forms, etc. Attaching consent forms creates what we call an "intake package". When you send the intake form to your client, they'll be presented with not only the form questions, but links to view and sign-off on the consent forms. Below are the steps for creating an intake package:

1. Click on "Consent Forms" in the top blue bar.
2. A pop-up will display all of the consent forms created within your account. Select (check) them in the order you want them to appear on your intake form.
3. Click "Save" to complete the attachment of the consent forms, and you now have an intake package.

By default consent forms show at the top of your intake questionnaire, but you can move them to the bottom if needed:  How Do I Place Consent Forms at the Bottom of an Intake Package?

6. Conditional Skip Logic / Rules

Sometimes there are sections of an intake form that are conditional based on previous responses from the client. For example, if you have an intake form with a female only section, you can use our "Rules" feature to only show these questions if the client selected female as their gender.

To add/edit/delete rules, navigate to "... > Rules". Selecting "Add New Rule" will prompt you to set the parameters of the rule. You can edit existing rules by clicking the blue pencil button to the right of the rule, or delete a rule by clicking on the red button with an "x" in it.

Below is a sample of a rule that will display Question #3 only if the client has selected female as their gender.

For more information on conditional questions and skip logic, read the following article:  Conditional Questions and Skip Logic

7. Form Settings

There are various other form settings that will adjust certain aspects of how a form looks or functions. To access these settings, from the form editing mode click on "... > Settings".

Below is a rundown of the options you'll be presented with and what they will do on your forms:

• Form Name: This is the name of your form, you can change it if you'd like.
• When form is submitted, redirect client to: This would be used if you want to redirect clients to a specific website after they submit your form. By default after they submit a form they'll be prompted to sign out and can then simply close down the browser tab/window.
• Enable Interactive Mode: This is an alternative way to display your intake forms, showing only one question at a time in the browser window. It's especially useful on mobile as it drastically reduces the amount of scrolling your clients would have to do. For more information, read the following article: Interactive Form Mode
• Show consent forms at the bottom, instead of top: By default your attached consent forms display at the top of your intake form, if you check this option they will display at the bottom instead.
• Hide progress indicator: This will hide the progress indicator that tells clients what percentage of the form they have completed.
• Hide default instructions: By default we add instructions to the top of intake forms. If you'd prefer to add your own instructions or remove them completely, check this option.
• Can be completed by responsible party: Checking this option will add a prompt before a client completes a form. This prompt will ask them if they are completing the form themselves, or if they are completing it for someone else (I'm the parent, guardian, or power of attorney).
• Hide Print button: This option will disable the ability for clients to fill out the form by hand as it removed the print button entirely. For more information on the option to allow clients to complete forms by hand, read the following article: Offline Response Notification (Fill Form by Hand)
• Make this form available as a Note Template: Enable this option if you want the form to be available for use as both an intake questionnaire and a treatment note. For more information on treatment notes, read the following article: Treatment Notes and Patient Timeline
• Don't share this form with other practitioners in my organization: This is used to stop other practitioners on your team from accessing the form. By default if you're the administrator of a multi-practitioner account, your forms are shared with all other practitioners. This option disables that sharing on a per-form basis.
• Prevent other practitioners from changing this form: Similar to the option above, this is used in a multi-practitioner account to prevent others on your team from editing the form. They'll still be able to send it to their clients, but they won't be able to edit the questions unless they were to create a duplicate copy to edit on their own account.
• Allow client to download intake after submission: This option will give your clients the ability to download the completed intake form as a PDF once they submit it.
• Invitation Email: This section is used to customize the invitation email that clients will receive when you send them an intake form manually via email. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard in your main account settings if you'd like.
• Confirmation Email: This section is used to send clients a custom confirmation email after they submit an intake form. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard in your main account settings if you'd like.
• Custom Header: If you'd like a specific header to display at the top of your intake for, you can set this here. You have the tools available to add your logo, contact information, social media accounts, etc. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard header for all forms in your main account settings if you'd like.
• Mappings: This screen shows you all of the client profile mappings setup on your form. A mapped field is a question that is set to populate a specific part of a client's profile when the form is submitted (i.e. Name, Birth Date, Gender, etc.). You can adjust the mappings as you'd like on this screen, or also from the individual items that are part of any Mixed Controls questions. For more details, read the following article: Mapping Intake Form Fields to the Client Profile
• Advanced: This section gives you various other more advanced options. If you have any questions in regards to these settings, feel free to contact us and we'll be happy to help!

8. Sending Intakes to Your Clients

Now that you've created and edited your intake form/package you'll be looking to get it to your clients. We have setup an article that will show you all of the ways this is possible:  How to Get Your Intake Forms to Your Clients

8. "For Office Use Only" Questions

Forms allows you to mark questions as "office use". These questions will be hidden when your clients are filling out the forms, and you’ll be able to complete them after the form is submitted by the client. Here is how to do it:

1. Locate the form you want to work with under "My Forms" menu.
2. Click on the form to open its editor.
3. Select the appropriate question on the left panel.
4. Click on the settings icon on the top of the right panel.
5. Tick the "For office use only" box

Completing Office Use Questions

Once your client has submitted the form, you can fill out the questions that were marked for office use. To do so, open the client intake form on IForms and locate the "Edit Intake" button.

Clicking the "Edit Intake" button will open the intake form in edit mode and only the questions that were marked for office use will be editable.

Only questions marked for office use can be edited.

Alternatively, you can just print the form and fill out those questions by hand, if that’s part of your process.

9. Require Email/Phone Confirmation for Your Public Forms

IForms offers two ways to get an intake form in front of your clients. You can send them a private invitation through IForms or use your form's public URL.

The only drawback to making your forms public is that anyone can log in and submit them, even if they are not your clients. If you use our forms in your website, you can require that your clients confirm their email address or phone number before initiating the intake.

Note: The system will use the client's phone number to send an SMS in situations where they don't have an email address on file (they'd need a phone number on file in that case).

This method offers 3 advantages:

1. Authenticating the user email/phone helps validate the user’s identity;
2. It prevents spammers from filling out your forms;
3. The client can come back to complete an unfinished form at anytime.

The obvious drawback of enabling this confirmation is that now your clients will need to perform an extra step in order to fill out your form.

This is how it works:

IForms offers two ways to get an intake form in front of your clients. You can send them a private invitation through IForms or use your form's public URL.

The only drawback to making your forms public is that anyone can log in and submit them, even if they are not your clients. If you use our forms in your website, you can require that your clients confirm their email address or phone number before initiating the intake.

Note: The system will use the client's phone number to send an SMS in situations where they don't have an email address on file (they'd need a phone number on file in that case).

This method offers 3 advantages:

1. Authenticating the user email/phone helps validate the user’s identity;
2. It prevents spammers from filling out your forms;
3. The client can come back to complete an unfinished form at anytime.

The obvious drawback of enabling this confirmation is that now your clients will need to perform an extra step in order to fill out your form.

This is how it works:

How to Enable It

1. Locate the form you want to enable email confirmation to under "My Forms" menu and open its editor.
2. Click on "... > Get URL".
3. Check the box that says "I want this form to be accessed through my website or tablet ".
4. Check the box that says "Require email confirmation" and then click "Close".

10. Authenticating Office Devices

Authenticating office devices is useful if your clients are filling out intake forms in your office using iPads or other tablets.

There are 3 office scenarios in which this will help:

1. When a client started to fill out a form at home and wants to resume it at the office. Normally, the client would need access to the original email containing the form link and the access code in order to resume the form. Now, if your device is authenticated, you can simply open the public form in your tablet and hand it over to the client. All the client will need to do in order to retrieve their pending form is to enter their name and email address.
2. When a form in your tablet needs to pull information from the client profile or pinned note. When using a form's public URL, the client only needs to enter their name and email to start the intake. Since no passwords are involved in this process, IForms will not auto-populate the form using information from the client profile, as this would not be considered secure. However, if the device is authenticated, IForms will pull information from the client's profile or pinned note.
3. When, for some reason, the client gets signed out of the form before completing it. When this happens, the client would try to log back into the form, but in order to resume the pending form, we would need to authenticate them. We normally do this by sending them an email with an access code. This can be inconvenient because your client may not have access to their email inbox while in your office. Now, if your device is authenticated, we can skip the patient authentication step, and all they need to provide to log back into the form is their same name and email.

To sum it up, if your clients are using your tablets to fill out forms in your office, authenticating these tablets will make the process easier.

How to Authenticate Office Devices

We assume you have already followed the steps to add forms to your device. If not, follow this article before proceeding.

First we need to indicate which forms will be used in your office devices.

1. Open the form(s) you use in your office tablets.
2. Click on "... > Get URL".
3. Check the box that says "Enable Secure Office Access".

Secondly, you need to go to each device that your patients use to fill out forms in your office and authenticate them.

1. Open the form from a device you want to authenticate.
2. Locate and click on the "Authenticate this device" link at the bottom of the login page.
    

3. You will be redirected to a page asking for your IForms email and password. Enter your credentials and click on Authenticate.
4. When going back to the login page, you should see "Device Authenticated" written at the bottom of the page.
    

That's it. Now your clients can use your office devices to resume pending intakes or have information pulled from their profile to pre-populate their forms.

Security Remarks

It's worth noting that, as is often the case, there is a slight degree of risk associated with this increased convenience. So it's important to be aware of the risks and know how to minimize them.

When a device is authenticated, it means that a client using this device can retrieve an unfinished form just by using their name and email address. Note that even though no client information is stored in the device itself, the device works as a key to open unfinished forms, as long as the correct name/email combination is entered. There are a few things we can do to reduce the risk of information breach.

1. Protect the device with a password.
2. Keep the device under close supervision and leave it in a secure place during off hours.
3. If an authenticated device is lost or stolen contact us immediately so we can de-authorize it from our end.
4. Make sure that you are not using any auto-fill plugins, add-ons in your browser. Also, disable any built-in auto-fill features in the browser.
5. For increased security, you can de-authorize the device at the end of the business day and re-authenticate it in the morning. To de-authorize a device, simply clear the browser cookies.

11. Conditional Questions and Skip Logic (Rules)

Forms supports simple skip logic, which gives you the ability to hide or show certain questions or consent forms based on a specific answer. You can set up skip logic on a multiple choice question and indicate which questions/forms should be hidden or visible. This covers most scenarios we’ve seen so far in the forms we have converted. This will also work with radio button questions in the mixed control question type.

Setting up Conditional Rules

Let’s look at an example of how skip logic can be used:

First, create all the questions in your form, including the ones that are conditional. Make sure the conditional questions come after the questions that will determine their visibility.

Suppose we have a simple multiple choice question: “Are you pregnant?” When the patient selects “Yes”, you want to ask 3 additional questions.

Open the rules screen by clicking on "... > Rules" (shown below).

Then click on the "Add New Rule" button and set the parameters like in the image below.

As you can see, this is a simple IF/THEN logic that you can use to hide/show questions and consent forms based on how your client answers certain questions.

In case you are using conditional logic to hide/show consent forms, make sure to move them to the bottom of the questionnaire.

As you set it up, you can use the form preview to test your conditional logic.

Rules can also be used to add or remove Client Tags, or to assign clients to practitioners automatically.

12. Insert Input Fields/Forms Into a Consent Form

Insert Field

It's common to have consent or agreement forms that require some extra input from a patient besides their signature. Here’s an example of a consent form with extra input fields:

To insert input fields in your consent forms, locate the "Insert Field" button on the toolbar, then select the appropriate field and it will be placed at the current cursor position.

When in edit mode, you will notice that Forms inserts a placeholder for each field. Examples of placeholders are:

{!text}, {!check}, {!opt}

These place holders will be replaced by actual input controls when the form is displayed to your clients.

Insert Form

Forms lets you easily create custom consent forms containing fill-able fields without the need to know any HTML.

Most of you are already familiar with rich text editors, which allow you to do basic document formatting (changing font size, colors, etc.). Sometimes, you may need to include fill-able fields inside the same document. Let’s look at a simple example of how to create a consent form that contains fill-able fields.

To create the form above in IForms, first, navigate to the Consent Forms page and create a new form named "HIPAA Release Form".

You can then start the form from the top down and create the centered title with a big font size. Now we need to insert a fill-able form section containing the patient name and date of birth. To accomplish this, we need to click on the Insert Form button.

This will open a dialog where we are able to build a mini form, much like we do in the Mixed Controls question type in the Intake Form Editor.

In this case, we need 2 text boxes. The first one (patient name) will be wider than the second (date of birth). So we’ll add the 2 text boxes, enter their labels and click on the settings icon to configure their widths.

We’ll also mark these fields as required, so the form cannot be submitted if they are left empty.

Once we click on "Add Fields", you’ll notice that a block containing some weird markup is added to the consent form. Don’t worry about what’s inside the block, this is just the markup that IForms will interpret to display the appropriate fields in the web consent form, or PDF document.

Now just follow similar steps to add the remaining fields.

The final result will look like this to your clients:

13. How to Create Consent Forms 

This guide will go through the various tools you have at your disposal for creating and editing consent forms within IForms. Often times you will not only have an intake questionnaire that your client needs to fill out, but you'll also have documents that your clients need to sign-off on. These are typically things like company policies, payment agreements, consent for treatment forms, etc. Consent forms get attached to your intake questionnaires so that clients can sign-off on them while completing the other questions as part of the "intake package".

This guide refers to our standard consent forms, we also offer a "Native PDF" option for consent forms that allows you to use your own PDF form and simply add fields directly to it. Read more about that in the following article: Native PDF Consent Forms

1. Getting Started

When you first start creating a new consent form, you're given a blank box from which to work with. If you're familiar with creating intake questionnaires and/or treatment notes, this will be very different. Consent forms are meant to be more text-based, generally with less client input. Below you'll see the initial screen, which consists of the form name, settings, and the content box:

2. Consent Form Settings

There are various settings that you can enable or disable on your consent forms as required, below explains what each is used for:

• Enable e-Signature: This option will add an e-signature field to the bottom of the consent form that your client will have to sign-off on before submitting the intake package (it defaults to being required). Clicking on the "Customize" link will allow you to signify who should be signing the form (i.e. Client, Patient, Guardian, etc.) and give you space to add a note to it as well. Please note that for each of these e-signatures, the system will add "Signature" after the custom "Signee Title", so you do not need to add this yourself.
• Enable Provider e-Signature: This is a secondary e-signature option that is not displayed to your clients, instead it's only shown in the back-end of the IForms system for practitioners. You would use this in cases where a practitioner needs to also sign-off on a specific consent form. Take note that only those who login to IForms as a practitioner, and have access to the specific client who submitted the form, will be able to sign these types of e-signatures. Read more on this in the following article: Provider Signature in Consent Forms
• Enabled Assistant e-Signature (Witness): This is another secondary e-signature option that is not displayed to your clients, instead it's only shown in the back-end of the IForms system for assistants. You would use this in cases where an assistant in your office needs to sign-off on a specific consent form as a witness. Take note that only those who login to IForms as an assistant, and have access to manage the specific client who submitted the form, will be able to sign these types of e-signatures. Read more on this in the following article: Adding Witness or Assistant Signatures
• Make Signature Optional: This option applies to the main "Enable e-Signature" option described above. By default when you enable that signature setting, clients will be forced to sign the form before they can submit the intake package. If you want to make it so their signature is optional, check this box.
• Disable Form Header: If you have a custom header setup for your intake forms but want to disable them on your consent forms, enable this option. This is also useful if you want to add a custom consent form to the top of your intake questionnaire to serve as a "header."

3. Adding Form Content

The "Form Content" box starts out as a large empty box with no text in it, and a black toolbar at the top. This is where you will enter the contents of your content form, all of which your clients will see when they access it in your intake package. The various functions and how they work are described below:

1. HTML View: This option will toggle the editor from Visual mode to HTML mode. Use this if you need to add HTML and some other types of code into your consent forms. Please note that not all forms of code are supported.
2. Format: Use this option to style text using various presets. This is a great tool to use for styling titles, the options "Heading 1-4" are best used for that.
3. Bold: Highlight text and click this option to have it display as bold.
4. Italic: Highlight text and click this option to have it display in italics.
5. Underline: Highlight text and click this option to underline it.
6. Strikethrough: Highlight text and click this option to display it with a line through it.
7. Lists: This option will create an unordered (bullet) or ordered (numbered) list. You can use the "Indent" and "Outdent" options to create or remove sub-lists within a main list.
8. Image: Use this option to add an image to your form.
9. Table: Use this option to add a customizable table to your form. A table is used to display data in rows and columns, many use it to line up columns of text or numbers. After adding a table, additional options will appear that allow you to add/remove rows and columns as needed.
10. Link: Highlight text and click this option to add a hyperlink to another website into your form. In the "Insert List" pop-up, one important setting is "Open link in new tab" as you'll generally want to enable this. If you don't, when a client clicks the link you have created it will load in the same browser window that your form is in, taking the client away from your form.
11. Line: This option inserts a "horizontal rule line" into your form. These are sometimes used to break up text into sections, or denote something of importance.
12. Align: This option allows you to change the alignment of text or images on your form. To use it, simply click on the text or image that you want to align, select the option, and then choose the alignment you want. You can choose from Align Left, Align Center, and Align Right. Please note that we are aware of an issue with this feature in the editor. If you setup alignment and then hit "backspace" or "delete" on your keyboard the alignment will all revert back to left. Because of this, we recommend only setting the alignment of elements at the end of creating a consent form.
13. Text Color: Highlight text and click this option to change the color of your text, or add a highlight behind it.
14. Size: Highlight text and click this option to change the size of it to your liking. If you want to revert back to the default font size, scroll to the bottom of the font size list and select "Remove Font Size." If you're creating a section title I would suggest looking to the "Format" option described further up, as these presets generally work better for this purpose.
15. Additional Signature: This option is used to add additional signatures to your forms that are displayed to your clients. One use-case for this would be if you needed to add a Parent/Guardian signature, as an example. When you click this option you are presented with the ability to denote who the signee is, set a note for the signature, and make it required or not. If the signature is set as required, the  client will not be able to submit the form without signing off on this signature section. Read more on this in the following article: Adding Multiple Signatures to Consent Forms
16. Insert Field: This option is used to add fields to your form that ask for input from the client, such as a box for them to enter their name, birth date, or any other information you need from them. You can add check boxes in cases with the client needs to select multiple items from a list of options, or radio buttons in cases where the client only needs to select one item from a list of options. One of the more useful tools here is the ability to add an "Initials" box. These are small boxes you would use in scenarios where your clients have to initial certain sections of a form, not just sign the bottom. They are displayed with an arrow on the left or right (your choice) and can be required or not. Read more on this in the following article: Insert Input Fields/Forms Into a Consent Form
17. Insert Form: This option is used to add a form section inside of your consent form, which allows you to setup various questions for your client to answer. This is similar to inserting a field, though there are more layout options to keep things in line. Please note that once you have completed adding form fields and have the layout set, you cannot modify it at a later time. Read more on this in the following article: Insert Input Fields/Forms Into a Consent Form
18. Fullscreen: This option makes the form content editor take up your entire browser window for a larger view of what you're creating/editing.
19. Placeholders: Placeholders allow you to enter variables into a consent form that are populated with client data. Read more on this in the following article: Placeholders in Consent Forms

4. Sending Consent Forms to Clients

Once you have completed the creation of your consent forms, you'll want to start using them either as part of an intake package, or by sending them directly to clients. Below are links to articles that will explain how to perform these actions:

• How to Send a Consent Form to a Client
• How to Create an Intake Package
• How to Have a Client Sign Only Consent Forms

We'll gladly make edits on your behalf, or even convert your paper forms into digital ones for small fee. Contact us for more information!

14. Using File Attachment

Support for file attachments is a powerful tool that allows clients or practitioners to upload files to intake questionnaires and treatment notes. Let's look at the different ways this can be accomplished.

1. Adding a File Attachment to an Intake Questionnaire

This allows you clients to upload files when filling out your intake forms. Each file attachment is limited to 15mb per file. In order to set this up follow the steps below:

• Create a new intake questionnaire or open an existing one.
• Click "Add New Question".
• Select the question type as "File Attachment".
• Add a description to the question (i.e. Please Enter Your Blood Work).
• Check the following options as needed:

1. Is Required: This will make it required that a client signs this signature box before they can submit the form.
2. Allow multiple files: This allows you to add multiple files in the same question type.
3. Display text box at the end for further explanation: This adds a single line at the bottom of the question that allows the client to make a note after uploading the file.

2. Allowing the Office Staff to Upload a File to a Client Intake Form

The next way to set up a file attachment is to add it to an intake questionnaire but mark the question as "For Office Use Only". This will allow you to attach files to the form after the client has submitted it. Use this in any circumstances where you would like to keep the file attachment in the same form as the client's intake questionnaire. To set this up, follow the steps detailed above, and follow the final step as mentioned below:

• Click the "Question Options" button and check the box "For Office Use Only" as shown below:

Now you can use this note template in the client timeline to upload files to a client record.

15. Anonymous Forms

Anonymous forms are excellent for surveys, polls, or feedback forms. They differ from regular forms in a few ways:

• Anonymous forms are not saved before they are submitted, so there is no way to resume an existing form.
• Anonymous forms do not have a sign in page. Their URL will lead straight to the form page.
• As you would expect, anonymous forms are not associated with a client record.
• Anonymous forms will not show up in the homepage dashboard, to view them navigate to "Lists > Intakes".
• Anonymous forms don't support the following question types: Attachment, Signature and Drawing Question.
• Anonymous forms don't support consent forms.

How to Make a Form Anonymous

To make a form anonymous, simply open the form, click on "... > Get URL", enable public access, and check the option "Enable Anonymous Submissions".

Then just copy the URL and share it with whoever you want to fill out the form. Note that you can still use the same form in a non-anonymous way by sending it to a client through IForms.

Analytics

When using anonymous forms for surveys, make sure to take advantage of multiple choice questions as those can be seen in the Analytics section and will give you a nice report like the one below.

16. Can Clients Download a Copy of their Signed Forms?

Clients can download a copy of their signed forms as a PDF file. This is an option that can be enabled or disabled on each intake questionnaire/package you create.

To enable this feature please follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to "My Forms" and open the desired intake questionnaire.
2. Click on "... > Settings".
3. Check that box that says "Allow client to download signed consent forms".

Now, when your client submits an intake package, they’ll be presented with the option to download any signed consent forms.

17. How to Partially Fill Our a Form Before Sending it to Clients

A consent form might need to be partially filled out before it’s sent out to be read and signed by clients. In such cases, there are two options: Customizing the Consent Form or Using Mapped Fields to automatically populate the form.

Customize a Consent Form

1. To locate the consent form you want to customize, navigate to "My Forms".
2. Select the consent form you want to edit.
3. Edit the form as you please.
4. Make sure your changes are saved (the "Saved" button on the left will appear greyed out when it's saved).

Attach the newly customized consent form to an intake form (if it’s not attached yet):

1. Navigate to "My Forms" and click on the intake form you want to link the consent form to, opening its editor.
2. Click on "Consent Forms".
3. Check the box with the customized form and click on "Save".
4. Send the intake package (intake form + consent form) to your client by clicking on "Send to Client", entering the required information and then clicking on "Send Intake Form".

Next time you need to edit the form before sending it out, repeat the steps above.

Using Mapped Fields

1. Add editable fields to the consent form by clicking "Add Field > Text Box".
2. Click on the newly created fields, and add a custom mapping to the form. You can learn how to map fields and create custom mapped fields in the following article: Mapping Intake Form Fields to the Client Profile
3. Edit the client's timeline and enter the information into the client's timeline.

When the form is sent to the client, the system will automatically fill the fields with information from the client's profile/timeline. If the client is starting the form from a public URL, you will need to ensure that Require Email Verification is enabled for the auto-fill to work.

18. Native PDF Consent Forms

Forms offers a new style of consent forms that allows you to maintain the exact layout of your existing PDF document. You simply upload your PDF file, drag and drop fields and signatures onto it, and you are ready to go. 

The animation below shows how easy it is to upload your PDF and prepare the template by placing the fields in their respective spots.

19. Rejecting an Intake Form

Sometimes you may need to send an intake form back to your client, asking them to update or fix something. IForms allows you to do that by using the "Reject Intake" feature.

The following steps show how this works:

1. Open the completed intake form and click on the "Reject Intake" button.
2. In case you want to add comments to individual questions, answer "Yes" to the question below:
3. Forms will display an "Add Comment" button for each question. Create the necessary comments and click on "Continue" at the bottom of the page.
4. Before sending the form back, you’ll have the chance to include a message to your client, explaining why you’re sending the form back.
5. Your client will receive the form back, along with your comments and instructions.

This other animation shows what your clients see on their end when they are filling out this type of form.

When to Use the Native PDF Format?

• When you want to keep the exact layout of your original PDF document.
• When you don't want to spend any time adjusting the layout of the document.

When Not to Use the Native PDF Format?

• When you want to have a credit card form (from Stripe/Square) in your consent form.
• When you want to be able to quickly edit the form inside IForms without having to edit the original PDF.
• When you need to use radio buttons in the consent form.
• When you need to map date fields back to the client profile.

How to Create a Consent Form Using the Native PDF Format?

To create one of these types of forms, simply select the option when creating a new consent form, as shown below.

Just as with classic consent forms, you can add native PDF consent forms to your intake packages, or send them individually. You can also mix both types of consent forms in your intake package.

Mapped Labels

Within a Native PDF Consent form you can add mapped labels that are used to display specific information from a client's profile on the form, such as their date of birth, gender, etc.

You'll see this as an option to add to your form in the left menu, simply drag it into place and then click the cogwheel icon to adjust what it's mapped to, as shown below:

 20. Body Map / Drawing Questions

This question type available in intake questionnaires and treatment notes allows you to add certain body map and other images to your forms that clients can draw on. This is typically used to denote specific ailments on the body, but any image can be used so it can be used in varying use-cases.

Adding a Body Map / Drawing Question

1. Navigate to "My Forms" and select the form you want to add the question to and click the box to open the editor.
2. Add a new question, selecting the question type "Body Map / Drawing".
3. Type in the question you'd like to ask clients in the "Question" section (optional).
4. You'll then be presented with an option to select the type of body map or diagram to use.
5. Depending on the selection, you may want to add in legend items, or upload your own image.

Body Map / Diagram Types

Body Map 1: Allows the client to select specific sections of the body as shown in the example below.

Free Drawing (Body 1): Allows the client to free draw on the body diagram. You can setup different colors on a legend that clients can select from to denote different issues.

Free Drawing (Body 2): Same functionality as the previous option, but with a different image.

Free Drawing (Custom Image): This options functions in the same way as the above two do, but the system allows you to upload your own image. Just be sure to resize the image before uploading to ensure it fits in your form properly.