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If every patient booking a particular test needs to sign the same consent form, this tab sends it for you. Pick the documents, switch on auto-send, and they go out at appointment time instead of being handed over at the desk.

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What this tab controls

The card is headed Sharable Documents — “Select which documents are automatically sent to clients during appointments. Toggle Auto-send on individual documents to automate delivery at appointment time.” Documents are grouped into five categories: Consent Documents (“Clinic-created consent & policy forms”), Questionnaires & Intakes (“Pre-built patient intake forms”), Clinical Outcomes & Measures (“Validated scored measurement tools”), Clinical Templates (“Custom note templates repurposed as forms”) and Forms — forms you built in ClinikForms, published and set to go to a patient or by private link. A category with nothing in it is not shown at all. Each row carries a source badge — saved template, system intake or custom note template — and a status of Enabled or Inactive. Non-owners see the list plus “Only clinic owners can change default documents.” — with “You can still tick documents and keep them as a pack from Packs.” for anyone allowed to manage forms.

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Set it up

1

Tick the documents you want as defaults

Work down the categories and tick each form that should be part of your standard pack. The header chip counts them: “{n} documents selected as defaults”.
2

Switch on Auto-send where you want it automated

Selecting a row reveals Auto-send on booking. Ticking a document without this makes it a default you can send by hand; the switch is what makes it automatic.
3

Scope each one to its services

Select Applies to on the row. Leave it on All services for something universal, or choose specific services — “Only send this document when one of these services is booked.” A drug-screening consent has no business reaching someone booked for a blood count.
4

Save Defaults

Select Save Defaults. You get “{n} default documents saved successfully.”

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What changes once you save

Four things to know:
  • Nothing is sent retrospectively. Existing appointments are not touched. The rule applies to bookings made from now on.
  • Un-ticking a row clears its automation too. Deselecting a document also switches off its auto-send and drops its service scoping — re-ticking it starts from defaults again.
  • A document nobody signs is not chased by this tab. Auto-send delivers it; whether it comes back signed is a separate matter you track on the patient’s record.
  • Each save that changes the list is recorded once. The audit log shows it under Appointment Default Documents: who saved it, and how many documents were added, removed or changed. A save that changes nothing records nothing, and the entry never includes a document’s title. When a booking goes out without one of the selected documents — it was not due, could not be sent, or the selection could not be checked — that is recorded too, with the reason and never the title.
Which patients can receive documents at all is governed by the portal — see Client Portal. A patient with no portal access is not reachable this way.
Clinical Outcomes & Measures needs an Essential plan or higher: “Upgrade to the Essential plan or higher to include validated scored measures as default documents.” The other three categories are available on every plan.
Every appointment now carries a Forms & documents list showing what these defaults produced for it and how each one is going — sent, opened, in progress, completed, declined — with anything marked Required before visit at the top. The same list appears on the check-in sheet once an appointment is chosen, where a form that is still open can be finished on the desk’s own screen with Complete in person.

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When it goes, and whether the visit waits for it

A selected row carries one more button beside Applies to and Auto-send on booking: it shows when the item goes (At booking, for example) and opens When it is sent, which holds these controls. Required before the visit does not block anything and does not send a second copy. It puts the item at the top of the appointment’s Forms & documents list and on the check-in sheet, so whoever is at the desk can see what is still outstanding while the person is standing there. See What changes once you save above.

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Move a document to a form

A form is the newer thing: it can be filled in on a phone, it records each answer separately, and it can be tracked against the appointment it belongs to. Older templates cannot be — the desk can see that one was sent, but not whether it came back. Every row that is not already a form carries Convert to form.
1

Select Convert to form

A new form is built from the template’s questions and saved as a draft. Nothing else changes: the template is untouched and this default keeps sending exactly what it sent before.
2

Read what the message tells you

If anything could not be carried across — a question type the old template had no equivalent for, a section that was too long and had to be split — it is named. Open the form and check those before you go further.
3

Publish the form

Open it from the Open ”…” link on the row and publish it. Until then the row reads “Publish the form to switch this default over.”From the moment the form is published — set to go to a patient or by private link — the old template is no longer sent as a document anywhere, including by this default. Go straight on to the next step, or appointments booked in between receive neither.
4

Select Use this form here

The default now sends the form instead of the old document. The old template is still in your library and anything already signed stays exactly where it is.
Convert to form works on templates that hold questions. A template that is a written document — a policy or a consent to read and sign — has nothing to turn into questions, and you will be told so rather than given an empty form. Send those as documents.

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Packs: send the same set every time

A pack is a named set of the forms and documents you send together — for example “New patient”: the intake form, the consent to treatment and a PHQ-9 — with when each one goes and whether the visit waits for it.
1

Save a selection as a pack

Tick the documents, set When it is sent and Required before the visit on each, then select Packs at the top of the card and Save selection as a pack…. Give it a name and select Save pack.
2

Add a pack

Select Packs and choose the pack’s name. Everything in it is ticked with its own timing — nothing is saved until you select Save Defaults. Anything the pack could not add is named: a form that is no longer published, a document not ready to send, or a template you have since converted to a form.
3

Delete a pack

The bin beside the pack’s name. The forms and documents in it, and your saved defaults, stay exactly as they are.
The same packs appear under Packs when you send documents to one client, where one click chooses everything in the pack that can go to them. Who can keep packs. Anyone allowed to manage forms — a manager, for example — can tick documents and save or delete a pack, because a pack changes nothing a client is sent. Only the owner can select Save Defaults, turn on Auto-send on booking, choose who fills each role, or switch a default over to a converted form; for everyone else those controls stay locked and the amber bar says “Only clinic owners can change default documents. You can still tick documents and keep them as a pack from Packs.” On the Team and Enterprise plans the share button beside a pack sends it to the template gallery for review. A shared pack can only contain templates that are already in the gallery — a form made from a gallery template, or one you shared yourself; signable documents and older templates stay in your own packs. A practice that uses a shared pack from the gallery gets a draft of each form in it and the pack itself, ready for them to review and publish.

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When a default is no longer available

A default stays saved even if its form is later unpublished, archived or made staff-only, its signable document is deleted or stops being ready, or its template is removed. Nothing is sent for it when an appointment is booked. Instead of disappearing from the card, it is listed at the top under No longer available, with the reason.
  • Remove strikes it through and says “Removed when you press Save Defaults.” Select Save Defaults and it is gone. Keep undoes that.
  • If you do nothing, saving any other change keeps it exactly as it was, so a default is never removed as a side effect.
  • To bring it back into use, publish the form again or finish preparing the document. It then returns to its section, still selected.
If a document is limited to a service that is no longer in your service list, Applies to says so — “1 service this applies to is no longer in your service list.” — and offers Remove it.

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Check it worked

Book a test appointment against a service you scoped a document to, and check the document reaches that patient. Then book one against a service you deliberately excluded and confirm it does not. The header chip should agree with what you ticked.

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Common issues

“A document limited to services that no longer exist cannot be saved.” A service it was scoped to has been deleted, and saving it would otherwise send it with every service. Open Applies to on that row, choose its services again (or All services if that is what you mean), and save again.
Its form, signable document or template can no longer be sent, so nothing goes out for it at booking. The row names the reason. Publish the form or finish the document to bring it back, or select Remove and then Save Defaults.
A new default has to be something a booking can actually send. A form must be published — not a draft, archived, or closed with no schedule to reopen it — and set to go to a patient or by private link. Publish or reopen the form, or change who it is for, then save again. A default you already had stays on the card if its form later closes, listed under No longer available; the booking skips it, and the audit log says why.
Only a signable document with its recipients and fields in place can be added as a new default. Finish preparing it, or remove the row, and save again.
That template is a written document rather than a set of fields. Keep sending it as a document, or build the form by hand and select it from the Forms section.
The row reads “Publish the form to switch this default over.” A default can only send a form that is published and set to go to a patient or by private link. Open the form, publish it, and come back.
The template behind this default has a published form now, so it is no longer sent as a document. Select Use this form here on the row so the form goes out instead.
Older templates are not tied to the appointment they were sent with, so the checklist can say it went out but not whether it came back. Convert to form is what makes that visible.
You are not the owner — “Only clinic owners can change default documents.” If you can manage forms you can still tick rows and keep them as a pack; saving defaults stays with the owner.
Ticking makes it a default; Auto-send on booking is what automates it. Switch it on and save again.
Its Applies to is set to All services. Open the popover and choose only the services it belongs to.
Only active services are listed, and the empty state reads “No active services found for this clinic.” Create or reactivate the service first.
A category with no documents in it is not rendered. Build the document first, then come back and refresh.
That category needs an Essential plan or above. See Change your plan.