What you’re looking at
eSignatures is a tab of Forms, and it is where everything you have ever sent out for signature lives, newest first, in one list. It used to be two places — a Signed documents tab, and before that a Documents page of its own. Both are part of eSignatures now, the links your clients hold still work, and old links to either open this tab. Each row is marked with what it is:- Signature request — a document prepared with the signing builder. Selecting the row opens its tracking page. See Prepare a document for signature.
- Document — a consent form, intake or agreement sent from one of your templates with the earlier signing links. Its ⋯ menu offers View, Resend and Download.
A practice that has sent nothing sees “Nothing has been sent for signature yet.” and the Send a document for signature button.
Send a document for signature
Select Send a document for signature. The sheet lists the documents you have prepared — select Send beside one to choose who signs it — and offers Upload a new document to prepare another. See Prepare a document for signature. To send one of your consent, intake or measure templates to a client, use Intakes on their chart (below). Send a document for signature never starts a document from a template.Resend a document
On a Document row, select ⋯ → Resend. The document opens with the client and its content already filled in; check them and select Send Document. It goes out again as a new document with its own 30-day link, and appears at the top of the list. The earlier link keeps working until it expires or you revoke access to it from the client’s chart.A template you have converted to a form is sent as that form. Once you have used Convert to form on a template and published the form, the template can no longer be sent as a document — from Resend, from the Intakes sheet, from an assistant or from an appointment default. You are told which form replaces it: ““Consent for Treatment” has been converted to the form “Consent for Treatment”. Send the form instead — the old document can no longer be sent.” A template that has not been converted keeps sending as before.
Send an intake pack from the client’s chart
For a new client it is usually faster to send everything at once. Open their chart and select Intakes in the header. The Send intakes sheet walks through three steps — the client, Compose email, then Review & send. Step one groups the library into Forms, Signable documents, Consent documents, Clinical outcomes & measures, Questionnaires & intakes and, when you have any, Clinical templates; tick what you want. If your practice has saved packs in Settings → Patient Experience → Sharable Documents, Packs comes first: select a pack’s Add all and everything in it that can go to this client is ticked at once, with Required before visit already set where the pack asks for it. Anything the pack cannot send now — a form that is not published, or a document that is not ready to send — is named in the message rather than left out quietly. Nothing is sent until you finish the sheet. Forms lists your published forms that go to a patient or by private link — a public form or a staff-only form is not listed — and is only shown when you have some — a form is not a document to sign, so ticking one sends that person their own form link instead. An empty consent list reads “No consent templates found”, and the measures section needs the Essential plan. Signable documents lists your signature request templates that are ready to send — the document has finished preparing, with at least one signer and one field placed on it — and any of them can be ticked. One that is still being prepared is not listed until it is ready, the same rule Sharable Documents uses. A template that only this client signs goes straight to them. A template that needs someone else to sign as well — a witness, a second signer, a clinician — asks you who on the next step, under Who signs each part (see below). A template with no part for the client to sign says so: “Has no part for the client to sign — add a signer to it in Signable documents.” Anything this client already has and has not finished says so under its name: “Already sent and still open — remind them from their chart instead.” It is not sent a second time if you tick it — use Send a reminder on their chart. If the client has no email address on file, a consent document or measure cannot be ticked, and says why: “This goes by email only, and this person has no email address on file. Add one to their chart to send it.” Forms and signature requests can still be sent — see How below. Move on with Continue to email. Under For each item, every ticked item has its own settings:-
How — Email a link, or, for a form, one of three more:
- Portal only — no email puts it in the client’s portal to-do list instead. It only appears when the client has portal access or you are giving it to them in this sheet.
- In person, on this device creates their form without emailing it. After you select Send documents the sheet stays open with Open on this device beside the form — select it and hand them the screen.
- Print a blank copy downloads the published form to print. Nothing is sent and nothing is tracked, so it never shows as outstanding.
- Who signs each part — for a signature request with more than one part. The client’s part is chosen for you. For every other part choose A specific staff member, A named person outside the clinic (their name and email address) or, when you opened the sheet from an appointment, The appointment’s provider. A witness also says whose signature they witness. Each of them is emailed their own link when it is their turn. Until every part has someone, the sheet names what is missing and does not move on to the review. In person, on this device needs the client to sign first — if another part signs before them, send it by email or to the portal instead.
- Complete by (optional) — the date you are asking them to finish by. For a signature request, the link stays open at least until that date.
- Reminders — for a signature request sent by email: Send the usual reminders, or Don’t send reminders if you would rather chase them yourself. The review shows “No reminders” beside it.
- Required before visit — only when you opened the sheet from an appointment, and only for a form or a signature request. It puts the item at the top of that appointment’s Forms & documents list and on the check-in sheet until it comes back. It is not offered for Print a blank copy, which leaves nothing to come back.
Send from an appointment
On an appointment’s Forms & documents list — in the appointment’s details, or on the check-in sheet once an appointment is chosen — select Send to patient. The same sheet opens for that appointment’s client, and what you send is tied to that appointment, so it appears on its list with how it is going. The button does not appear for an appointment with no client record. When the client is at the desk and a signature request on that list is still open, its ⋯ menu offers Sign in person. You are asked first — “The link already sent to this patient will stop working, and they will sign on this device instead.” — and then the signing page opens on this device, where you confirm who they are before they sign. Then write the Email subject and Email message, and select Review & confirm. The review lists every item with how it will go and, where you set one, its complete-by date — for example “Email a link · Complete by 20 September 2026” — so you can check each one before you select Send documents. The review step shows how long each item stays open before you send, and every interaction is logged.When part of it does not go
You are told what actually went, not what you selected. “Sent 1 of 3 items” means one went, and the reasons for the other two stay on screen with the remedy for each:- No email address on file — add one to their chart, or hand them the form in person.
- They already hold a live link to this — use Remind or Resend on their chart rather than sending a second one. Two links to the same form give you two answers and no way to tell which is current.
- That form has stopped accepting answers — reopen it or extend its deadline first.
Track what happens next
On eSignatures, a Document row’s ⋯ menu offers View (what was sent and where it has got to), Resend and Download (a PDF of the document, marked as not yet signed when it is not). Download is not offered on a cancelled document. Signed by on a signed document — in View and in the downloaded PDF — is the name the person signing typed, which is not always the client: a parent or guardian signs under their own name, and then Sent to shows who the document was sent to. A document signed before September 2026 whose typed name was never kept shows “Name not recorded” in the PDF a client downloads. On the client’s chart, a document row offers View details, Revoke access while it is still waiting, and View access log — the full access record for that document: every time it was opened, by whom, and from where. It is kept for seven years and is a different thing from the timeline on View details, which shows only when the document was sent, opened and completed.Documents on the client’s chart
The Documents & forms tab of a chart holds two things. Health Records is a vault for files you hold about the person — an empty one reads “Vault is empty”, and Select files to upload (or Store File) adds to it.Opening a file
Select a file (or its ⋯ menu → View) to open it in the secure viewer, right there in the tab — nothing downloads to your device just to look at it. A photo or scan opens with zoom, rotate and fit-to-window; a PDF is paginated with a thumbnail rail down the side; a Word document (.docx) shows as formatted text, with a note that formatting may differ slightly from the original; a plain text or Markdown file shows as text. A .doc file (the older Word format) has no preview — you’re offered Download instead. Every open is on your seven-year audit trail.
Every page you view carries a faint, repeating watermark with your name, this practice’s name, and the date and time — it’s there so a copy that leaves the screen (a photo of it, say) can still be traced back to who viewed it. It shows on screen and on anything you print; it is never added to the stored file itself.
Downloading or printing a copy
Download and Print (in the viewer, and Download from a file’s ⋯ menu) both ask you to confirm first: a downloaded or printed copy leaves this secure record, may end up on a shared or unencrypted device or on paper, and you’re responsible for protecting and deleting it afterwards. Select I understand — download (or — print) to continue. Both are logged, separately from the view itself.Viewing a file already sends it to your browser — the setting below only covers saving a second copy. Opening a file in the viewer works the same way as everything else in the chart: it’s the same practice you’re already trusted with. Allow staff to download patient files, in Settings → Security, decides who may go a step further and keep a copy — turn it off and only the practice owner and a manager can still download or print; everyone else can still open and read the file, just not save it. It’s owner-only, and it’s a deterrent, not a lock on the file — anyone who can view a screen can still photograph it.
Share a file with the patient
Every file in the vault starts private. To let the patient see one themselves, open its ⋯ menu (or the secure viewer’s header) and select Share with patient — it appears in their portal under Files, where they can view it in the same kind of in-app preview and download it at any time; a shared file shows a green Shared with patient label wherever it’s listed. Stop sharing, from the same menu, removes it from their portal immediately. A file you’ve marked sensitive can’t be shared — the menu explains why. Share the file once the sensitivity mark is cleared, if that’s appropriate for this record. Below the vault, Sent & Shared is one list of everything this person has been sent — forms, consent documents and signature requests together, in one set of words. Until something has been sent it offers Send documents to sign as a second route into the same intake sheet. Under each item’s name is its date: Due and the Complete by date you chose for a form or a signature request, Overdue in amber once that date has passed and it is still waiting, or Link expires for a consent document. The same date shows on an appointment’s forms checklist. Each row carries its own actions; see Everything one person has been sent. Clients with portal access can also open and sign from there — see Documents to sign.Who can do this
Role decides whether Forms opens. Permission decides whose documents you may see and whether you may send at all.
Two behaviours surprise people:
- Enforcement is opt-in, per person. A colleague never saved in the permissions sheet is unrestricted; the sheet warns “Saving starts enforcing”.
- A denied action is recorded; an allowed one is not. Hiding Forms from a sidebar is a convenience, not a security boundary.
Check it worked
The document is on eSignatures, marked Document, at Sent. When they open it the status becomes In progress, and once they sign it becomes Completed and the signed copy is on their chart’s Documents & forms tab.Common issues
Converted to the form — send the form instead
Converted to the form — send the form instead
You have converted that template to a form and published it, so the template is no longer sent as a document. On the Intakes sheet it is shown as converted and cannot be ticked; tick the form in the Forms group instead. An appointment default that still names the template sends nothing until you choose Use this form here in Settings → Patient Experience → Sharable Documents.
This patient does not have an email address
This patient does not have an email address
Documents are delivered by email. Add an address to their chart in Clients and send again.
Send Documents Limit Reached
Send Documents Limit Reached
Sending documents for signature needs the Essential plan or above, and Client Intake Sharing on the intake sheet needs it too. Sharing scored outcome measures needs Essential. See Change your plan.
The document expired before they signed
The document expired before they signed
On eSignatures, use ⋯ → Resend on the document, or Resend portal link on the client’s chart. Either gives the client a fresh 30-day link.
The client says they never got the email
The client says they never got the email
Ask them to check spam first. If it is genuinely missing, confirm the address on their chart, revoke access to the outstanding document and send a new one. A client with portal access can open it there without the email — see Turn on the client portal.
FAQ
How long does a client have to sign?
How long does a client have to sign?
It depends on what you sent, and the review step shows it for each item before you send. A document from your templates stays signable for 30 days; after that it shows Expired and needs resending, which issues a fresh link. A form or a document sent for signature stays open for the time set on it.
Can I send several documents at once?
Can I send several documents at once?
Yes — use Intakes from the client’s chart and tick everything in one pass.
Does the client need a portal account?
Does the client need a portal account?
No. The emailed link is enough. A portal account simply gives them a second way in, and somewhere to find it again later.
Can I edit a document after sending it?
Can I edit a document after sending it?
No. Revoke access to it and send a corrected one — the client’s link dies with it, so tell them another is coming.
Where does the signed copy live?
Where does the signed copy live?
On the client’s chart, under the Documents & forms tab, alongside anything you have uploaded about them yourself.