Send a form

Copying a form’s link into your own email works, but it tells you nothing afterwards. Sending the form from here gives every person their own link, files their answers against the right patient automatically, and chases anyone who forgets.

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Send it

Each link works for one person, and stops working after 30 days or when the form closes — whichever comes first. If the form has a deadline, the email asks them to answer by that date, and so does every reminder; a scheduled form with no deadline names its close date instead. The invite email carries your form’s colour and logo from Design, so it is recognisably from your practice. If some of the form’s questions are set to fill in from the patient record, a patient you choose from your records gets those answers already filled in, with a note asking them to check. Somebody sent the form by email address alone gets a blank form. See Build a form.

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Sending while the clinic is out of office

If an Out of Office block for the whole clinic is running (or one for the person whose visit the form is for), sending a form or a signature request by email asks first: “The clinic is out of office until date. Send now, or send it when you’re back?”

• Send now sends it straight away, as usual.
• Send when I’m back saves it and sends it shortly after the block ends, between 8 AM and 8 PM in your clinic’s time zone. Nothing is sent if the form is answered or the link is cancelled in the meantime.

Handing a form over in person or putting it in the client portal never asks. Forms and intake packs sent automatically, for example when a visit is booked, wait until the block ends unless Form and intake sends is switched off in the block’s Pause automated reminders section.

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See what happened

The Invites tab lists everybody the form went to: Next reminder tells you when we would chase them, so you know whether to do it yourself. If the form is set to close on a date sooner than the invite would have lasted, the link closes with the form, and the row says so: “This link closes on …, when the form stops collecting.” Move the form’s close date later and the link gets its own expiry back. When a patient you sent the form to finishes it, you get a notification — A form you sent was completed — that opens the form’s responses. It names nobody and no form. If nobody sent it (it went automatically with an appointment), or the person who sent it has left the practice, everyone gets it instead. It follows the Document switch in your notification settings. A long list is split into pages, with Show at the bottom choosing how many people appear on each. On a phone each person is a card, with their status, when the invite went and the three actions below. The tab shows the 200 most recent people the form was sent to.

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Chase, replace, or close a link

Three actions sit on each row, and two of them are not the same thing:

• Remind sends them a reminder with a fresh link to the same form. Use it when somebody has simply forgotten — the link they already have in their inbox still works too, and whichever they use, they can answer only once.
• Resend replaces the link. The one they already have stops working straight away. Use it when the first one went to the wrong address, or into a mailbox they cannot reach.
• Cancel closes the link. Anything already submitted is kept.

We remind people ourselves too: the first chase goes out two days after the invite, a second three days after that, and then we stop. Nobody is chased with a link that has already expired. If the same person is waiting on more than one thing from you — another form, or a document to sign — the reminder arrives as one email listing everything they still have to do, not one email each. Each item keeps its own timing, so something that is not due a reminder yet is not included. When reminders go out, your practice inbox gets one short summary of how many people were reminded and about how many forms and documents, as long as Document notifications are switched on in your notification settings. It names nobody and no form — open your client list to see who is still outstanding.

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Everything one person has been sent

The Invites tab is one form’s list. When you want the other view — everything this patient has been sent, whatever it was — open their profile and select Sent & Shared. One list, in one set of words, covering all three things a practice sends somebody: Each row shows the same states as the Invites tab, when it last moved, and how it was sent. Nothing on it is a link you can copy — opening an item goes through the record itself, which is what keeps the read on your practice’s audit trail. The actions on a row depend on what it is:

• A form can be reminded, resent with a new link, or cancelled — exactly as on the Invites tab, and meaning exactly the same things. While it is still waiting, Complete in person opens the same form on this device for the person to fill in now: you are asked first, and once they submit it there the link they were sent will not take another answer. Once they have answered, Open the response takes you to their answers on the form’s Responses tab, and opening it is recorded in your practice’s audit log.
• A document can be opened for its details, and its access revoked. A document whose link has run out can be resent.
• A signature request opens its tracking page, and a signer who has not finished can be reminded. Voiding one is done on that page, because it needs a reason that becomes part of the record.

Anything already finished, declined or closed offers none of these — there is nothing left to chase, and nobody should be emailed a link to a record the practice has deliberately closed.

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Give a signature request more time

A signature request has two dates, and they do different jobs:

• The last day to sign is when the links stop working.
• The finish-by date is the date you ask people to finish by. Nothing stops working on it — it is printed on the reminders, so a signer knows what you are waiting for. It can never be later than the last day to sign.

Set a finish-by date when you send, with Ask signers to finish by (optional). Tick Use this signing window next time this document is sent and the next request from that template starts with the same number of days. Once one is set, the tracking page says Signers are asked to finish by and the date. When somebody needs longer, open the request’s tracking page and select Extend. Give more time to sign asks for:

• New last day to sign — later than the current one, and no more than a year away.
• Why — The signer asked for more time, Waiting for their appointment, The clinic needs more time, or Another reason. It is recorded with the request.
• Ask them to finish by (optional) — a new finish-by date.

Extending keeps everybody’s link as it is; nobody has to be sent a new one. Whoever it is currently waiting on gets a short email saying they have more time, with no link in it. The confirmation tells you how many people were emailed, or that nobody was — for example when document emails are switched off. A request that has already expired, been completed or been voided cannot be extended; send a new one.

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What the signer sees

The signing page carries your clinic’s name and logo, so the person knows who is asking before they read anything. Somebody who opens a request from an emailed link first passes a quick check that they are a person and not an automated program. Usually it takes a moment and nothing to click. It is always on for signing links and cannot be switched off; it is not shown to somebody signing in person on your device, signing as a member of your team, or coming from the patient portal. If the check does not pass, the page says so and offers Try again, and the link still works. The document appears in full, one page after another, with the boxes to complete highlighted where you placed them. Each box says what it asks for — Sign here, Initial here, Type here, Choose — or shows the label you gave it, and the panel at the bottom of the screen is where the signer answers it. Start takes them to the first box; Next moves on to the box after the one they are on, and the page scrolls so it stays in view. Boxes that fill themselves in — the signer’s name, their email address, the date they sign, details from the patient’s record — are shown in grey and cannot be typed into. Selecting one explains that it is filled in automatically. Finish turns on once every required box is complete. Finish on another device emails the signer a link to their own address, so somebody who opened the request on a phone can finish at a desk. Everything they have filled in is kept. As the page warns them, opening the new link ends the session on the first device. Before anyone signs, the page shows Electronic records and signatures — the statement they agree to so their electronic signature counts. The wording depends on your clinic’s Country (Settings → General): the United States, the United Kingdom, the countries of the European Union, Nigeria and Ghana each add a sentence naming that country’s or region’s electronic-signature law, and every other country gets the general statement. While no country is set, your billing currency (Settings → Billing) decides instead — US dollars, euros, pounds sterling, naira and cedis pick those same statements — so if you bill in a currency that is not your own country’s, set your country. Each version of the text has a version number. The page shows it, it is recorded when the person agrees, and the signing certificate prints it with the law it refers to and which setting chose it — your country, or your currency because no country was set. The certificate also names your clinic, and carries your clinic’s logo at the top when you have one. A document made from a template in the template gallery whose author asks for credit also lists the template and its author, under Template. Adding or changing the logo never changes anything the certificate proves about the signing. A practice with the document seal also gets a digital signature in its own legal name across the whole finished file, added when everyone has signed and the certificate is attached. Open the copy in a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat and its signature panel shows it as signed by your organisation and whether the file has changed since then. It is your organisation’s seal on the finished document, not the personal digital signature of anyone who signed; the certificate of completion is still the record of who did what, and lists it as Digital signature. Without the document seal, the finished copy carries no digital signature and keeps the standard proof — its fingerprint, the certificate of completion and the verification page, which works the same way either way: a copy that matches shows as a match.

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Check it worked

The person appears on the Invites tab as Sent. When they answer, the same row becomes Completed and their response appears on the Responses tab — filed against their chart if you chose them as a patient.

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If something goes wrong