An intake form is the short questionnaire you send a client before their first visit. Allergies, conditions, what they want from the session, the things you want to know before they walk in. ApptOnly handles the form-builder, the sending, the reminders, and the storing.
How forms are connected to services
A form is attached to a service (or to several services). When a client books that service, ApptOnly checks whether they have a complete, recent response on file:
- If they do not, an email goes out asking them to fill it before the appointment. They can also fill it later from their booking confirmation.
- If they already submitted one within the lookback window, ApptOnly does not nag them again. The lookback window defaults to one year and is configurable per form.
You can attach the same form to multiple services if it is your "first-visit intake," or scope a specialized form to a single service (a deep-tissue intake that asks about pressure preferences, for instance).
What the client sees
The client gets an email with a link to the form. The form opens on a clean page with no login required. They answer the questions, hit submit, and that is it. Their answers are tied to their profile.
If they do not finish, the link stays valid until the appointment. ApptOnly sends a reminder a day or two before the visit if they have not submitted yet.
What you see
On the appointment detail in your dashboard, you can open the client's intake response inline. If you want the responses in a single feed, the Intake Forms section has a submissions tab where every response is listed in time order, with quick filters by form and date.
Editing a form after it has been sent out
You can edit a form at any time, but the rule of thumb is: do not delete or rename existing fields if you can avoid it. Past responses keep the field labels they were collected under. Adding new questions is safe and applies to future responses only.
When forms are not the right tool
For one-off questions that change visit to visit ("anything in particular today?"), an intake form is overkill. Use the booking notes field instead; it shows up on the appointment without sending the client a separate task.