Managing intake forms

Intake forms are shareable documents you can send to clients to collect responses through the Client Portal. You can create custom intake forms or edit a pre-built template to fit your practice’s needs.

Note: If you have a document you’d like clients to primarily read without signing, see Managing uploaded files. If you have a document you’d like clients to read and sign, see Managing consent forms.

Below, we'll cover:

• Previewing and editing your intake forms
• Adding and removing intake forms
• Setting default intake forms
• Adding a note to completed intake documents

Note: For a walkthrough on how to send these documents to clients through the Client Portal, see Sending intake forms and documents to clients and Sharing documents with multiple clients and contacts. For steps on collecting demographic and credit card information from clients, see Sending the Demographics form and Credit Card Information forms.

Previewing and editing your intake forms

To locate your intake forms, navigate to Settings > Documentation > Shareable documents and view your Intake forms section.

All the intake forms here will be available for selection when you share intakes with a client. You can click the 3 dots and select Preview or Edit to view and update an intake form. You can also select Share with clients to share one document with many recipients. 

When you preview an intake form, you can print it by clicking the printer icon.

When you edit an intake form, you'll be able to edit the form to your needs via the template builder, then save this. To learn more, see Adding a new intake form.

Adding and removing intake forms

Note: Some of these features aren't available on the Starter plan. For more information, see Comparing SimplePractice features by plan.

To add and remove the intake forms in Settings > Documentation > Shareable documents, click Manage forms at the bottom of the Intake forms section.

This will take you to the Intake forms section of your template library. Unlike the shareable documents page, not all intake forms in your template library are available for selection when you share intakes. The template library is intended to show all templates that you've created, and/or are interested in using.

To add a pre-built intake form template:

1. Navigate to Settings > Documentation > Template library
2. Click Browse pre-built templates
3. Select + Add to the template of choice

To learn more, see Adding a pre-built template.

To create and customize a new intake form template:

1. Navigate to Settings > Documentation > Template library
2. Click Build new template
3. Make sure to select Intake document as your template type

For more information, see Creating a new template and accessing the template builder.

After the intake form template is in your template library, check the box next to the template name to add it to your shareable documents, and make it available for selection when you share intakes.

Note: You can also click on the template name to edit the template. For more information on managing the intake forms in your template library, see Managing your template library.

You can uncheck the form to no longer include it in your shareable documents. Clicking the trash can button next to it will delete the intake form and remove it from your template library.

Setting default intake forms

You can designate specific intake forms as Default, which will pre-select them when you’re sharing an intake package with a new client. To do this:

1. Navigate to Settings > Documentation > Shareable documents
2. Under Intake forms, check Yes in the Default column

Note: Multiple intake forms can be selected as default.

When you’re sharing documents with a client for the first time, default intake forms will be pre-selected under Questionnaires in the Send intakes page.

Adding a note and signing completed intake documents

When a client completes an intake document, you can add a note to it. This note will appear at the top of the document.

To add a note to a completed intake document:

1. Navigate to the client’s Overview page
2. Click Files
3. Choose the completed intake document
4. Select + Note

5. Type your note
6. Click Save

To add your signature to the intake document, see Sharing and signing completed documentation

Note: There isn’t a way to add a note to a completed intake document that you've signed.