How to Create Intake Questionnaires and/or Treatment Notes

This guide will go through the various tools you have at your disposal for creating and editing intake questionnaires and/or treatment notes within the IntakeQ system. Intake questionnaires are forms that you send to clients, while treatment notes are forms you use internally to make notes on a client's timeline. Each of these follow the same basic creation/editing template, just take note that some sections won't apply to treatment notes.

To watch a video version of this guide, press play below! Otherwise scroll past to follow along our written guide.

1. Getting Started

When you first start creating a new intake form, it's very typical to want to ask your client for their personal details. Most want this information to populate into the client profile, so we created a question preset to save you time. Below you'll see the initial screen you'll see when creating a new form, to add the initial block of client questions, click the green "Add Contact Information Section" button.

Here is the initial block of "Mixed Control" questions that will be added, you can customize these as needed.

2. Adding Questions

To add a question to your form, click on the large green "Add New Question" button in the top right corner of the screen. You will be given numerous choices of the types of questions you can place on your form, hovering over the "example" link will show you a sample of what that question type can do.

Below is more information on each of the various questions types:

Mixed Controls: This question type gives you the ability to add numerous questions into one block. You can arrange the questions as you wish, setting their size and layout. You can make individual questions required, and map them to the client profile as well. The options for the question types you have are: Text box, check boxes, radio buttons, date, email, address, phone, numeric, dropdown, multi-select dropdown, large text box, and paragraph. For more information read the following article: Mixed Controls for a Better Layout
Open Answer: This would be a simple text box for clients to type information into. It defaults to a one line text box, but you can enable a larger text box by checking "Provide multiple lines for answer".
Multiple Choice - Single Answer: This is a simple radio button question where clients are presented with numerous selections and can only choose one of them.
Multiple Choice - Multiple Answer: This is a simple check box question where clients can choose multiple selections (as many as needed), not just a single one.
Matrix - Single Answer per Line: This question allows you to setup table style questions, where your clients can select one response per line. You are able to "Enable Score Calculation" as well, which gives you the ability to assign a score to each response, and display the total score at the end of the question.
Matrix: This is a more robust version of the single line matrix question. Here you are still using the table style questions, but can set each column to have a different input type (i.e. text box, date, numeric, radio button, etc.). Clients would be able to provide a response in each of the columns (except if using radio buttons).
Section Title / Note: This option isn't a question, but is used to create section titles or notes throughout your intake form. Entering text in the "Section Title" box will present it on your form in a larger font, this would be used to denote sections of an intake. Adding text into the "Section Text (Optional)" box will display this as normal text on your form, stylized in a grey background to make it stand out.
File Attachment: This question type allows your clients to attach files to your forms. They will be presented with a button that will open up their computer's file finder, where they can select the file to attach. If you want to allow clients to attach multiple files, check off the "Allow multiple files" setting. Here is a guide on using this question type: Using File Attachments
Smart Editor: This question type allows for more advanced functionality, such as adding HTML and other code (take note that not all code will work).
e-Signature: This question adds an e-signature field to your form for clients to sign. You can add multiple signatures to a form, and describe what they are for in the "Text" section. if you want the date that the client signed on to display on PDF printouts, check the "Display Date field on printed forms" setting. Here is more information on this question type: Things You Can Do With the E-Signature Question Type
Growth Chart: This is for treatment notes only, see the following article for more details: Child Growth Charting (WHO Standard)
Body Map / Drawing: This question type available in intake questionnaires and treatment notes allows you to add certain body map and other images to your forms that clients can draw on. This is typically used to denote specific ailments on the body, but any image can be used so it can be used in varying use-cases. Learn more here: Body Map / Drawing Questions
Current Diagnosis: This is for treatment notes only, see the following article for more details: Displaying Current Diagnosis Codes within Treatment Notes
Appointment Details: This is for treatment notes only, see the following article for more details: Displaying Appointment Details within Treatment Notes

If you don't want to create questions from scratch there are a few options you have:

3. Rearranging Questions

During the form creation or editing process you may want to move your questions up and down, this is explained below:

Main Questions: Click on the bars and drag them up or down.

Items Within Questions: Click on the up/down arrows in the question option menu (blue gear).

4. Question Options

Each question type has various question options that can be set. The below image shows how to access these options for each question, the settings differ based on the type of question you're editing.

Here is a complete list of all the options you will see across various question types:

For Office Use Only: If you check off this option, the specific question you're editing will not be visible to the client who is completing the intake form. You'd use this in the instance where you want to add questions to forms that only you or your staff would complete after the client has submitted their completed intake form. More information on this process can be found here: Questions "For Office Use Only"
Pin To Client Profile: This option will make it so that when a client submits the intake form, that specific question and it's response gets added to the client timeline as a "pinned note". You can learn more about how pinned notes work in the following article: Pinned Notes
Start on a New Page (PDF): This option will force the current question your editing to start on a new PDF page, which means that in the PDF printout a page break is added just before the question. Some people use this to ensure that a certain section of their intake form can be printed and stand on it's own, apart from the other questions on the form.
Start on a New Page (Web): On longer forms you may want to break up some questions, forcing the client to hit the "Next" button to view the next set of questions. By default we break up long forms into multiple pages to ensure there aren't loading issues, but this option allows you to force a page break where needed.
Columns: For both of the "Multiple Choice" question types, you are given the ability to set how many columns you'd like the option selection to appear on. The default is 3, but you can manually set it to 1 or 2 as well. Changing this setting can better layout questions that have longer option names.
Display Score to Client: This option is used on a "Matrix - Single Answer per Line" question in conjunction with the "Enable Score Calculation" setting. Checking this will display the score total at the bottom of the question (i.e. Score: 10 out of 30). Read more on this here: Rating Scales
Show Grand Total: This option is used on a "Matrix - Single Answer per Line" question in conjunction with the "Enable Score Calculation" setting. Checking this will display the grand total score at the bottom of the question (i.e. Grand Total: 30 out of 50). The grand total adds up all score totals of any matrix questions before it, so long as you didn't set to display the grand total on a previous question. Each time you display the grand total it resets and starts counting a new grand total again for the next set of matrix questions with score calculation enabled.
Duplicate Columns: This option is available on "Matrix" questions only. It is used to save space on PDF printouts by allowing the system to show the numerous rows in side-by-side columns. For more details and to view how this will look, see the following article: Duplicate Matrix Columns

5. Attaching Consent Forms

Often times you will not only have an intake questionnaire, but you'll have documents that your clients need to sign-off on as well. These are typically things like company policies, payment agreements, consent for treatment forms, etc. Attaching consent forms creates what we call an "intake package". When you send the intake form to your client, they'll be presented with not only the form questions, but links to view and sign-off on the consent forms. Below are the steps for creating an intake package:

Click on "Consent Forms" in the top blue bar.
A pop-up will display all of the consent forms created within your account. Select (check) them in the order you want them to appear on your intake form.
Click "Save" to complete the attachment of the consent forms, and you now have an intake package.

By default consent forms show at the top of your intake questionnaire, but you can move them to the bottom if needed: How Do I Place Consent Forms at the Bottom of an Intake Package?

6. Conditional Skip Logic / Rules

Sometimes there are sections of an intake form that are conditional based on previous responses from the client. For example, if you have an intake form with a female only section, you can use our "Rules" feature to only show these questions if the client selected female as their gender.

To add/edit/delete rules, navigate to "... > Rules". Selecting "Add New Rule" will prompt you to set the parameters of the rule. You can edit existing rules by clicking the blue pencil button to the right of the rule, or delete a rule by clicking on the red button with an "x" in it.

Below is a sample of a rule that will display Question #3 only if the client has selected female as their gender.

For more information on conditional questions and skip logic, read the following article: Conditional Questions and Skip Logic

7. Form Settings

There are various other form settings that will adjust certain aspects of how a form looks or functions. To access these settings, from the form editing mode click on "... > Settings".

Below is a rundown of the options you'll be presented with and what they will do on your forms:

Form Name: This is the name of your form, you can change it if you'd like.
When form is submitted, redirect client to: This would be used if you want to redirect clients to a specific website after they submit your form. By default after they submit a form they'll be prompted to sign out and can then simply close down the browser tab/window.
Enable Interactive Mode: This is an alternative way to display your intake forms, showing only one question at a time in the browser window. It's especially useful on mobile as it drastically reduces the amount of scrolling your clients would have to do. For more information, read the following article: Interactive Form Mode
Show consent forms at the bottom, instead of top: By default your attached consent forms display at the top of your intake form, if you check this option they will display at the bottom instead.
Hide progress indicator: This will hide the progress indicator that tells clients what percentage of the form they have completed.
Hide default instructions: By default we add instructions to the top of intake forms. If you'd prefer to add your own instructions or remove them completely, check this option.
Can be completed by responsible party: Checking this option will add a prompt before a client completes a form. This prompt will ask them if they are completing the form themselves, or if they are completing it for someone else (I'm the parent, guardian, or power of attorney).
Hide Print button: This option will disable the ability for clients to fill out the form by hand as it removed the print button entirely. For more information on the option to allow clients to complete forms by hand, read the following article: Offline Response Notification (Fill Form by Hand)
Make this form available as a Note Template: Enable this option if you want the form to be available for use as both an intake questionnaire and a treatment note. For more information on treatment notes, read the following article: Treatment Notes and Patient Timeline
Don't share this form with other practitioners in my organization: This is used to stop other practitioners on your team from accessing the form. By default if you're the administrator of a multi-practitioner account, your forms are shared with all other practitioners. This option disables that sharing on a per-form basis.
Prevent other practitioners from changing this form: Similar to the option above, this is used in a multi-practitioner account to prevent others on your team from editing the form. They'll still be able to send it to their clients, but they won't be able to edit the questions unless they were to create a duplicate copy to edit on their own account.
Allow client to download intake after submission: This option will give your clients the ability to download the completed intake form as a PDF once they submit it.
Invitation Email: This section is used to customize the invitation email that clients will receive when you send them an intake form manually via email. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard in your main account settings if you'd like.
Confirmation Email: This section is used to send clients a custom confirmation email after they submit an intake form. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard in your main account settings if you'd like.
Custom Header: If you'd like a specific header to display at the top of your intake for, you can set this here. You have the tools available to add your logo, contact information, social media accounts, etc. This setting applies to the one form only, you can set a standard header for all forms in your main account settings if you'd like.
Mappings: This screen shows you all of the client profile mappings setup on your form. A mapped field is a question that is set to populate a specific part of a client's profile when the form is submitted (i.e. Name, Birth Date, Gender, etc.). You can adjust the mappings as you'd like on this screen, or also from the individual items that are part of any Mixed Controls questions. For more details, read the following article: Mapping Intake Form Fields to the Client Profile
Advanced: This section gives you various other more advanced options. If you have any questions in regards to these settings, feel free to contact us and we'll be happy to help!

8. Sending Intakes to Your Clients

Now that you've created and edited your intake form/package you'll be looking to get it to your clients. We have setup an article that will show you all of the ways this is possible: How to Get Your Intake Forms to Your Clients

We'll gladly make edits on your behalf, or even convert your paper forms into digital ones for small fee. Contact us for more information!