Patient Forms

Ask patients to fill in a form on their own phone before their visit — the reason they're coming in, their health, medications and eye history — and have the answers waiting for the optometrist in your practice software, with nothing to re-type.

This guide applies to practices on either Optomate Touch or Sunix Vision. Where the two systems behave differently, look for the Optomate / Sunix callout boxes.

Key points:

• You start from two sample forms (adult and children's), or build your own from ready-made questions and questions you write, and choose a form for each appointment type.
• A patient who books that type is asked to fill in the form straight after booking, and gets a link to come back to it later.
• A new patient's answers can be written straight into your practice software: a new exam in Optomate, or a new consult in Sunix. Anything not written there is emailed to reception as a PDF.
• Your Booking doesn't keep the answers. They go to your practice software or your reception inbox, and nowhere else.

How it works

1. A patient books an appointment type that has a form.
2. The booking-confirmed page asks them to complete the form, with a Fill in your form now button. The link is also in their confirmation email or text (or in the pre-visit email — see step 4 of Setup).
3. The patient fills it in on their phone or computer. Their answers are saved as they go, so they can leave and carry on later from the same link.
4. They press Submit. The answers go to your practice software or your reception email, depending on your choices in step 1 of Setup.
5. Your Booking adds a [Form] marker to the appointment in your practice software, and the staff dashboard shows the form as Done.

The link works until the appointment starts. After that, the form is closed.

Before you start

• Your Booking support switches the feature on. Once it's on, a Patient forms tab appears under Appointment Types, next to Types.
• A reception email address. Emailed answers and completion notices go to your practice's reception email, the same address that receives your booking notifications. You can see it on the Setup page. Because emailed answers are health information, make sure only your staff can read that inbox.

Optomate: to write answers into an exam, the Your Booking API account needs two more permissions in its Access List, on top of the standard booking permissions:

Resource	Read	Create	Update	Notes
Examinations		Yes		Creates the exam that holds a new patient's answers
Patient Notes		Yes		Holds answers you've chosen to keep on the patient's record (such as their GP), and returning patients' answers if you choose a patient note

Your Booking checks these when you choose a form for an appointment type, and tells you if one is missing. If you only want answers emailed, you don't need them.

Sunix: writing answers into Sunix needs the Your Booking connector, version 2.20.0 or later. With an older connector, the Where answers go card says writing isn't available yet, and every form is emailed to reception until the connector is updated.

Setup

1. Choose where answers go

Open Appointment Types > Patient forms. The Where answers go card at the top has two choices. Each one saves as soon as you click it.

New patients — a patient with no previous visit in your practice software. Their answers can be written straight in, because a new patient's first exam or consult has no history to bring forward anyway.

Returning patients — a patient who has been seen before. Their answers are not written into a new exam or consult. When the optometrist opens the exam or consult on the day, your practice software brings forward the patient's history and previous prescription as usual. A record Your Booking made ahead of time would miss that.

What each choice does is described in Where the answers land below.

2. Build a form

The first time you open the Patient forms tab, two sample forms are waiting: Adult eye exam (sample) and Children's eye exam (sample). They're yours to edit, rename, archive or delete. Nothing is sent to patients until you choose a form for an appointment type (step 3).

To start from scratch instead, click New form and give it a name, such as "New patient" or "Contact lens". Patients see this name ("Please complete the New patient form").

Add questions with the buttons under the list:

• Add from catalogue — ready-made questions written by Your Booking, in groups: reason and symptoms, health, eye history, family history, development, school and learning, lifestyle, and details about the patient (such as their GP, or how they heard about you). Many come in two versions, one for adults and one for parents filling in a form for a child.
  • A catalogue question is added exactly as written. To change its wording, options or where the answer goes, click its edit button. Once you change it, it becomes your own question, and later improvements to the catalogue won't change it.
• Write a question — your own question. Choose:
  • Question — the wording the patient sees.
  • Answer — the kind of answer (see the table below).
  • Goes to — where the answer is put in the exam or consult: Reason for visit, General health, Medications, Eye history, Family eye history, or Patient note (not the exam) for things about the patient rather than this visit, such as their GP's name. Under the choice, the dialog shows exactly where a new patient's answer will land in your practice software.
  • Options — for Choose one and Choose any questions, the list of answers, with optional Other (with a box to describe it) and None.
  • Rows and Columns — for a Grid: the things the patient rates (rows), and the scale they rate each one on (columns, two to six). A new grid starts with Never, Sometimes, Often and Always.
  • Ask for details when the answer is Yes — for Yes / No questions, a box that appears when the patient answers Yes. You can change the box's title (it's "Please give details" unless you do).

Switch Required on for any question the patient must answer before they can submit. A required grid needs an answer on every row.

A grid's answers reach your practice software one row per line, such as "Headaches: Often". Rows the patient leaves blank are left out.

You can also lay the form out:

• Add heading — a heading, with optional text under it, over the questions that follow, up to the next heading or page break.
• Add text — a short note shown where it sits, for example just before Submit.
• Add page break — starts a new page, with an optional page title. A form with several pages shows "Page 1 of 3" and checks each page before the patient moves on.

Drag any row by its grip to reorder it. Questions, headings and text can't contain the characters { or }.

The Preview on the right shows the form as a patient sees it on a phone, in your practice's colours, and updates as you edit. Full width opens the same preview in a new tab at desktop size. In the preview, Submit only checks the answers; nothing is sent.

Click Save when you're done.

3. Choose a form for each appointment type

1. Open the Types tab.
2. On the appointment type's row, click the clipboard icon (Choose a patient form).
3. Choose the form, click Save, then click Save changes at the top of the table.

One form can serve several appointment types; each type has at most one form. The form's card on the Patient forms tab then reads "Used by …".

Optomate: when you write new patients' answers into an exam, choosing a form checks the Optomate permissions first. If one is missing, a window lists what to turn on; enable it in Optomate and click Retry.

4. Decide which message carries the link

The link goes out once per booking. The dialog in step 3 tells you which message will carry it:

• By default, the booking confirmation carries it, by email or text, with a Fill in your form button or link.
• If the type's pre-visit email contains {FORM_URL}, the link goes in that pre-visit email instead, and the confirmation leaves it out. A patient with no email address still gets it in their confirmation text. If the pre-visit email has a Custom HTML version, put {FORM_URL} there, because that's the version patients see.

{FORM_URL} is offered in pre-visit emails only, not in scheduled appointment emails. If staff resend a pre-visit email after the patient has completed the form, the link still works and tells the patient the form is done, so the rest of the email can be resent at any time.

See Pre-visit Emails for how to set up a pre-visit email.

5. (Optional) Change the wording staff send

When your team sends a patient the form link from the staff dashboard, the message comes from a template, one for SMS and one for email. Both are created for you along with the sample forms (or your first form).

To edit them, go to Messaging > Templates and find the Patient form links group. Keep the {FORM_URL} placeholder in the message; it's the link the patient taps. You can use the usual placeholders alongside it, such as {PATIENT_FIRST_NAME} and {PRACTICE_NAME}.

What the patient sees

• After booking: "Required: complete the New patient form before your appointment", with a Fill in your form now button. The form opens in its own tab, including when your booking page is embedded in your website. When they submit it, the booking-confirmed page changes to "Form sent — thank you".
• On the form page: the date and time of their appointment, your form, and a note that their answers are saved as they go and reach the practice when they press Submit. A patient who comes back later is welcomed back with their answers so far.
• After submitting: "Thank you — your answers have been sent." Opening the link again shows "This form has been completed."
• Once the appointment has started: "This form closed when your appointment started."

Where the answers land

Optomate exam (new patients)

Your Booking creates a new exam on the patient's record, dated and timed to the appointment, with the booked optometrist and branch. It appears in the patient's examination list, where the optometrist opens it as usual. The answers fill the exam's boxes, each line starting with the question in bold:

The exam shows the Your Booking API account as the user who added it. It holds only the form's answers: as with any new patient, there is no previous prescription.

If the optometrist starts their own exam for that patient instead of opening the one Your Booking created, the patient has two exams that day. The [Form] marker on the appointment is the cue to open the existing one.

Sunix consult (Medication box) (new patients)

Your Booking creates a new consult on the patient's record, dated to the appointment, with the booked optometrist. It opens on Sunix's default consultation screen and shows YB as the user who created it. It carries your practice's default recall and headings, as a new consult made in Sunix does.

• Symptom holds the reason for the visit.
• Medication holds the history as labelled lines, the way most practices write it: GH: (general health), MEDS:, POH: (eye history) and FOH: (family eye history).
• Answers you set to Patient note (not the exam) go to a patient note.

The patient's first and last consult details in Sunix stay blank until the optometrist saves the consult on the day, so the patient doesn't look as if they've been seen before they have.

Patient History and Note (Sunix, new or returning patients)

The answers are added as one entry in the patient's History (the History button on the consultation screen), titled "Patient form: form name", with the answers under headings: Reason for visit, General health, Medications, Eye history, Family eye history. Answers set to Patient note (not the exam) go to a patient note.

History isn't tied to a visit, so this suits returning patients too: nothing is missed when the optometrist opens their consult.

Patient note (returning patients)

All the answers, in form order, go into one patient note titled "Patient form: form name", with the appointment's date and time at the top.

Email to reception

Reception receives a Patient Form Answers email with the answers attached as a PDF. The PDF shows the patient's name, date of birth and patient number, the appointment, and each question with its answer. Its text can be selected, so staff can copy answers into the patient's record.

The email says why it was emailed rather than written in: a returning patient, writing turned off, writing not yet available (Sunix connector too old), or the practice software refusing the write (usually a missing permission).

Completion notice

Whenever answers are written into your practice software, reception also gets a short Patient Form Completed email: who completed which form, for which appointment, and where the answers were saved. It contains no answers.

The [Form] marker

When a form is completed, Your Booking adds [Form] to the appointment's note in your practice software, so the appointment book shows it. Your practice software can occasionally overwrite that note, so the reliable record is the staff dashboard's Form column.

Day to day — the staff dashboard

On the staff dashboard's Appointments tab, a Form column appears on any day with an appointment whose type has a form. For each such appointment it shows:

• Done — the patient has submitted their answers.
• Send (a phone or envelope icon) — text or email the patient their form link, for example after a phone booking. You see the message before it goes, along with who it's going to and whether it's going by text or email, and you can choose a different template first. Once a link has been sent from here, the button reads Resend; earlier links keep working. A link in the booking confirmation or pre-visit email doesn't change the button.
• A reason the form can't be sent: Walk-in — no patient record, Cancelled, Appointment has started, No mobile or email, or On waiting list.

The channel follows the patient's contact preference for appointments, then whatever contact details they have. Texts are billed like your other SMS and appear as Patient form links in your Billing account summary. Sending by text needs your practice to be sending SMS already (reminders or Patient chat); otherwise the patient needs an email address.

Sent links appear in Sent History under Patient form links (the Forms filter). If a patient replies to a form text, the reply reaches your practice as a message. It never confirms or cancels the appointment, even if it says "No".

Reschedules and cancellations

• Moved or cancelled online, or a "No" reply to a reminder: if the form created an exam or consult, the practice email about the change says so, for example: "The patient's form answers were written to exam 158202, dated 14 Nov 2026. Move it to the new date in Optomate." For a cancellation it asks you to delete it. Your Booking can't move or delete the record itself.
• Moved by staff in your practice software: nothing prompts you, so move the exam or consult date at the same time as the appointment.
• Patient notes, patient history and emailed answers aren't dated to the visit, so there's nothing to fix.

The form link follows the appointment when it's moved through Your Booking. If staff move an Optomate appointment to a different day, the old link stops working; send the patient a new one from the Form column. A patient who has already completed the form isn't asked again for the same visit.

Things to know

• Walk-ins have no patient record, so they never get a form.
• Archiving a form. Open the form and switch Active off. It stays on its appointment types but isn't offered to patients; switch it back on to restore it.
• Deleting a form. Click the bin beside it in the list. For a few seconds the button reads Undo; after that the form is gone for good, and any appointment type using it is left with no form. Links already sent show that there's no form to fill in. Exams, consults, notes and emails already created stay where they are, and cancelling or rescheduling still tells you which exam or consult to fix. A deleted sample form doesn't come back.
• Editing a live form. Changes reach patients as soon as you save, including patients who already have a link.
• Multi-branch businesses. Forms belong to one location. Sync to branches doesn't copy forms, or which form a type uses, so set them up at each location.
• Privacy. Your Booking doesn't store a patient's answers. While a patient is part-way through, their answers so far are held in memory only, never saved to disc, so they can carry on later; they're cleared when the patient submits or the appointment starts. Submitted answers go only to your practice software or your reception email.

Turning it off

To stop offering a form for an appointment type, choose No form for that type (step 3) and click Save changes. To stop offering a form everywhere, switch it off (Active). Links already sent then show that there's no form to fill in. Exams, consults, notes and emails already created stay exactly where they are.