Many pet care businesses have at least one form they need their clients to fill out before any services are delivered. In BusyPaws, intake forms are an integral part of the client management process. By creating and including forms in your self-booking process, you can be sure that they will always be filled and there is no additional, manual data entry necessary.

In this guide we'll look at a few steps:

Let's walk through establishing a simple client agreement that collects basic client and pet information, and includes two custom input fields.

Data attributes allow you to save specific data inputs to customer and pet profiles. Once you have created one or more custom data attributes, you can choose to have fields on your intake forms save inputs to those attributes. While your account comes with a variety of default fields with this functionality, custom data attributes allow you to save any number of fields to your client profiles for easy access. By having your forms update attributes, you can allow your clients to enter and update that information for you.

For an in-depth look at custom data attributes, check out our Custom Data Attributes help guide.

Start by navigating to your main Forms & Contracts page. First click the gear icon at the bottom of the left-hand menu bar.

Then select "Forms and Contracts" from the "Product Configuration" section.

Click the "New Form/Contract" button at the top-right corner of the page.

Next, select the type of form you wish to configure.

The New Intake Form page has a variety of fields to complete. Let's take a look at the functionality of each.

When adding input fields to your intake form, each input has multiple settings available. If you are creating/editing a Single Pet form, all fields will be in a single Input Fields section.

If creating/editing a Multi-Pet form, there will be separate sections for Client Fields and Pet Fields.

In either case, every included field is made up of a few different criteria.

Let's create a simple, Single Pet intake form with a few fields, including the fields we created in the Custom Data Attributes guide. Note that the system will automatically prompt clients to enter their name and email, so there is no need to add those fields to our form. Here's what our form looks like after adding a few fields:

Notice that some of the included fields have been marked "Required". This will ensure that customers cannot complete the form without filling those fields. After selecting the "Add Form" button at the bottom of the page we can get a preview of our new form:

If we instead wanted to build a Multi-Pet form, the settings would look slightly different. Much like how the system automatically prompt clients for their name and email, when Multi-Pet intake forms are used they will also automatically be prompted for their pet's name.

When viewed by your clients, Multi-Pet forms have client fields listed first, followed by a separate tab for each included pet. When they add their pet's name to the form that tab will automatically update to show that name. Clicking the purple + button found in the pet section allows the client to add more pets to the same form.

Enabling the "Always Send?" toggle for an intake form listed on the Forms and Contracts page will make that form required no matter what service your client books, or if you book them for a service.

You can check a client's profile to see whether or not they have filled out your required form(s). Clients still still needing to fill out the form will have a yellow badge next to their name:

Additionally, clients in the Customer Index missing one or more required forms will be marked with a yellow "Required" tag.

Next, let's get our customers to fill our New Client Intake form.

Let's head back to Jane Doe's profile page. We want them to fill our newly created form. Click the "Action" button at the top-right of the page and choose "Send Forms/Documents" from the drop-down menu.

Our existing intake forms will be listed in the resulting pop-up. Select the new form then click the "Send" button.

That's it! An email with a link to fill out our form has been sent to Jane. When the form is filled and submitted, any associated data attributes on Jane's profile will be updated.

Many dog trainers, daycares, and other pet care businesses have a variety of services and need to collect information specific to each of those services. You may create as many intake forms as you need using any number of custom fields. Once you have created your forms, you can assign them to your services so that clients are prompted to complete them during the self-registration process. To do this, start by navigating to the Services page.

Locate the service you wish to assign a form to and select either its name or the gear icon at the right end of its line entry.

From here, you can edit the service's settings. Under "Client Self-Booking Settings", the "Sorting and Onboarding" card includes a "Intake Form" field.

Select the "Intake Form" field and choose a form from the drop-down menu.

Now anyone booking the selected service will be required to fill out the assigned intake form before they're able to confirm their booking. Any existing customers who already have a copy of the form on their profile will not be asked again.

For more information on what forms look like when clients are booking with you, check out our guide on The Client Self-Booking Process.

Unfortunately not all customers read their emails and fill out forms before they arrive. Not to worry, we can still have them fill the form in when they arrive. Back at Jane's profile there is now an "Intake Forms" tab.

It lists our new form. When we click it we can see that it hasn't yet been filled and it's asking if we would like to fill the form.

If we choose our own name, the form will be displayed in this window and any Accept Terms checkbox or Signature fields will not be shown. This is so that our team can fill the form on the client's behalf if needed. If we instead choose Jane's name a new window will open with our form. Note that the customer name and email will not be prompted for here since we navigated to the form through the client's profile.

Embedding an intake form in your website is as easy as placing a single line of code wherever you want the form to appear. Note that any forms filled outside of the self-booking, send form, or user input processes will automatically add fields for the customer First Name, Last Name and Email so that a client record can be created or found.

From the "Forms and Contracts" index page, each form will have its own code. At the end of the row is a </> Copy Code button. Clicking that will add a <script> tag to your clipboard which can be placed into the HTML of the page you want to place the form in. BusyPaws does the rest to generate the form on the page.

For more information, check out our guide on Using Links & Website Integrations.

Back at Jane's profile we can review the completed form. First we select the "Forms" tab, then choose the form we wish to view.

We will then see the form in its entirety, with all completed fields.

We can also see that a new pet was added and that their vaccination records are up to date.

If for any reason we need a customer to fill out a form again, we can delete it by clicking the garbage can icon in the top-right of the form then send it again. Alternatively, a customer may submit multiple copies of the same form by accessing it through its direct link.

To see a full list of clients that have received or completed a copy of any given form, select the number listed in the "Sent" column for any form.

This opens the index for that form, which includes a full list of clients that completed one or more copies of the chosen form, and a list of clients who have been requested to fill the form but who have not yet submitted a copy. Selecting any client's name opens their Customer Profile page.

That's it! Use forms to ensure you get the information you need to manage your business efficiently.