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OutSmart Guide

Sending Smart Forms To Patients

There are two ways to get a Smart Form V2 to a patient: send it directly to one patient by email, or generate a public guest link that anyone can fill out without logging in. Both go through the same email infrastructure and produce a real submission on the patient’s record.

Send to a specific patient

The fastest path when you know which patient should fill the form.

From the form list:

  1. Open Smart Forms > SmartForms 2.0.
  2. Find the form and click the paper plane icon.
  3. The Send panel opens. Pick the patient, confirm their email address, and click Send.

From the patient workspace:

  1. Open the patient’s record and go to the Smart Forms tab.
  2. Click Send Form to Patient.
  3. Pick the form from the dropdown and click Send.

The patient receives an email with a link from your clinic. They have 60 days to click the link, and once they open it, 90 days to fill out and submit the form. They click it, fill the form in their browser, and submit. You see the submission on their workspace right away. See Expiries And Link Timing for the full timing rules and how to extend a patient’s time.

Choose which practitioner sends it

When a form is shared with multiple practitioners or admins, the Send panel asks who the form is being sent on behalf of. Pick the practitioner whose name should appear in the patient’s email. Their email address and practitioner profile photo also appear on the form’s landing page when the patient opens the link.

If you’re an admin sending on behalf of a practitioner who’s part of your office, the dropdown lists every practitioner linked to your office. If you’re a practitioner, you can also send on behalf of yourself at any office you’re a member of.

A guest link is a single URL anyone can use to fill the form. Useful for:

  • A “New Patient Intake” link posted on your clinic’s website.
  • A QR code at the front desk.
  • Bulk outreach where you don’t want to email patients one at a time.

To generate one:

  1. Open the Send panel on the form (from the form list or the workspace).
  2. Click the Get a guest link tab.
  3. Confirm the practitioner and office the form should be filed under.
  4. Click Copy link and share the link however you want.

Each patient’s individual link is valid for 90 days from the moment they enter their credentials and start the form. The public guest URL itself doesn’t expire — anyone with the URL can use it to start a new form. See Expiries And Link Timing.

What the patient sees when they open a guest link:

  1. A landing page showing the form name, your clinic logo, and the practitioner’s name and photo.
  2. A short credentials form asking for first name, last name, email, and date of birth.
  3. After submitting credentials, they get an email with a personal link back to their in-progress form.
  4. They fill out the form and submit.

When the patient submits, the system tries to match their name, email, and date of birth to an existing patient in your office. If it matches, the submission goes on that patient’s record. If it doesn’t match, a new patient record is created.

What the email looks like

The email comes from your clinic — the practitioner’s name is in the From field, your clinic logo is in the header, and the link button is in your brand colour. The subject reads:

  • For direct sends — “[Practitioner Name] has sent you a form to fill out: [Form Name]”
  • For guest-link starts — “You started a new form: [Form Name]”

The form name is in the subject so two different forms from the same practitioner stay as separate emails in the patient’s inbox instead of getting auto-grouped into one thread. The patient doesn’t need to know what OutSmart or Smart Forms is — they see your clinic.

What happens after the first send

The moment any patient is sent the form (direct or via guest link), the form becomes locked for editing. You can keep sending it to more patients, but you can’t change the questions until you duplicate the form. See Editing A Smart Form.

Resend if a patient loses the email

If a patient says they lost the link or can’t find the email:

  1. Open Smart Forms > SmartForms 2.0 > Assignments tab.
  2. Find the patient’s entry.
  3. Click the bell icon to send them a reminder email with the same link. The clock doesn’t reset — they pick up where they left off.

You can also do this from the patient workspace’s Smart Forms tab on rows that are still in progress.

If the patient needs more time before the link expires — or the link has already expired — click the Extend icon (🔄) instead of the bell. Extend pushes the clock out (same link) on a still-live assignment, or issues a brand-new link with the partial answers preserved on an already-expired one. See Expiries And Link Timing.