Overview

Cerbo users can build - and edit - their own patient fillable forms and questionnaires. These can be consent forms, with a drawing pad for patients to add their signature, as well as simple questionnaires and intake forms with text fields, radio buttons, etc. You can set certain questions to be required and add headers and text to the form, among other options.


Forms built with the form builder are posted to the patient portal questionnaires page, where they can be completed and submitted electronically. Within the patient's chart, you can push the completed form into the body of your encounter note in its entirety, if desired. And/ or build out Chart Parts that pull specific information from the submitted form into the body of your encounter note. See Create a Chart Part based on a Patient Submitted Questionnaire. These functions work for forms built using the form builder just as they do for custom questionnaires built by Cerbo.


Note that only forms built within the new Form Builder are editable within the Form Builder. So you cannot edit custom forms that you have requested from Cerbo that were not built using the Form Builder. If a form is editable, you will see a pencil icon to the right of the questionnaire in Pt Portal > Questionnaire Manager. If the pencil icon is not present, that is a custom form. If an edit is needed to a custom form that is not editable in the Form Builder, you can:

  • Re-create it using the Form Builder and hide the custom version (thereby making the form easily editable for the future), or
  • Contact Cerbo support to request the edit(s). When requesting form edit(s) from Cerbo, please make sure to include a copy of the form with the requested edits clearly marked.



Access the Form Builder

Select Pt Portal > Questionnaire Manager to see the list of questionnaires currently posted (or available to be posted) on the Questionnaires page of your Patient Portal. 


To see additional questionnaires that are in your forms library but not currently visible on the Questionnaires page of the portal, toggle "Show unused questionnaires" at the top left. Those unused questionnaires will then be shown at the very bottom of the questionnaire management window.


To create a brand new questionnaire, click on "Create Form," at the top right.


If a questionnaire has a pencil icon to it's right, that means it was built via the Form Builder, and can therefore be edited directly. Click on that pencil icon to open the applicable form in a new tab for editing. 



Create and Edit Forms

You can create a form from scratch using the + Create Form button at the top right of the questionnaire manager. Or, to create a new form as a variation on a form that you already built via the form builder, click the double box icon by the original form to copy that. Then edit the copy (using the pencil icon to its right) to adjust it as needed for your new form!

  • Note: copying a custom form (built by Cerbo not using the form builder) in the Questionnaire Manager just creates a second copy of the same form on the page. Neither the original nor the copy are editable via the form builder.


When creating a new form, give it a name/ title in the upper left-hand corner. The title is how you will identify this form within your form library, and should be unique from other forms already in your library to avoid confusion. 



Click on a form element in the list at the left to add it to your form. The newest form element is always added at the bottom. You can drag and drop it from there to elsewhere in the form. 


The form elements that you can use within your form are:

  • Text Input - provides a question prompt with a fillable text field.
  • Radio Button, Checkbox, Dropdown - provides a question prompt with specific answers to select among.
  • Text Block - shows informational text for the patient to read, with no patient-input field.
  • Section Heading - adds a larger heading element to organize the form and enhance readability.
  • Initials - adds a small fillable text field for initials to signify understanding/ acceptance of a specific statement.
  • Signature Block - appends to the bottom of the form a signature drawing pad (and associated fields) for the person completing the form to fill and sign.


A note about input field labels:


If you plan to Create a Chart Part based on a Patient Submitted Questionnaire, try to use unique labels for all of the inputs on your form. For example, you might label a field asking for additional information with "Other pertinent diagnoses" instead of simply "Other." Or, after a yes/ no question about a family history, use "Describe any family history of cancer" instead of "Describe" to collect more information.


Text Input

The text input field allows the patient to type their answers into the field provided. It can be set to be a Short Text input (displayed as a single line) or a Long Text input (displayed as a multi line text area).

  • Type your question prompt (the input label) in the Label field at the right, under Details. Or by clicking and typing where it says "Enter text here..." in the body of the form.


In the final form, the question prompt will appear above an area where the patient can type their response, which extends the full width of the form.


Toggle to the input's Attributes tab to:

  • Add a placeholder. This is text that appears greyed out in the text input for reference. Generally this would be used to provide more context for what information is needed, or the desired format for the answer.
  • Add an initial value. This is text that will appear pre-populated in the text field, but can be edited by the person completing the form. See below to learn about using variables for the Initial Value. 
  • Set the field to be required for the form to be able to be submitted. Any question that is set to be required is marked with a red asterisk.

For convenience, you can add certain variables into the Initial Value field so that key information about the clinic or from the patient's chart can auto-populate into that field. To work correctly, the text variable must be typed into the input's Initial Value field exactly as it appears below.


VariableAuto-populates
[[date]]The current date when the form is opened
[[pt_name]]The patient's first and last name.
[[pt_dob]]The patient's date of birth
[[pt_email]]The patient's primary email address
[[practice_name]]The clinic name*
[[practice_address]]The clinic address*
[[practice_phone]]The clinic phone number*
[[practice_fax]]The clinic fax number*
[[practice_email]]The clinic email address*


*If there are multiple clinic locations set up in Cerbo, the applicable variables above will auto-populate the information of the primary location.


Radio Button, Checkbox, Dropdown

Radio buttons, checkboxes, and dropdown menus allow the person filling out the form to select from among multiple pre-set options. All three input types work the same way within the form builder, but function slightly differently on the patient portal.

  • A radio button presents a list of options that are all immediately visible within the questionnaire, and allows the patient to select only one of those options.
  • A checkbox presents a list of options that are all immediately visible within the questionnaire, and allows the patient to select multiple options, as applicable.
  • A dropdown presents a list of options that are visible to the patient only by clicking on the dropdown menu. The patient may select only one option from the list. A dropdown menu is not recommended for a long list of options, as it may be hard for the patient to view and select the correct option.


Type your question prompt in the Label field under details (or by clicking in the form where it says "Enter text here..."). 


Type the list of options that you want the patient to select from in the Options field, with each distinct option on a new line. You can include as many options as you want. Note that you can opt to display the options in multiple columns in that input's Styling properties.


Under the input Attributes, you can set the question as required, meaning that the patient must make a selection for that question to be able to submit the form. And set a value that will be selected by default when the patient opens the form, if desired, using the Selected Value dropdown.


Under the input Styling, you can set the options to display in multiple columns, instead of in a single list, using the Spread to Columns field.


Text Block

A text block allows you to add text to the page that is not editable by the patient. This could be the body of a consent form, or instructions/ explanatory information within a fillable questionnaire. The text block has text formatting options, including headers, bold/ italics/ underline, and bulleted or numbered lists. You can also add links to your text.


If you are adding a large quantity of text, you might consider breaking it up between multiple text blocks in your form. This can make it easier for you to access the formatting options that appear at the top of the text block as you are building or editing the form.


Section Heading

A section heading is text that appears visually more prominently than the rest of the text in the form. Like a text block, a section heading is not editable or fillable by the patient. You can use section headings to organize your form or questionnaire and improve readability.


Initials

An Initials element is a special kind of text input that is meant to allow the patient to initial to signify their agreement with a specific section or statement. The text input area is short, as it is meant to accommodate only a few letters at most, and defaults to being required.


In the form that appears on the Patient Portal, the Initials fillable field appears first, followed by the question prompt/ label.


Signature Block

If the form requires a signature, you would add a Signature Block to capture that. Adding a Signature Block appends the following to the end of your form:

  1. A field for the name of the person completing the form (which is required).
  2. A field for entering that person's relation to the patient, if the form was signed by a legal representative.
  3. A field for entering the date that the form is completed (which is required)
  4. A drawing pad for the signer to draw their signature using their touchpad, mouse, or touchscreen (which is required). 

The signature block always appears at the very end of the form. And its details and attributesare pre-set and cannot be edited via the form builder.


A Note About Defining your own Custom Styling

If you have access to someone who is knowledgeable about CSS code, you can work with them to customize the styling on your form. This would be done by adding the desired CSS code to the form element's Styling, in the Advanced CSS box.

  • Only those who are confident in their CSS knowledge should use this field. And they will want to check/ test their work carefully. Any advanced CSS that is added overrides the background default styling for the entire form.


Recovering an Unsaved Form

If you built a form but closed it before saving it, you may be able to recover the form from your browser's history. To do that, navigate to your browser's history, and click on the most recent version of that form in the history.