A form is a set of questions you write once and send to as many clients as you like. Clients answer it in the Quilia app or on the web, and the answers land on their case.
Use one when you want to ask something in your own words: a questionnaire, a checklist of details, or your own satisfaction question.
Step 1: Start a form
- In the portal sidebar, open Requests, then Forms. Your forms lists every form you have built, and Sent to clients shows every one already sent.
- Click New form. You can:
- pick one of your forms to start from a copy of it,
- upload a document, and Quilia builds a form from it, or
- click Start a blank form.
- For a blank form, give it a Title clients will recognize and an optional Description that sits at the top of the form.
Step 2: Add your questions
Click Add field for each question, then pick its Type:
| Type | What the client does |
|---|---|
| Text | Types a short answer |
| Long text | Types a few sentences |
| Dropdown | Picks one answer from your list |
| Date, Time, Date & time | Picks from a calendar or clock |
| File upload | Adds a photo or document |
| Signature | Signs with a finger or mouse |
| Rich text | Nothing. It shows instructions between questions |
Every question has a Label, which is the question itself, and a Required switch. Clients cannot submit the form until every required question has an answer.
Short lists become buttons
When a Dropdown has 11 options or fewer and each one is short (a number, or a word like "Yes"), clients see buttons they tap instead of a menu to open. The builder preview shows them the same way, so what you see is what your clients get.
Longer lists stay a dropdown. Either way, the answer saved is the option the client picked.
A 0 to 10 rating
On a Dropdown, click Use a 0 to 10 scale under the options. It fills in 0 through 10, and clients answer with one tap.
Step 3: Save it
Click Save. Every form you build is reusable: you can send it from a case, pick it in an automation, or copy it into a new form.
Older one-off drafts appear under Drafts at the bottom of Your forms. To reuse one, open its menu and click Make reusable.
Step 4: Send it
There are three ways to send a form:
- From the form. Click Send in the builder, pick one or more clients, and click Send to. Search and filter by status, phase or case type to find them.
- From a client. On the client's Requests tab, click Send. Pick any of your forms, documents and task lists, choose how often to remind them, and click Send to with their name.
- Automatically. Build it into an automation, and every client who fits gets it at the right moment without anyone remembering to send it. See below.
If a client has not finished the same form from before, Quilia tells you before sending. You can notify them again, skip them, or send another anyway. An automation skips them on its own, so nobody gets it twice.
Send it automatically
The forms that matter most are the ones nobody remembers to send. An automation sends a form to every client who fits, at the moment you choose, and keeps doing it as new cases come in.
- Open Messaging, then Automations, and click New automation.
- Who it goes to: pick an audience, like Active cases.
- When it fires: pick a moment and an offset, like 30 days after the case opened. Other good moments are when the client is invited, when the case changes phase, or on the incident date.
- What it does: click Add an action, choose Send a form, and pick your form.
- Click Create automation. It starts running right away, and you can pause it from your list of automations at any time.
A few that work well on a schedule: Documents we need from you the day the client is invited, a weekly check-in while a client is treating, and How are we doing? when a case changes phase. Building Automations covers audiences, every trigger and repeating.
Forms firms build
A form fits anything you would otherwise ask over the phone or chase by email. A few to start from, for different kinds of cases:
| Form | What it asks | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Tell us what happened | When and where, what happened in their words, who saw it, photos | Intake on any new case |
| Documents we need from you | A photo of their ID, insurance card and any letters they received | Collecting paperwork without a trip to the office |
| Your work and pay | Employer, how they are paid, usual hours, last day worked, a pay stub | Lost wages, employment cases |
| Your addresses and travel | Every address and trip abroad in the last five years | Immigration applications |
| Parenting schedule | The children, today's schedule, the schedule they want | Custody and family law |
| Who should receive what | Their wishes in their own words, who carries them out, a signature | Wills and estate planning |
| How are you feeling this week? | A 0 to 10 pain rating and whether they made their appointments | Weekly check-ins while a client is treating |
| How are we doing? | A 0 to 10 rating and one thing you could do better | Checking in on how the firm is doing |
Each takes a few minutes to build. Once you have one, New form can copy it, so a variation for another case type starts from what you already wrote.
Example: check that clients know what comes next
A month into every case, ask clients whether they know what happens next.
Clients who are unsure about the next step rarely call to ask. A two-question form finds them before the uncertainty turns into a complaint.
- Build the form.
- A Dropdown labeled "Do you know what happens next in your case?" with the options Yes, Not sure and No, and Required turned on. Three short options, so clients tap one.
- A Long text labeled "What would you like us to explain?", left optional.
- Click Save.
- Build the automation. Audience Active cases, sent 30 days after the case opened. Add Send a form and choose your form.
Want a rating instead? Make the first question a Dropdown with Use a 0 to 10 scale.