Scheduling Appointments Using External Forms

Purpose: Allows agencies to send an External Form to a client displaying a list of upcoming available appointments. The client can then schedule themselves into an available Clinic Appointment, or upcoming Office/Staff Appointment, depending on form configurations.

Cost: There is no cost for this feature.

Create Appointments to Display on External Forms

Users must first create the staff, office, or clinic appointments, and then must designate which of those appointments should display on an external form. The process for doing so is slightly different depending on whether users are creating appointments for a clinic event, or staff/office appointments in the calendar module.

Clinic Appointment Slots

To create clinic event appointment slots that will display on an external form, staff must first create those clinic appointment slots in the LegalServer Clinic Module (see, generally Clinics and Clinic Events). To select which of these appointments should be display on an external form, from the Clinic Event Profile, go to Actions > Edit Clinic Event Time Slots to see a list of appointments for this clinic event. Select Publish Online = Yes for any appointment slots that should display on an external form.

"Publish Online" can be hidden or shown per the Appointment Creation block configuration. If you don't see "Publish Online" for each slot, edit that form and check the block's configuration.

NB: For an available clinic appointment to appear on an external form sent to a client, there must be at least one Legal Problem Code for the clinic event that matches the Legal Problem Code of the client's case.

Staff or Office Appointment Slots

To create staff or office appointment slots that will display on an external form, staff must first create those appointment slots in the LegalServer Calendar Module by going to Calendar > Actions > New Staff Appointment Slot (or New Office Appointment slot). Users can set the time, location, attendees, and number of appointments as with other calendar events, and will want to select Type = Client Appointment (Block Schedule) to create that staff appointment. For general information about creating calendar events, see: Calendar Events, Tasks, and Deadlines.

In order for these appointments to display on an external form, at least one of the Interview Types must be set to "Online Intake Appointment Slot." Users may also want to select additional interview types to indicate an In-Person Interview, Emergency Interview, etc. but "Online Intake Appointment Slot" must be one of the choices selected in order for a given staff or office appointment to display on an external form for the client.

Note that for office and staff appointments, there is no way to designate some appointment slots to display on external forms within the same Staff Appointment Block. If only some staff or office appointments should display on an external form, users will want create a separate calendar event for each. Additional information: Calendar Events, Tasks, and Deadlines).

Sending an External Form

Site users will send external forms to clients using case-level auxiliary forms set up by site admins. Process names will vary from site-to-site but are likely be, "Send External Form,, "Send Staff Appointment Schedule," "Send Clinic Appointment Form," or similar. See, in general: External Forms.

In this auxiliary process, users will:

Select the form type to send (Aux Form, Survey Form, etc.)
Select the form delivery method (email or sms)
Choose which External Form Process to call, and
Set an expiration date for the form link.

Site admins can configure default email or SMS messages using template formatting to automatically populate fields like client name and the external link, which end users can modify with additional client-specific information or instructions.

Scheduling Clinic Appointments

The client will receive an email with the link to the external form, and will be asked to verify their date of birth in order to complete the form and view available appointments. For clinic appointments, the client will see any upcoming clinic appointments that match the legal problem code of their case, and can chose their preferred time.

Once the client fills out the form and selects a clinic appointment, the client's name and case number will display in the clinic time slot on the clinic event profile, and the clinic appointment will also display is the appointments listview on the client's case profile.

List on Clinic Event Profile and Case Profile

Scheduling Staff or Office Appointments

For Staff or Office appointments, the user will also receive an email with the link to the external form, and will be asked to verify their date of birth in order to complete the form and view available appointments. Note, however, that Staff and Office appointments are not currently filterable by Legal Problem Code--clients will see all upcoming Staff and/or Office appointments that have been made available to view on an external form. Site users can add client instructions and additional information to the external form to help clients choose an appropriate option, and it is also recommended that users create descriptive titles like "Bankruptcy Screening," or "Immigration Intake," when creating Office and Staff appointments.

Once the client fills out the form and selects an available Staff or Office appointment, users will see the client's name and case number in the appropriate timeslot on the calendar, and the appointment will also display on the client's case profile as well.

Calendar Event With Client Information

List on Client's Case Profile

Admin Setup

Site admins will need to configure the applicable lookups and set up the various forms and processes, as described below. For a review of the typical setup, see, generally: External Forms.

Create Survey Type

External forms use the survey functionality in LegalServer, which allows sites to create and send external forms to both clients as well as to site users. Admins must add values to the system Survey Type lookup in order to create and send external forms. Sites using this module in a limited way may find that a generic Survey Type value of "External Form" or similar will meet their needs, but for sites configuring multiple external forms it is recommended that the "Survey Type" values reflect these options to simplify the process for the end user.

Create Follow-up Profile(s)

Once the client has chosen an available appointment, they will be directed to profile after the external process is completed. Initially, this can simply be an instruction that says something like: "Thank you for your responses," or may include additional information if so desired. Agencies with multiple external forms may want to create separate follow-up profiles to display form-specific information, though we strongly encourage a "less is more" approach to what you as site admins need to create and maintain.

Create External Auxiliary Form(s)

Admins will next create the External Auxiliary form or forms to collect or verify client information, and to display available appointments. Note that the blocks used on these forms will depend on whether the External Form is intended to display upcoming Clinic Events, which requires the External Clinic Event Appointment block, or whether the form is intended to display upcoming Office or Staff appointments, both of which require the External Intake Appointment block.

Create an External Auxiliary Process

In Processes, Forms, and Profiles, create a “New External Auxiliary Process” that contains the configured form or forms as above. Admins will likely want to create a separate External Auxiliary Processes for sending Clinic Appointments via External Forms and for sending Staff/Office Appointments via External Forms. Each process should be set to a follow-up profile, as described above.

Create Case Auxiliary Form and Process

In order to send External Forms to clients, the final process step is to create the case-level Auxiliary Process that will appear in the actions menu on a case. Admins will need to use the "Client Survey Send Request" block on this auxiliary form, and admins can set default Email and Text messages that will display for the end user. Admins can also add additional fields, instructions, or or other form elements as desired to this form. Finally, admins will create a case-level Auxiliary Process ("Send External Form," Send Clinic Appointments," etc.), edit the process to set process permissions if desired, and add this process to the actions menu on the case/matter module. See, generally:Process Management.