How is a form different from a chart?

A form is filled in by the client. A chart is written by the stylist about the work. Patch tests and medical history are forms; the formula you mixed is a chart.

Can a form go to staff instead of clients?

Yes. Who fills it out takes client, staff or external — an incident report is a staff form and works the same way.

What's the difference between draft and published?

A draft isn't sendable. Publishing is what makes a form usable, so you can leave a half-finished one alone without it reaching anybody.

Can I write the form from a description?

Yes — describe what it should collect, or paste an existing paper form, and you get a draft with fields you then edit.

How many questions is too many?

More than fits on a phone screen without scrolling twice. Completion falls off a cliff somewhere around ten fields, and an unfinished form tells you nothing.

Build a form

A new client is coming in for colour on Saturday and you need to know about the box dye they used in June. Asking in the chair gets you a shrug. Asking the day before, by text, gets you an answer.

Forms are the questions you need answered before someone sits down, filled in on their own phone, in their own time.

The forms list showing each template, whether it is published, and how many people have filled it in. — Templates are the forms you've built. Published ones can be sent.

Building one

Go to Forms and press New template. You can start empty, describe what the form should collect and have a draft written for you, or paste an existing paper form and have it converted.

1
Name it as the client will see it. "New Client Intake" tells them what it's for. "Form 3" doesn't.
2
Set who fills it out — client, staff, or external.
3
Set how often it's needed: every appointment, or once per client. Medical history is once. A patch-test confirmation might be every time.
4
Add your questions. Each gets a Question / prompt and a type.
5
Choose the review workflow — see below.
6
Add a thank-you message, then publish.

The field types

The list is deliberately practical. Some types collect a specific piece of information and go straight onto the client's record: first name, last name, email, phone, birthday, address, pronouns.

The rest are ordinary question types — short text, long text, date, single choice, multi choice, hyperlink — plus four that earn their place in a salon:

Image — the client uploads a photo. Their current colour, the inspiration picture, the reaction they had last time.
Image markup — annotate a picture. Where it's thinning, which section.
Signature — a signed acknowledgement, drawn with a finger.
Acknowledgement — a "yes, I've read this" tick against text you supply.

Prefer single choice to short text wherever you can. Options are quicker on a phone, and they give you answers you can actually count later — "yes/no/not sure" is data, "sometimes I think?" is prose.

Review, and what it's for

Review workflow has three settings, and they change what happens when the form comes back:

No review — the answers land and that's that.
Review — it arrives needing a person to read it before the visit.
Review and signature — it needs reading and a signature.

Use review for anything where an answer could change the appointment. A medical history that nobody reads until after the colour is on is a form that wasted everybody's time.

Who does which half

Forms is one app with two halves, and they're two different permissions.

Building forms — this article — is owners and managers. A published form is a document your salon is standing behind, so it isn't something anyone can change.

Reading what comes back is everyone except read-only: front desk and stylists all see Submissions, because the person who needs to know about the allergy is the person doing the treatment. They open Forms and land straight on Submissions; the Templates tab isn't there for them.

So build the form yourself, and expect your team to be the ones acting on it.