We're super excited about releasing version 6 to all you fantastic people. It's been almost a year of development, beta testing & refining. And it's finally ready. While we're nowhere near done with improvements, the foundation has been set for the next evolution of Finger-Ink.

Let's get into it.

If you're one who likes to skim an article for the highlights, we'll save you the trouble. Here are the main bits and pieces we've released.

The old editor was meant to look, and operate, like a document. We wanted to make it quick and easy to add Sections, screens & fields. We found, however, that fields in particular were quite difficult to represent in the document version of a Form. This lead to a document in look only. Not only did it not have the speed of document creation, but it took a mental leap to connect what was happening on screen to what eventually ended as the Form. Not cool.

The first step with the new Editor was to make it closely represent the ultimate look of the Form while a patient fills it out. It's more intuitive to use, and there's no more mental leap required.

In addition to this new look and feel, we've added support to time-travel between the different versions of your Forms (each time your Form was saved or published, we created another version). Here's how to use it:

When you're looking at a version that's not the latest, nor the published version, editing is disabled. If you'd like to promote an older version to be the latest version so you can edit it, just use the "view-only" button (where the publish button usually is), and choose to promote it:

Cliniko changed the game with custom patient fields. We knew we had to add support, but there were issues that couldn't be overcome with the old editor.

The new Editor brings support for all your custom patient fields. We respect the data types of your custom fields (e.g. check boxes, radio buttons, dates etc.) by representing them in the closest possible Finger-Ink structure. Even the "other" option is respected by offering an additional field to enter the other choice when selected. Check it out:

A long-requested feature has made it into the new Form Editor — body charts! You can now ask your patients to indicate their ailments directly on a chart while they're filling out a Form. Switch to the new "body chart" field type, and upload an image from your computer with the browse button.

Once you publish, your body chart will be visible. On the web, and in the iPad app. The body chart will show up when viewing the Response in the Portal, on the generated PDF, and via the Treatment Note for quick access:

Drawing fields work in a similar way — except they don't have any background upon which to draw. Image fields are similar to body charts in that you choose an image to display within the Form editor, but the image cannot be drawn upon during Form filling — it's only displayed.

We know this one's going to open up a whole world of new possibilities for you and your patients. The new Form Editor lets you add numbers "behind" the values of buttons (we call these raw values). You can the use these numbers in calculations, then use the results of those calculations in further calculations, or to display on your Form.

Calculation fields are a different colour to other fields in the Editor. That's because they never display during Form filling. Here's what one looks like:

If you did want to show the result of the calculation, you can @mention it using a placeholder:

Or choose to show or hide a form element depending on the result of the calculation:

The available functions for calculations are:

Here's an example using sum on 3 different fields:

sum ( [ @field1, @field2, @field3 ] )

I've added extra spaces between the parentheses and square brackets, to show both (as both are required).

Calculations work with most field types — but take care that you don't use them with fields which have only non-number answers / options or they won't work.

On that note: you may have noticed that in the example screenshots above that there aren't actually any numbers:

That's actually not true. There are numbers, we just don't show them on the form. If we press the change options button in the editor, you'll see them:

So, for each of the display options, there's a numeric raw value behind it.

Ever wanted to customise the colours of your Finger-Ink Forms to suite your brand? Or perhaps you need different logos & different names on your Forms? This is now possible with Themes. Here they are in the editor:

These themes are managed from within the new Themes page within the Portal:

And, of course, themes work in the iPad app as well:

If you'd like some help creating themes that fit your brand, just ask.

Placeholders allow you to reference the values of fields in various places within your Form, as long as the fields you're referencing appear before the placeholder.

To add a placeholder, use the @ symbol to bring up a list of previous fields (showing each of their prompts) and select the one you want.

Videos can be embedded right into your Finger-Ink forms. You could use this to introduce your patients to yourself and your clinic before their first appointment in order to reduce any anxiety they might be feeling. Or perhaps to explain exactly where your clinic is located — if it's in a tricky to find spot.

To add a video, select the Embedded video field type, paste in the URL to a video hosted on Youtube or Vimeo, and you're done:

Your video can now be played within your form. For a more in-depth look into Video fields, please check out our article on Video fields.

Multiple visibility conditions can now be used on one field element! This means you can decide to only show a field when multiple things are true. Here's an example screen that should only show if the reason for the patient's visit was for Massage or Physiotherapy:

If we preferred, we could choose to show the screen only when all of the conditions match.

We've also introduced a couple of new conditions for "select one" type fields that only include numeric options (either in the display option or the raw value):

These work not just on regular "select one" field types defined in a Finger-Ink form, but also on custom patient fields that define multiple numeric options.

In the old editor, if you set a visibility condition on an option from a previous field, then changed that option, the visibility condition would be broken. We now keep that link for you:

Some of the standard fields that we sync to the patient record aren't text fields, but offer a list of options to choose from instead. For example:

In the old editor, we locked down these options. For example, if had a field for automated reminder type, the choices in the form were always SMS, Email, SMS & Email and None.

In the new editor, these standard options can be disabled if required. For those who don't use Cliniko's SMS functionality, here's how the options can be configured using the new editor:

This results in only the two enabled options being displayed during form filling — Email and None.

In addition, text input can now be used within certain field types that previously supported only options. Here's an example with the sex field type:

In this example, we've provided two standard options, but enabled a third option which we've labeled "Specify". Here's how it looks when selected on the form:

The value entered in the Specify option will then update the patient record, as you'd expect.

We now support the full spectrum of pronoun fields available through Cliniko. You don't have to use them, but they're there if you need.

If you would like to use them, please take note:

Here's an example setup:

These can be configured like any other option within your form, using the new flag to allow your patients to specify their own value, rather than choose one from your list, if required:

We now sync your concession types from Cliniko — and allow them to be used within your forms:

These are refreshed from Cliniko every 24 hours — along with you custom patient fields, referral sources etc. — but a refresh can be forced from the Cliniko setup page in the Portal: