Hopefully you've already had a look at our Check-in Overview article and are aware of what Check-in is, and how it interacts with Cliniko. You should also know how to get your iPad ready for Check-in — and hopefully already ordered a stand!

Now let's go through configuring your Check-in flow.

Not everyone who runs a Check-in kiosk requires forms to be filled out during Check-in, but some do. This is a decision you need to make.

Requiring Forms to be filled out during Check-in has the advantage of catching any of your patients who missed filling out their Forms prior to coming in.

The iPad is smart about it — and can be configured to only require those Forms in cases where they haven't been filled prior:

If a form is required, however, this can sometimes slow down the Check-in process, which may cause a bit of a queue in the waiting room.

If you do want to have Check-in as a backup to in-advance Form filling, then make sure you've added your Form templates, and have configured them to send out automatically — so it's the exception rather than the rule.

By this point, you will have considered whether or not you'll be requesting any missed Forms to be filled our during Check-in, you might have ordered a stand, and you've got a good understanding of Guided Access.

So it's time to configure Check-in in the Finger-Ink app. To do this, navigate to the Kiosk mode setup screen — the third icon from the top on the left-hand menu. Here's a quick scroll through the configuration:

That video shows you everything that can be configured:

Let's dive deeper into each.

The Greeting screen is the first screen your patients will see when they look at the iPad. It's got a couple of defining features to catch their attention:

You can tweak this to send the right instructions to those entering your clinic. The heading and message fields can be configured as you see fit. You can use commas in between bits of text in the heading field to dictate how these bits are cycled through. In the image below, the word "Hello" was displayed first, then it changed to "Hi there":

The Check-in process involves a patient volunteering some information which is then used to match an appointment on the day.

You get to choose which information you request from the patient in order to match against an appointment. Your options are:

Our date of birth Check-in method uses a scroll wheel on the iPad to specify the date. If you selected that as your Primary Check-in method, here's what you'd see:

Underneath that you're offered you the option to specify a Fallback method if no appointment was found using the Primary method. If you don't opt for a fallback, it shows the "No appointment found" screen. If you do opt for a fallback, here's what the configuration looks like:

During regular Form filling, we check the entered name against the name we expect and, if different, throw up a screen instructing the patient to ask for assistance. We call this the Safety Net.

The default behaviour during Check-in is to hide the patient name during Form filling. Then, if the name entered by the patient is different from what is on the appointment, we'll throw up the screen asking the patient to ask for assistance.

This is the "Require intervention if appropriate" option:

Although not recommended, we give you the option to disable this feature.

If you do decide to never require intervention, or just want to make doubly sure that the matching appointment is for the current patient, you can require them to enter their initials (either first, last, or both first and last) to verify the appointment:

You may like to customise the language used on the Not found and Thank you screens — perhaps you're operating in a multilingual environment, or perhaps you'd prefer a different tone on these screens. Well, you can customise them both here:

Form requirements are how you make sure that your patients fill out their Forms before their appointment. Form requirements are specified by appointment type. You can require any number of Forms before any appointment type. You can also specify how often to require the Form.

Here's an example setup:

In this example, the Consent and Medical History Forms are required for anyone checking in to an Initial appointment. However, the Medical history Form is only required if it hasn't already been filled within the previous 12 months. The Consent Form is, however, always required.

Once you've got everything configured as you'd like, it's time to test Check-in.