At least one Cliniko API key is required for Finger-Ink to operate correctly. You'll use it to create your account, after which point it becomes the "password" we use to push and pull data to and from Cliniko on your behalf — including Appointments & Forms.

The API key you used to create your account needed to be from a user with an administrator or power receptionist role in Cliniko. This is because an API key's permissions are linked to the user that generated it.

Administrator or power receptionist permissions are required in order to gather the necessary information from Cliniko in order to setup your account.

Finger-Ink Forms have the option to create Treatment Notes on completion. But only a user with the practitioner role in Cliniko can create a Treatment Note. And only users that created a particular Note can edit it:

So, if you want your Forms to create Treatment Notes on completion, and you want the practitioner that the patient was there to see to be able to edit that Note, you'll want to make sure you add an API key generated by that practitioner into Finger-Ink.

This is an alternative to adding practitioner API keys. If you stop the Form from creating a Treatment Note upon completion, then everything else can happen with just one API key. Please see our article on how to adjust the Treatment Note workflow to suit your needs.

There are two ways to add an API key to Finger-Ink:

Once the practitioner has securely sent you their API key, you can add it to their user account in the Portal by going to the Users page and using the "add an API key" button:

When an API key has been added successfully, the Active Users table is updated to show the User as "connected", but they won't have the "Portal User" tick: