Once a client submits a form, you can add your own private notes directly on their responses. Use this to jot down clinical observations, flag something to follow up on, or capture context while reviewing a form together in session. These notes stay attached to the form itself and are visible only to you and your team, never to the client.
In this article:
- Before You Begin
- Adding a Note to a Form
- Editing or Deleting a Form Note
- Pinning Notes for Quick Reference
- Who Can See These Notes
- Turning a Form into a Session Note
Before You Begin
- You need at least one completed form in the client's Forms & Waivers section. Annotate only appears on forms the client has submitted (or that were submitted on their behalf), whether through the Client Portal or a public form link.
- Annotate is available on any form sent natively through Practice Better. It is not available for PDF Form Uploads.
📍 Note: Adding a private note to a form is not the same as creating a session note. Annotating stores your notes on the form itself and does nothing else. If you want your client's answers and your annotations to become part of an actual session note, you'll need a separate step. See Turning a Form into a Session Note below.
Adding a Note to a Form
- Go to the client's Forms & Waivers section.
- Find the completed form and select Annotate.
- Enter a general note in the Summary field at the top of the page. This is a great place to capture your overall impression of the form. The Summary field has a 10,000 character limit.
⚠️ Important: There's no autosave on this page. Save your work as you go, especially if you're annotating during a live session, so you don't lose anything if you navigate away.
Adding Notes to Specific Questions
You can also add a note tied to one specific answer, right where it lives.
- On the completed form, find the question you want to comment on.
- Enter your note in the blue Add a private note box below the answer.
- Save your changes.
Editing or Deleting a Form Note
- Open the completed form using Annotate.
- Click into the Summary field or the specific question's note field.
- Update the text to edit the note, or clear the field entirely to delete it.
- Save your changes.
Pinning Notes for Quick Reference
If there's a note you want to find quickly later, pin it.
- Click Pin Notes at the right of a question's note section.
- Find all your pinned notes for this form in the Pinned Notes section at the top of the form.
📍 Note: This Pinned Notes section only applies to the form you're viewing. It's separate from the pinned Custom Notes available in a client's Recent Activity Stream. Learn more about the Client Recent Activity Stream and Custom Notes →
Who Can See These Notes
Private notes are visible to you and any team member with access to the client's record.
Form annotations:
- Are never visible to the client, in the Client Portal or otherwise.
- Do not appear as an entry in the client's Recent Activity Stream.
- Are included if you export the client's data, under Client Data > Forms > Annotated Form. This makes annotated forms available during practice transitions or account changes.
Turning a Form into a Session Note
Private notes and form answers stay on the form unless you pull them into a session note yourself. To do that, use the Create Notes option from the form's options menu, which lets you select which questions, answers, and your private annotations to import into a new or templated session note.
Learn more about Creating Notes from Completed Forms →