The history form is half done when the therapist puts their head round the door. The client goes in for treatment and leaves the iPad at the front desk holding half the answers and no signature. Then the phone rings, and the next client walks in early.
On paper, the clipboard goes face down on the counter and gets picked up after the session. InPersonForms had no such place: a form was blank or submitted, and Cancel offered only Keep Editing or Discard. So a half-finished form either tied up the iPad or lost its answers. Version 1.5.0 adds drafts.
Save it and close it
A new Save Draft button keeps everything on the form and closes it. On a typed form it appears once you have entered something, floating over the page beside the button that takes you to the next field. On a form you write on by hand with Apple Pencil, it sits in a row just below the top bar. Tap Cancel instead and the app now asks whether to save the form as a draft, with Keep Editing, Save Draft, and Discard.
You also do not have to remember. Leave the app to answer a message, or let the iPad lock, and the form is saved as a draft without a question, still on screen when you come back. If iOS closes the app while it is in the background, the draft is waiting the next time you open it.
Saving a draft checks nothing. A form with the client’s name missing and three required fields empty saves like one that is nearly done, because required fields are still checked only when you submit. A form you opened and never touched leaves no draft behind.
Where the draft waits
Drafts get their own section at the top of the Records tab, above your forms, and the tab’s badge counts how many are waiting. A client’s page has a Drafts section too, above Forms, with that client’s drafts in it.
Each row names the form, the client, and when it was saved. Tap it and the form opens where you left it, with every answer, ticked box, signature and initials in place, and the writing on a handwritten form as it was. To throw one away, swipe the row and tap Delete, and the app asks first.
Submitting a draft files it as a record and takes it out of Drafts, so nothing in Drafts has already been filed.
If the form changed in the meantime
If someone edits the form after a draft of it was saved, the draft opens on the form as it is now. An answer whose field was removed has nowhere to go, so it is dropped and named at the top of the screen.
If the form’s document was replaced with a new version, a typed draft loses its signatures and initials, because a signature belongs to the document it was signed on. A note at the top of the form says so: “This form was updated after the draft was saved. Signatures were cleared.”
Deleting a template that has drafts asks first and says how many drafts go with it. Its records are kept.
What drafts cost, and where they go
Drafts are free. They are in your backups and never expire, so a draft stays until you submit or delete it.
In a practice that uses Sync Across Devices, drafts sync like everything else, so a form put down at the front desk can be finished on the iPad in Room 2. Sync needs InPersonForms Pro on every device, and Pro is a one-time purchase. If two devices change the same draft, the later save wins, and the device whose changes were replaced says so in its sync activity.
A practice that syncs can also have forms checked on the main device before they are filed. Turn on Review forms from other devices on the main device, under Settings, Sync Across Devices. The Submit button on the other devices then reads Send to and the main device’s name, and a sent form lands on the main device as a draft for someone to look over and submit. The setting is off until you turn it on, and like sync it needs Pro.
The short version
When a form has to wait, tap Save Draft, or just leave the app, which saves it as a draft too. Pick it up from Drafts at the top of the Records tab or on the client’s page, and it opens with every answer and signature where you left it. Drafts are free and never expire, and moving them between devices comes with sync, which is Pro.
InPersonForms is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.