When staff retrieves Web Forms, it is matched to a patient and viewable in the patient's Chart Module and Patient Forms Window. Up to 20 web forms can be retrieved at one time.

1. In the Main Menu, click Tools, Web Forms.
   

   All Web Forms that have already been retrieved, for the date range, are listed.

   • To change the date range, enter a new start and end date then click Refresh. Click Today to only view forms submitted today.
   • To open a web form, double click it.
   • To view all of the patient's forms, right click on the row then click View this patient's forms.
   • If using clinics, only forms with your currently selected clinic will list.
2. Click Retrieve New Forms.
   • If using clinics and the user currently has Headquarters selected, all web forms will be retrieved.
   • If using clinics and the user currently has a clinic selected, only web forms for that clinic, or web forms with no clinics, will be retrieved.

   Open Dental will attempt to automatically attach each submitted web form to an existing patient.

   • If an exact match is made, the form will be automatically retrieved and viewable in Chart, Forms. See Web Form Logic below for details.
   • If a match is not made, you will be prompted to pick a patient.

   Matches: More than one patient with the same first name, last name, and birthdate was found for the web form. Double click the correct patient.

   Close Matches: No exact match was found for the web form. Choose a close match from the list, select an existing patient, or create a new patient.

   

The last name, first name, and birthdate submitted on the Web Form show at the top.

• Double click a match to attach the form to the patient.
• Preview: View the submitted form.
• Select: Chose a different patient that is not listed.
• New: Create a new patient record using the submitted information.
  Note: When using Clinics, the patient's clinic will be set to the clinic associated to the web form.

• Skip: Do not retrieve this Web Form.
• Cancel: Cancel retrieval of all Web Forms.

To import data from a patient form or medication history into the database, see Importing Patient Forms and Medical Histories.

Technical Details

Open Dental uses the following logic to match retrieved Web Forms to patients.

• Initially Open Dental will attempt to match a patient based on last name, first name, birthdate.
• If only one exact match is found, the web form will be automatically retrieved.
• If there is more than one match, email address and phone number will also be considered. If at least one phone number or email address matches any phone number or email address on file, the web form will be retrieved. If neither phone nor email has a match, you will be prompted to pick a patient or skip retrieval.
• If there is no match at all, you will be prompted to pick a patient or skip retrieval.

Web forms that are successfully received are permanently deleted from the Open Dental web server. If a duplicate patient is created, see Merging Patients.

To restore a web form that was deleted from a patient's chart, double click it.