Screening questions and eligibility
Ask your own intake questions and stop unsuitable bookings before they happen.
Booked lets you attach a set of questions to one service, decide what each answer should do, and read the answers on the booking. It sits on the Questions tab of the service editor, so a yellow fever appointment asks about pregnancy while ear syringing asks nothing.
Turn screening on for one service
- Open Services and open the serviceThen open the Questions tab. Its card is headed Appointment questions.
- Switch on “Ask questions for this service”The rest of the card stays hidden until you do.
- Choose when and where they are askedWhen are they asked? picks the channel; for the online booking, Where in the booking? picks the step. Both are explained below.
- Fill in Section title and Intro / instructionsBoth show above the questions. One sentence on why you are asking is plenty.
- Add your questions, then press Save serviceAll six tabs share one form — switching tabs saves nothing. Saving keeps the service open, so you can carry on.
What you ask before they book, and the rules that decide who can.
Asked right after the service is picked. Safest for questions that can block a booking — nobody holds a slot they turn out not to be eligible for.
The top of the Questions tab, with questions asked before the customer picks a time.
- 1Questions — the sixth tab. The questions belong to this service alone.
- 2Build with AI — drafts a questionnaire from a description. Shown only when AI drafting is available on your site, and it uses your AI credits.
- 3Ask questions for this service — the master switch. Off, the card reads “Off. The booking form goes straight to their details.”
- 4When are they asked? — the channel: during the online booking, by a secure link afterwards, or not at all.
- 5Where in the booking? — for the online booking, the step the questions come before. Click Ask here on another step to move them; the line underneath explains each choice.
Choose when the questions are asked
The three channels behave very differently.
| When are they asked? | What happens |
|---|---|
| During the online booking | A step in the booking form, at the point you pick under Where in the booking? Answers are checked before the booking is made, so a blocking answer stops it. |
| Secure link after booking | The appointment is taken first. The confirmation screen shows an Answer a few questions button leading to a private page. |
| Staff / admin only | Nothing is shown to anyone. The questions stay saved, no step appears on the booking form, and there is no staff-side form either. |
Where in the booking?
For the online booking, the questions can sit in front of any step. Seven places are offered; these five work as described:
| Where in the booking? | What happens |
|---|---|
| Before choosing a time (the default) | A Questions step straight after the service. A blocked customer never holds a slot or pays anything. The safe choice for screening. |
| Before choosing who with | After the service, before the Team step. Useful when the answer decides who can see them. |
| Before add-ons | After the time is chosen, before any add-on appointments are offered. |
| With their details | A Questions step immediately before the details step. A refused booking will briefly have held a time. |
| After they have booked | On the confirmation screen, once the booking is made and any deposit paid. They can answer there or press I will do this later. Keep blocking rules out of this one: a block here cannot undo the booking. |
If the step you chose is not part of your form — no Team step, say, or no add-ons for that service — the questions move to just before the details step, so nothing goes unasked.
In the current version the form moves straight past the questions in both places: they never appear, and if any are Required the booking fails at the very end with “Please answer all the required questions.” Use Before choosing a time instead.
With Secure link after booking, or After they have booked, the slot is held and any deposit taken before the customer answers. A Block booking rule then only records them as Ineligible, and a Flag for review rule does not make the booking pending — it never cancels or refunds, so you must do that yourself. The confirmation screen says the link is emailed too; in fact Booked sends it only if they have still not answered 24 hours after booking, as the Questions still to answer message under Messages, and only if the appointment is still ahead. For an appointment sooner than that, open the booking and press Send the link again.
Write the questions
Press Add question, type it into the box at the top of the card, then pick a Type. Help text (optional) shows in small print underneath — use it for the bit patients otherwise ring up about. Required is ticked by default; leave it so for anything clinically important. The arrows reorder a card, the bin removes it. Your plan may cap how many questions one service can ask; when you reach it, Add question is replaced by a line saying so.
| Type | Good for | Rules can test |
|---|---|---|
| Yes / No | Contraindications | is Yes, is No |
| Single choice | Country of travel | is (one of your options) |
| Multiple choice | Medicines, existing conditions | includes (one of your options) |
| Number | Age, weight, BMI | <, ≤, >, ≥, = |
| Text | Free notes | is answered, equals, contains |
| Date | Date of birth, travel date | is answered, equals, contains |
Single choice and Multiple choice show an Options list — add each with + Option. A question or option left with no text is quietly dropped on save, so a blank card that vanishes is expected. “contains” matches the exact letters, capitals included.
Under When to ask it, every question reads “Asked every time.” Press + Only ask it sometimes to show it only when an earlier answer is, is not, or is answered at all — “Are you pregnant?” only after “Female”, say. Otherwise it is skipped: not shown, not required, and nothing is saved against it.
Set rules: flag for review, or block the booking
Each question has a Rules for this answer area reading “No rules — any answer is fine.” Press + Rule for one line: If answer … then … with two outcomes.
- Flag for review — the booking goes through but lands as Pending. This beats auto-approve: even with “Auto-approve new bookings” on, a booking flagged during the online booking waits for a human.
- Block booking — the customer is stopped there, the moment the answer is given, with a “Not suitable to book” panel showing your Message shown to the customer and a Change my answers button. No appointment, no charge.
Write that message: leave it blank and the customer reads “Based on your answers, this service isn’t suitable to book online. Please contact us.”, which is a phone call you could have avoided.
So is Only ask it sometimes. On other plans each question card says “Asking a question only when an earlier answer says so, and scoring answers, are on the Pro plan and above.” and has no rules area, and Booked will not save a service that still carries rules or conditions from a higher plan.
Two questions on a yellow fever service — one blocks, one flags.
- 1The question — exactly as the customer reads it. Ask one thing per question; two cannot be ruled on.
- 2Required — they cannot continue without answering.
- 3The rule — If answer is Yes then Block booking, so a “Yes” ends it. Flag for review would let it through as Pending.
- 4Message shown to the customer — appears only for Block booking, and it is the one line a customer definitely reads.
- 5A flagging rule — a past reaction is not an automatic no, so this only marks the booking for a pharmacist.
Two things to watch. Changing a question’s Type clears its rules, so set the type first. And your rules never reach the customer’s browser — every answer is re-checked on your server, so nobody can fake a pass.
ID uploads and consent text
Switch on Require secure ID or document upload when you need to see something — a passport, a prescription, a photo of a rash. List each document on its own line with a Required tick, and add more with Add a document. On the form the customer gets one upload box, and must add at least one file for each document marked Required — and at least one file in any case while the switch is on. Your document names are not shown to them, so say what you need in the intro. They can send JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC or PDF, 12 MB each.
Those files are encrypted, kept out of the Media Library, and opened only by staff through the booking, with every view recorded. If your server cannot lock them, the card shows “Secure uploads aren’t ready yet” — collect nothing until it has gone. Consent statement (optional) adds a tick box under the questions that they must tick to continue.
On its own, the tick is not stored anywhere. Switch on These are health or personal questions, just above the statement, and the statement becomes required and every agreement is recorded word for word, with the date — see Asking health questions lawfully.
Draft the form with AI
Build with AI opens a box headed Describe the service and who is eligible. Describe it as you would to a new colleague: the service, the age limits, what rules someone out, whether you need ID. Generate form then drafts the questions, rules, intro and document settings.
It keeps your When are they asked? and Where in the booking? choices and replaces everything else, so generate first and edit after — a second run overwrites what you wrote. Read every rule before saving: a drafted rule is a clinical decision with your name on it.
Review a flagged booking
A booking flagged during the online booking waits as Pending: find it through the Need confirming tile on Bookings, or set the status filter to Pending. In the Diary and on the Dashboard it is marked Screening flagged. Open it and find Questions & secure documents: the verdict, every answer, and any uploads. Confirm from there, or cancel and ring them.
Encrypted at rest · staff-only · every view is logged.
A booking flagged during the online booking, with its answers and encrypted upload.
- 1Pending — a flag raised during the online booking holds the booking as pending even when Auto-approve new bookings is on. Nothing is confirmed until you change the status.
- 2Flagged for review — the verdict, in the Questions & secure documents section of the booking. The others are Eligible, Ineligible and Not answered yet.
- 3The answers — every question with what they said; one skipped by an “only ask it sometimes” condition reads “Not asked”. The same answers are kept on the customer’s record.
- 4Secure documents — encrypted uploads, opened through Booked rather than a public link, with every view logged. Delete them once you no longer need them.
Answers are kept twice: on the booking, and against the person under Customers › What they have told you, where the newest answer to each question stays after the booking is history. A regular who books twice is still asked again each time.