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Invite & Onboard Clients

Onboarding is everything that happens between the moment you invite someone and the moment they walk into their first visit ready to go. A good onboarding flow means new clients arrive with their intake forms filled out, their consents signed, and their account set up — so your front desk isn't chasing paperwork and your clinicians aren't starting from zero. This page covers both halves of that: the one-time setup where you decide what every new client must complete, and the day-to-day flow of inviting an individual client and getting them to their first session.

You configure the client experience once in Settings → Onboarding in the Provider web portal, and it then applies automatically to everyone you invite — no per-client checklist to remember.

Configure what new clients experience​

Onboarding configuration is your clinic-wide policy for new clients: whether onboarding is switched on at all, and which intake forms — the questionnaires, waivers, and consents a client fills in before being seen — are required before a first visit. You set this once, and every invite you send afterward follows it.

  1. In the Provider web portal, open Settings → Onboarding. You'll see your Default Client Onboarding steps — the list of things each new client is asked to complete when they're invited to the clinic.

  2. Turn onboarding on for your clinic. When onboarding is enabled, inviting a client automatically starts their onboarding and sends the welcome email; when it's off, an invite just creates the account and skips the intake steps. Enabling it is what makes required forms actually fire.

  3. Choose which intake forms are required before a first visit by adding a Complete Forms step and ticking the forms you want. Each form has a plain-language title (what the client sees, e.g. "Liability Waiver and Consent") and an internal key that ties it to the form you built. Only forms that are both enabled and marked required are sent to a new client — so a form you're still drafting won't go out by accident.

  4. If a form should also be presented to walk-ins — people who check in at the front desk without a prior invite — mark it required for guests. A guest-required form is sent as a waiver the first time a walk-in checks in, so you never see an unsigned client, invited or not.

  5. Save your changes. From now on, every client you invite is asked to complete exactly these forms as part of their onboarding, and their progress is tracked automatically on their client profile.

What the client receives — the welcome email

Once onboarding is on and an invite goes out, the new client gets a welcome email containing secure links to each required form. They can fill everything out from their phone or computer before they ever arrive — no app download required to complete intake. As they submit each form, their onboarding progress updates in your portal, so your front desk can see at a glance who's ready and who still owes paperwork.

Build the forms first, then require them

The Onboarding settings decide which forms are required; the forms themselves — their questions, fields, and consent text — are built separately. Create or edit them in the Intake Forms guide first, then come back here to require them. See Intake Forms.

Turn onboarding on, or nothing sends

Requiring forms alone isn't enough — if onboarding is switched off for the clinic, new invites skip intake entirely and no welcome email goes out. If you've ticked the forms you want but clients aren't receiving them, check that onboarding is enabled first.

Invite & onboard a client​

With your onboarding configured, bringing on an individual client is a short, repeatable flow. Steps 2–3 happen on the client's side; the rest you can do from the portal or the client can do in the app.

A. Invite the client​

  1. Go to Clients → Invite, enter the client's name and email or phone, and (optionally) assign a membership and home location so their account is ready to book the moment they register.
  2. Send the invite. If onboarding is enabled, this is what triggers the welcome email with their intake forms.

B. Client registration​

  1. The client opens the invite, verifies their email, and creates an account.
  2. They complete their profile — date of birth, contact info, and any consents — and can optionally add a profile photo.

C. Connect health data (optional)​

  1. In the app, the client goes to Health Data → Connect.
  2. They choose Apple Health or Google Fit and follow the authorization prompts, so their wearable and health metrics flow into their record.

D. Confirm membership & location access​

  1. From the client profile → Memberships, assign or confirm their membership.
  2. Confirm their location access matches where they'll actually book, so eligible services show up for them.

E. Book the first session​

  1. The client books in-app, or your staff books on their behalf.
  2. For Remote services, confirm the Zoom Join button appears on the event.
  3. The client receives a confirmation and reminders according to your clinic's notification settings.
Required forms can gate the first booking

If your onboarding requires intake forms, a client's first visit is smoother when those are done up front. Keep an eye on the onboarding status on the client profile — a client who hasn't completed a required waiver may need a nudge before they're seen.

Have Atlas do it for you​

You don't have to open the settings screen to change your onboarding policy. Tell Atlas — your AI assistant — what you want new clients to complete, and it will draft the change for you to approve.

"Turn on client onboarding and require the Liability Waiver and the Nutrition Assessment Form before a first visit."

Atlas will prepare the update and show you exactly what's changing before anything is saved.

Ask Atlas — what it needs from you

So Atlas can configure your onboarding, have these ready:

  • Whether onboarding is enabled — turning it on is what makes required forms send with the welcome email.
  • Which intake forms to require — name the forms (by their titles) that a new client must complete before a first visit. Atlas requires forms you've already built; ask it to require a form that doesn't exist yet and it'll point you to create it first.

Next steps​

  • Build the forms you require → create the questionnaires, waivers, and consents in Intake Forms, then require them here.
  • Make the welcome email look like yours → set your logo, colors, and fonts so the intake email carries your clinic's identity — see Branding & White-Label.
  • Get clients booking → review your memberships and services so a newly onboarded client sees the right options at their first visit — see Memberships & Services.