Form vs Document and when to use.
📄 What’s the Difference Between a Zentake Form and a Zentake Document?
Zentake offers two powerful tools to collect information: Forms and Documents. While both can be used to gather patient or client data, they serve different purposes depending on your workflow needs.
🧩 Zentake Form (Web Form)
Zentake Forms are the most commonly used option. They are dynamic, mobile-friendly web forms built directly in Zentake.
✅ Key Benefits:
- Responsive Design: Automatically adjusts to any screen size — desktop, tablet, or smartphone — for a seamless user experience.
- Conditional Logic: Show or hide questions based on how users respond. Great for simplifying long or complex forms.
- Workflow Automation: Easily integrate with e-signatures, prefilled data, notifications, and form routing.
- Editable Anytime: Make changes to your form on the fly without needing to upload new versions.
- Fast to Fill Out: Optimized for mobile use and ideal for intake, consent, or screening forms.
✅ Best For:
- Patient intake
- Pre-screening questionnaires
- Surveys and assessments
- Multi-step or branching logic workflows
- Forms that need to be updated frequently
📎 Zentake Document (Fillable PDF)
A Zentake Document is a static fillable PDF uploaded into Zentake and mapped with fields for digital input.
✅ Key Benefits:
- Preserves Original Layout: Keeps the exact format of your official paper document (logo, layout, fonts).
- Legally Required Formatting: Ideal for compliance forms, government documents, or branded templates that must remain unchanged.
- Digital Signatures: Still supports e-signing where needed.
- Field Mapping: You can drag and drop fields onto the PDF to make it fillable.
✅ Best For:
- Government forms (CMS, HIPAA disclosures, etc.)
- Pre-designed legal documents
- Branded office forms that must retain formatting
- Third-party documents you’re not allowed to redesign
🤔 When to Use a Form vs a Document
| Scenario | Use a Zentake Form | Use a Zentake Document |
|---|---|---|
| Patient using a phone | ✅ Yes | 🚫 No (harder to view and fill on mobile) |
| You want to trigger logic or workflows | ✅ Yes | 🚫 No |
| Need to match an official PDF format | 🚫 No | ✅ Yes |
| Frequent edits or changes needed | ✅ Yes | 🚫 No |
| You need the form to look like a specific paper version | 🚫 No | ✅ Yes |
| Want a faster experience for users | ✅ Yes | 🚫 No |
📝 Summary
- Use Zentake Forms when you want a responsive, customizable, workflow-friendly experience.
- Use Zentake Documents when you need to preserve the exact look and feel of an existing form or meet formatting requirements.
Still not sure which one to use? Contact our support team and we’ll help you choose the best fit for your use case.