Add Contacts to Client Profiles Using Online Forms

Managing client contacts - such as emergency contacts, parents, guardians, or next of kin - is an important part of maintaining accurate client records.

With the New Contact field, practices can collect this information directly through Zanda online forms. Clients can enter contact details themselves when completing intake or update forms, and the information is automatically added to the Contacts section of the client profile when the form is submitted.

This removes the need for staff to manually add contact records and helps ensure contact details are collected consistently from the start.

In this article, you’ll learn how the New Contact field works and how to add it to your forms to collect and manage client contact information more efficiently.

In this article:

What is the “New Contact” field?
Where can the New Contact field be used?
How to add the New Contact linked field to a form
Choosing which contact details to collect
Additional contact fields
Allowing clients to add multiple contacts
Making the contact field required
What clients will see
Field types used in the form
What happens when the form is submitted?
How the New Contact field appears when printing forms
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What is the “New Contact” field?

The New Contact field is a type of a Linked Profile Field in an online form template which allows you to collect and automatically create contact records for a client directly from an online form.

This field can be used to gather details such as:

Emergency contacts
Parents or guardians
Next of kin
Secondary contacts
Any other person associated with the client

The New Contact field is available as a Linked Profile Field, which means the information collected from the online form is saved directly to the client’s profile in Zanda.

When a client submits a form containing this field, each completed contact block is automatically added to the Contacts section of their client profile.

💡 Pro Tip: Using forms to collect contact information helps ensure details are accurate and reduces manual data entry for your team.

Where can the New Contact field be used?

You can add the New Contact field to any client form template in Tools > Form Designer.

It works in:

Form Designer preview (Data Entry mode)
Client forms in a Zanda account
Client Portal forms
Printed forms

This allows contact information to be collected consistently across both digital and printed workflows.

How to add the New Contact linked field to a form

To add the New Contact field to a form:

Go to Tools > Form Designer
Open an existing client form template, or create a new one.
In the form template, click Add Field.
Select Linked Profile Fields.
Choose New Contact.

Once added, a configuration panel appears where you can customise how the contact information is collected.

You can also rename the field label to match the type of contact you want to collect, for example:

Emergency Contact
Parent / Guardian
Next of Kin
Secondary Contact

Choosing which contact details to collect

When configuring the New Contact field, you can choose which contact details appear on the form.

The configuration panel contains a list of available fields.

Core contact details

Some fields are included by default.

Always included

These fields are required to create a valid contact record and cannot be removed:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Relation to you

Optional fields

You can enable or disable additional fields such as:

Preferred Name
Mobile Number
Is my Emergency Contact
Receives a copy of Appointment Reminders
Portal Booking Permission

Additional contact fields

Under the main contact fields list, click More fields to access additional options.

These fields allow you to collect more detailed information about each contact when needed.

Available fields include:

Disclosure Level
Address
Suburb
City
State
Country (drop-down selector)
Postcode
Date of Birth
Sex
Gender Identity
Pronouns
Salutation

Allowing clients to add multiple contacts

The Allow client to add multiple contacts toggle controls whether clients can enter more than one contact.

When enabled

The form initially shows one contact block.
Clients can click + Add Another Contact to add more contacts.
Each additional contact block contains the same fields you configured.
Extra contact blocks can be removed using Remove Contact.

When disabled

Only one contact can be entered on the form.

Each completed contact block becomes a separate contact record on the client profile after submission.

💡 Pro Tip: Allowing multiple contacts is useful when collecting both emergency contacts and guardians in the same intake form.

Making the contact field required

You can require clients to provide contact details by enabling the Require an answer for this field toggle.

When this option is enabled:

Clients must complete the key contact details before submitting the form.

Required fields include:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Relation to you

These required fields ensure the system can create a valid contact record.

What clients will see

When completing a form that includes the New Contact field, clients will see a contact section labelled with the name you configured (for example Contacts).

The form will display:

Only the contact fields you selected in the Form Designer
The same field order defined in the template
Contact blocks styled consistently with other form fields

If multiple contacts are enabled:

Clients can click + Add Another Contact
Each new contact block appears below the previous one
Extra blocks can be removed using Remove Contact

Field types used in the form

Some fields appear as specific input types:

Relation to you – dropdown populated with the relationship options defined in your account settings
Country – dropdown list
Other fields – text, email, date, or checkbox inputs consistent with existing form fields

What happens when the form is submitted?

When a form containing the New Contact field is submitted through the Client Portal or Clinic App:

For each completed contact block:

A Contact-type profile is created.
The contact details are saved to the client profile.

Stored details may include:

First Name
Last Name
Preferred Name
Email
Mobile Number
Relationship to the client
Address or other optional details
Toggles such as:
- Emergency Contact
- Receives Appointment Reminders
- Portal Booking Permission

All created contacts appear in the Contacts section of the client’s profile.

⚠️ Note: A contact record will only be created if First Name is provided, as this is required to create a valid contact profile.

Submitting a form will not delete existing contacts if contact blocks are later removed and the form is submitted again.

How the New Contact field appears when printing forms

When a form containing the New Contact field is printed:

Each contact appears as its own clearly structured block
The printed section label matches the field name used in the template
Only the fields selected in the form designer are printed

If multiple contacts were provided:

Each contact appears as a separate section in the printed form.

This ensures printed forms match the information entered online.