Authenticating Office Devices

Authenticating office devices is useful if your clients are filling out intake form in your office using iPads or other tablets.

There are 3 office scenarios in which this will help:

1. When a client started to fill out a form at home and wants to resume it at the office. Normally, the client would need access to the original email containing the form link and the access code in order to resume the form. Now, if your device is authenticated, you can simply open the public form in your tablet and hand it over to the client. All the client will need to do in order to retrieve their pending form is to enter their name and email address.
2. When a form in your tablet needs to pull information from the client profile or pinned note. When using a form's public URL, the client only needs to enter their name and email to start the intake. Since no passwords are involved in this process, Z-Forms will not auto-populate the form using information from the client profile, as this would not be considered secure. However, if the device is authenticated, Z-Forms will pull information from the client's profile or pinned note.
3. When, for some reason, the client gets signed out of the form before completing it. When this happens, the client would try to log back into the form, but in order to resume the pending form, we would need to authenticate them. We normally do this by sending them an email with an access code. This can be inconvenient because your client may not have access to their email inbox while in your office. Now, if your device is authenticated, we can skip the patient authentication step, and all they need to provide to log back into the form is their same name and email.

To sum it up, if your clients are using your tablets to fill out forms in your office, authenticating these tablets will make the process easier.

How to Authenticate Office Devices

We assume you have already followed the steps to add forms to your device. If not, follow this article before proceeding.

First we need to indicate which forms will be used in your office devices.

1. Open the form(s) you use in your office tablets.
2. Click on "... > Get URL".
3. Check the box that says "Enable Secure Office Access".

Secondly, you need to go to each device that your patients use to fill out forms in your office and authenticate them.

1. Open the form from a device you want to authenticate.
2. Locate and click on the "Authenticate this device" link at the bottom of the login page.
   

   

3. You will be redirected to a page asking for your Z-Forms email and password. Enter your credentials and click on Authenticate.
4. When going back to the login page, you should see "Device Authenticated" written at the bottom of the page.
   

   

That's it. Now your clients can use your office devices to resume pending intakes or have information pulled from their profile to pre-populate their forms.

Security Remarks

It's worth noting that, as is often the case, there is a slight degree of risk associated with this increased convenience. So it's important to be aware of the risks and know how to minimize them.

When a device is authenticated, it means that a client using this device can retrieve an unfinished form just by using their name and email address. Note that even though no client information is stored in the device itself, the device works as a key to open unfinished forms, as long as the correct name/email combination is entered. There are a few things we can do to reduce the risk of information breach.

1. Protect the device with a password.
2. Keep the device under close supervision and leave it in a secure place during off hours.
3. If an authenticated device is lost or stolen contact us immediately so we can de-authorize it from our end.
4. Make sure that you are not using any auto-fill plugins, add-ons in your browser. Also, disable any built-in auto-fill features in the browser.
5. For increased security, you can de-authorize the device at the end of the business day and re-authenticate it in the morning. To de-authorize a device, simply clear the browser cookies.