Tutorials

Onboard patients via the patient portal

Walk through patient onboarding — from creating a portal connection in the clinician platform to the patient completing their first evaluation.

When you need patients to complete evaluations on their own — whether for treatment monitoring, intake forms, or research protocols — the Patient Portal provides a dedicated, patient-friendly interface. Instead of completing assessments during clinic visits, patients log in from home and work through their assigned evaluations at their convenience.

In this tutorial, you'll set up portal access for a patient, assign them a recurring evaluation schedule, and follow the workflow through to the patient completing their first assessment.

Prerequisites: A Clinical Team or Enterprise account, at least one patient record, and at least one published evaluation in your library.

Time: 15–20 minutes.

Open the patient's chart

Navigate to Patients in the sidebar, then search for or select the patient you want to onboard. Click their name to open their chart. If you need to create a new patient first, click New Patient on the Patients page and enter their basic demographics.

See Patient charts for a tour of the patient chart layout.

Navigate to the Portal tab

In the patient's chart, click the Portal tab. This tab manages the patient's connection to the Patient Portal — their login credentials, portal status, and provider associations.

If the patient doesn't yet have a portal connection, you'll see options to create one. The Portal tab is also where you can check whether the patient has logged in, when their last activity was, and which providers they're connected to.

See Patient Portal tab for the full reference.

Create a portal connection

Click Add Connection (or the equivalent setup action) to establish the patient's portal access. You'll configure a few key settings:

Email address — The patient's email for their portal login and notification delivery. Make sure this matches the email they'll use to receive the invitation.
Username — A login identifier for the patient. Some organizations use the email address; others create a separate username.
Communication method — Choose whether the patient receives reminders by email, SMS, or both.

After saving, EVAL generates an invitation that the patient can use to set up their password and access the portal.

Send the invitation to the patient

Once the portal connection is created, the patient needs to receive their invitation. Depending on your organization's workflow, this might happen automatically (via email) or you may need to share the invitation link manually.

The invitation link takes the patient to an account creation page where they set their password. After completing this step, they can log in to the Patient Portal at any time.

For a smooth onboarding experience, set up the portal connection and schedule before contacting the patient. That way, when they first log in, there's already an evaluation waiting on their Today page — giving them something immediate to do rather than seeing an empty portal.

Create an evaluation schedule

Now that the patient has portal access, assign them a recurring evaluation. Navigate to the patient's Results tab in their chart, then to the Schedules section. Click Add Schedule and configure:

Evaluation — Select the assessment you want the patient to complete (e.g., PHQ-9 for depression screening).
Frequency — Choose how often the patient should complete the evaluation. Daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly are common intervals.
Communication method — Select email, SMS, or both to send reminders when an assessment is due.
Start date — Set to today so the patient sees the evaluation immediately on their first login.

Click Save to activate the schedule. The evaluation will appear on the patient's Today page and EVAL will send reminders according to the schedule you configured.

See Creating schedules for all scheduling options.

Verify the patient's experience

After the patient logs in and completes their first evaluation, verify the result by returning to the patient's chart in the clinician platform. Check the Results tab — the patient's submission should appear with the evaluation name, score, timestamp, and priority level.

You can also check the Schedules section to confirm the completion count incremented and the next scheduled date advanced correctly.

What's next

With your first patient successfully onboarded, consider scaling the workflow:

Onboard multiple patients at once — Use a Care Panel to manage a patient population and assign schedules in bulk rather than patient-by-patient.
Set up public intakes — For new patients who don't yet have portal accounts, public intake forms let patients complete an initial assessment via a shared URL — no login required.
Configure notifications — Get alerted when patients submit results with concerning scores so you can follow up promptly. See Notifications and alerts.
Guide patients to the portal — Share the Getting started: patient portal guide with patients who need help navigating the portal on their own.

Patients can be connected to multiple healthcare providers through the same portal account. Each provider sees only their own evaluations and results — patient data is not shared across providers unless the patient explicitly connects with each one. This is important for patients who see specialists from different organizations.

Create a scheduled assessment

Set up a recurring evaluation schedule for a patient, configure delivery preferences, and track completions through the Results page.

Troubleshooting

Diagnose and resolve common issues in EVAL — from builder validation errors and publishing failures to EHR connection problems and sync errors.