This guide covers adding a record to a client — a contact, an appointment, a note, an action or a consultation — and what every field in the form does.
For a tour of the timeline these records land on, see What the Client record tab shows you, and for reading one back, see How to view a record.
Start a new record
Open the client and go to the Client record tab.
Select Create new.
Choose what you are recording: - Contact — something that happened between you and the client. - Appointment — a booked slot, past or future. - Note — a written entry with no contact attached. - Action — something to be done, with a due date. - Consultation — a structured template your organisation has set up.
Fill in the form and select Save record.
Consultation only appears when your organisation has consultation templates set up. If you do not see it, your organisation has none.
Two shortcuts:
On a case whose timeline is empty, Add the first record appears with the No records on this case yet. message. It opens a new note already linked to that case.
Prefill from template at the top of the form fills the type, title and content from a saved record template. No template starts blank. Templates marked (this client) were saved for this client only. Manage templates next to it — and the Templates button on the tab — is where templates are created and edited.
The form is headed New contact, New appointment, New note or New action, depending on what you chose.
The fields, in the order you meet them
Type — Contact, Note or Action. You can change your mind here after opening the form.
Contact way — Outbound, Inbound or Appointment.
Contact method — In person, Phone, Video chat, Email, Message or Letter. On an appointment the written methods (Email, Message and Letter) cannot be chosen, because an appointment is something you attend rather than something you send.
Attendance — on an appointment: Attended, No show, Cancelled by staff or Cancelled by client. It starts as Not recorded, which is the right answer for an appointment that has not happened yet.
Title — the heading shown on the timeline card. Keep it short and specific.
Content — the write-up, with bold, italic, bullet and numbered lists and links. A counter under the box shows how much of the 6,000-character limit you have used. When you prefill from a form template, the template's own questions appear here instead of the free-text box, and you answer them one by one.
Case — which of the client's cases this belongs to, or No case to file it against the client. When you start from a case's Records tab, the case is already chosen.
Assignee — the staff member the record is recorded against. It defaults to you.
Date — when it happened. On an Action this field is labelled Due date.
Start time — the time it started, with half-hour suggestions to pick from.
Time spent (minutes) — how long it took, with preset buttons for the common lengths. On an appointment this is the appointment's length.
Mark as key event — a switch. Key events get a starred badge and can be isolated with Key events only on the timeline.
Attachments — Attach files to upload documents against the record. Attachments can be up to 25 MB in total per record; going over is refused with Attachments too large and Attachments can be up to 25 MB in total.
Save it to the GP clinical record at the same time
At the bottom of the form is a Clinical record block.
Tick Save to clinical record.
Choose the Destination. Detect automatically works this out from the client's own clinical system link; where the client already has one, the form tells you Pre-selected: this client's linked clinical system.
Add the SNOMED CT codes that describe what you recorded.
When you save, the record is queued for the practice and picks up a clinical status badge on the timeline — see What the Client record tab shows you for what each status means.
If you edit a record that has already been queued, the block says the record has already been queued for the clinical record and to use the Retry action on the timeline if it failed to send. You cannot queue the same record twice.
What happens when you save
Select Save record (it reads Saving... while it works). You will see Record added, and:
The record appears on the client's timeline immediately, and the Upcoming or Past count goes up.
If it is dated in the future, it lands under Upcoming rather than Past.
An appointment also appears in the calendar as a booking for the assignee, for the date, start time and duration you entered.
If a clinical send was requested, it is queued and starts sending.
Editing an existing record shows Record updated instead, and the change is listed in that record's Record history.
An appointment needs a date, a start time and a duration
Saving an appointment without all three is refused with "Appointments need a date, start time, and duration greater than zero."
The duration is Time spent (minutes) and must be more than zero — that is what sets the end of the calendar booking.
The "log this as a service" prompt
If your write-up reads as though you referred or signposted the client to a service, a prompt appears shortly after saving asking Log this referral or signpost?
It offers to log the activity against that service for reporting. Confirm to log it, or select Not now to dismiss it — nothing is sent to the service either way, and dismissing creates nothing. If you miss the prompt, it is re-offered from the notification bell.
Recording a consultation
Create new → Consultation opens the consultation form instead.
Choose the template. Change template at the top switches to a different one.
Work through the pages listed in the Content sidebar on the left, answering the questions.
Set the Date, Time and Time spent (min) along the bottom, and the Clinical record destination if the consultation is going to the GP record.
Select Save as a draft to come back to it later, or Send to clinical record to complete it.
Either way the consultation appears on the timeline as a record with a Consultation badge; a draft also carries a Draft badge until it is completed.
Notes and troubleshooting
Consultation is not in the Create new menu. Your organisation has no consultation templates. Ask your organisation Owner to add one.
File upload is not an option. Files are attached to a record with Attach files rather than recorded as a type of their own. File upload records on the timeline come from elsewhere in Joy.
The appointment is not in the calendar. Check that it saved as an appointment with a date, a start time and a duration greater than zero, and look at the calendar of the person in Assignee rather than your own.
The upload is refused. The 25 MB limit is the total for the record, not per file. Remove an attachment or add the rest to a second record.
The record went onto the wrong case. Open it and use Edit to change the Case; you do not need to delete and re-create it.