Editing consent forms in the Ethnio form builder 📝

Consent forms in Ethnio are fully customizable. You can build them from scratch using a block-based editor, configure how they behave, and control what participants see and sign. Here's a complete overview of how editing works.

🧱 Building your form with blocks

The consent editor is made up of  block types that you can add, reorder, and delete. Use the buttons in the top toolbar to add a new block to your form:

📝 Text block

Add rich text content to your form. The text editor supports bold, italic, underline, links, images, bullet lists, numbered lists, and paragraph styles. You can also insert dynamic variables like Participant full name directly into your text, which auto-populate when a participant completes the form.

☑️ Checkboxes

Add one or more checkbox items for participants to agree to. You can mark checkboxes as Required so the form can't be submitted without them being checked.

✍️ Signature

Collect an electronic signature from participants. Each signature block includes an instruction text field and a signature mode dropdown with three options: Type only (participant types their name), Draw only (participant draws their signature), or Draw and Type (participant chooses either method).

👶 Child names

Collect the names of one or more children when a parent or guardian is completing the consent form. Customize the label and instructions, and optionally let participants add additional children. Learn more about adding child names to consent forms →

🆔 Email & name

This is required for Ethnio to save consent properly, but can be prepopulated if you embed consent in the scheduling pages or place it inside a study link and then send that via Study Invite or Pool email. If you hide these fields, the prepopulation can still work, but keep in mind if they are empty, no consent will be saved.

You can reorder blocks by dragging the handle (⠿) on the left side of each block, and delete any block using the trash icon on the right.

⚙️ Form settings

Click the Settings button in the top toolbar to access form-level options.

Expiration controls how long a participant's consent stays valid. By default it is set to Never, but you can configure a time window after which participants will be prompted to re-consent.

Emailing consent lets you automatically send participants and/or your team members a copy of their signed consent as a PDF. Toggle on Send a copy of signed PDF and click Edit consent emails to customize the email template. Under PDF settings, you can also include the study name and external study ID in the generated PDF when consent is collected inside a study.

Buttons & instructions text lets you customize the labels participants see on the form's navigation and action buttons. You can edit the Back, Next, and Submit button text, as well as the labels for the signature controls: Clear signature, Draw, and Type.

📊 Activity & top bar controls

The top bar of the consent editor shows the form name alongside controls to rename or delete the form, and quick-access toggles for expiration and status. The Activity panel on the right-hand side shows a real-time list of participants who have completed consent, including their email address and the timestamp.

Use the Preview button at any time to see exactly what participants will experience when they fill out the form. 👁️