Logging Treatments

The entry form is where students record each clinical treatment: the clinic context, the client, the interventions used, the treatment notes and a reflection. This guide covers the form from both sides — how an administrator puts it on the site, and how a student fills it in, edits it and gets it counted.

Adding the entry form to your site

The entry form is the [dclb_entry] shortcode. It is included in the free plugin.

Setting up the page (administrators)

1. Go to Clinical Training Logbook → Plugin Settings → Site Setup and look at the Pages section. The entry form surface is listed there as Log a Treatment; you can assign an existing page or let the plugin create one. See Plugin Settings and Pages.

2. If you build the page yourself, add the shortcode on its own line:

   [dclb_entry]

3. Make sure the page is assigned in Site Setup. Other surfaces (the overview, the reflections journal, trainer emails) build their “edit this entry” links from the assigned entry page.

Optional attribute. entry_id opens a specific entry in edit mode, for example [dclb_entry entry_id="123"]. In practice you will rarely need it: an ?entry_id= value in the page address always takes priority, and that is how the plugin’s own links work.

Before students can use it you need at least one level, with clinic types attached to it, under Clinical Training Logbook → Logbook Configuration. If no levels exist the form shows: “Treatment logging is unavailable until an administrator adds at least one study level.” Interventions, requirements and per-clinic evidence rules are optional but shape what students see. See Program Catalogue.

Who can open the form

Visitor	What they see
Logged out	“Please log in to submit or edit logbook entries.” with a link to the login page that returns them to the form.
Any logged-in user	The form. The free plugin does not check the user’s role on this page — the Eligible student roles setting controls who appears in admin student lists and login redirects, not who can open the form.
Browser with JavaScript turned off	The form renders with a warning: “This form requires JavaScript to submit entries. Please enable JavaScript in your browser.”

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

Allocation gating. Once at least one active allocation exists anywhere on the site, the form only works for students who are allocated to a level:

• The Level list shows only the levels the student is allocated to.
• A student with no active allocation sees Awaiting logbook allocation — “Your program administrator must assign your next logbook before you can submit treatments.” — and a Contact your program administrator button that opens an email to the site’s administration address.
• An administrator testing the form without an allocation sees You have no logbook allocation and an Open Student Allocations button instead.
• If the student tries to save into a level they are not allocated to: “Your program administrator must assign this logbook before you can submit entries.”
• If the allocation is locked: “This logbook is currently locked by your administrator. New entries cannot be submitted.” A lock also blocks saving changes to existing entries in that logbook.

Until the first allocation is created, a Pro site behaves like Free (open access). See Student Allocations.

Logging a treatment

The form has four sections. Sections 2–4 stay locked (greyed out, with a “locked” note) until Section 1 is complete.

Section 1 — Clinic Context (required)

Field	Notes
Level	Required. Lists your levels (with Pro, only your allocated levels).
Clinic type	Required. Lists the clinic types attached to the selected level.
Treatment date	Required. A date picker.
Treatment number (optional)	A whole number, for example the visit number for a returning client.

Choosing a level and clinic type does three things: unlocks the rest of the form, filters the intervention lists to items that apply to that level and clinic, and loads that clinic’s evidence rules into Section 4.

Section 2 — Details (client age and sex required)

Field	Notes
Client first name or alias	Optional, up to 50 characters. Use an alias if your program does not allow real names.
Client age	Required. A whole number.
Sex assigned at birth	Required. Options: Male, Female, Intersex. Administrators can rename this label and replace its explanation under Site Setup → Demographics; the explanation appears behind a Why we ask link.
Case Details	Appears only if your program has case-detail items that apply to the selected level and clinic. Tick any that apply.

Section 3 — Diagnostics, Techniques & Advice (optional)

Three columns of tick boxes — Diagnostics referenced, Techniques applied and Advice / follow-ups — filtered to items that apply to the chosen level and clinic. Tick everything you used in this visit. A column with nothing to offer says “Nothing to select in this category.” An item you ticked earlier stays visible even if you change the clinic, so a saved choice is never silently dropped.

Section 4 — Treatment Evidence

• Badges show what this clinic requires, for example Notes upload required or Reflection required (150 words min).
• If the clinic has its own reflection prompt, it appears here.
• Treatment notes upload — one file. See Evidence uploads.
• Reflection — a free-text box. Below it is the reflection helper text (default: “Capture insights, surprises, or follow-up plans—collected once per entry.”), which administrators can change under Plugin Settings → Reflection Settings. When the clinic sets a minimum word count, a live counter shows, for example, 87 / 150 words.

Words are counted by splitting on spaces, line breaks and similar whitespace, so “follow-up” is one word and “follow up” is two.

Saving

Select Save Treatment. If anything required is missing, the form lists the problems and moves you to the first one. Common messages:

Message	What to do
Please enter the treatment date. / Please enter the client age. / Please select sex assigned at birth.	Fill in the field.
Unable to save treatment. Please check required fields.	Usually a missing level or clinic type.
This clinic requires a treatment-notes upload before saving.	Attach the notes file.
This clinic requires a reflection. / Reflection must be at least N words.	Write (or extend) the reflection.
Too many submissions in a short time. Please wait a moment and try again.	More than 60 saves in five minutes; wait and retry.
Your session has expired. Please refresh the page and log in again.	You were logged out; copy your reflection somewhere safe, then refresh.

After a successful first save, the page reloads showing the saved entry with the notice “Treatment saved. You are now viewing the saved entry — use “Log a Treatment” above to log another.” Use Log a Treatment (in the edit banner or the page navigation) to start a fresh entry.

Forms left open for a long time. The form keeps working through normal breaks — you can leave it open while you see a client and save afterwards. Security tokens on WordPress pages expire after about a day, so if a form has been open since the previous day and saving reports “Invalid request.”, copy your reflection, refresh the page and save again. If your administrator has turned on offline drafts, a submission that fails because the connection dropped is queued and resent with a fresh token when you reconnect.

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

Softer enforcement. In the free plugin every evidence requirement blocks the save. Pro adds two more modes per clinic (set under Logbook Configuration → Clinic Minimums & Evidence):

• Soft — allow save, show warning. The entry saves, and the confirmation adds a reminder such as “NB: Treatment notes have not been uploaded yet. Please remember to attend to this soon.” On a first save the notice also says “Some required items are still outstanding for this entry (treatment notes or reflection) — please attend to them soon.” Other reminders: “Reflection has not been completed yet.” and “Reflection needs at least N words (currently incomplete).”
• Reminder chain — allow save, escalating email reminders. The entry saves with no block and no save-time warning. The badges still say “(can complete after saving)”. Outstanding required evidence is listed in the weekly reminder digest when reminders are enabled — see Reminder Emails.

Review banners. If a trainer has flagged an entry in evidence review, opening it shows a banner at the top of the form explaining the flag and the reason. See Evidence Review.

Editing an entry

Students can reopen and change their own entries at any time.

1. Open your overview page and select View / edit on the entry. (The reflections journal, with Pro, has an Edit record link that does the same.) This opens the entry form with ?entry_id= and the entry number in the address.
2. The page heading changes to Edit Treatment, with the note “You are viewing a saved entry. Saving again updates this record — it will not create a new one.” A banner shows Editing saved entry with the level, clinic and date.
3. Make your changes and select Update Treatment. The confirmation reads “Treatment updated.”

Things to know:

• Students can only open their own entries. A link to someone else’s entry, or to an entry that has been deleted, shows “That entry could not be loaded — it may have been removed, or it may belong to someone else. You can log a new treatment below.” and falls back to a blank form.
• When editing, you do not need to upload the notes again — the Current upload: link shows the file already on the entry, and a hard notes requirement is satisfied by it.
• If reflection feedback is switched on (Pro) and a trainer has left feedback, it appears in a Trainer Feedback section below the evidence when you open the entry. See Reflections, Journal and Feedback.
• Saving an edit of an entry an administrator has voided puts it back into the progress counts. See Voiding an entry.

Evidence uploads

What can be uploaded. One treatment-notes file per entry. Administrators choose the accepted types under Plugin Settings → Evidence Defaults → Allowed file types:

Option	Extensions
PDF (.pdf)	.pdf
Word (.docx)	.docx
Word (.doc)	.doc
Rich Text (.rtf)	.rtf
Plain Text (.txt)	.txt
Image files (.jpg, .png, .gif, .webp)	.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, .heic

All six are allowed by default. The file picker only offers the selected types, and the accepted list is shown under the upload field. Helper text under the upload (default: “Upload scans or documents that summarise diagnostics and treatment outcomes.”) can be changed in Evidence Defaults → Notes upload helper text.

Size limit. In the plugin’s built-in private storage, a file can be up to 25 MB or your server’s upload limit, whichever is smaller.

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

With Bunny cloud storage, the Max upload size (MB) set on the Cloud Storage tab applies instead (default 50 MB, still capped by the server’s upload limit). See Cloud Storage.

Checks on upload. The plugin checks the file’s extension against the allowed list and checks that the file’s content actually matches that extension. Possible errors:

• File is empty or exceeds the permitted size.
• File type is not accepted. Allowed: …
• File content does not match its extension. (for example, a renamed file)
• Private storage is not available on this installation. — an administrator needs to check the storage setup; see Evidence Storage and Privacy.

Required or optional. Whether notes are required is set per clinic type under Logbook Configuration → Clinic Minimums & Evidence (Require treatment notes to be uploaded). Optional uploads are still encouraged and tracked.

Replacing a file. Open the entry, choose a new file and select Update Treatment. The new file replaces the old one on the entry. When the old file is held in the plugin’s private storage, it is deleted at that point. There is no way for a student to remove a file without replacing it.

Who can see the file. Files are never publicly linked. They open through a protected link that checks the viewer is the student who owns the entry, an administrator, or (with Pro) an authorised trainer. See Evidence Storage and Privacy.

Drafts and voice dictation

Offline draft autosave — off by default

An administrator can turn this on under Plugin Settings → Site Setup → Offline draft autosave → Enable offline draft autosave. When it is on:

• A new (unsaved) entry is saved in the browser every 30 seconds, and about two seconds after you change a field. Drafts are not kept when you are editing an existing entry.
• When you come back to the form, the draft is restored with the notice “Draft restored from your last session.”
• What is saved: level, clinic type, date, treatment number, ticked diagnostics, techniques and advice, and the reflection text. Case details and the uploaded file are not saved. Client name, age and sex are only saved if the administrator also ticks Also save client demographics (name, age, sex) in drafts (off by default).
• Drafts belong to the logged-in user, expire after 24 hours, and are deleted when the entry is saved and when you use a logout link on the site. Drafts from other users on the same browser are cleared automatically.
• If the connection drops while saving, the entry is queued (“Entry saved offline. It will be submitted when you reconnect.”) and sent automatically when you are back online. Attached files cannot be queued: if the clinic requires the file, the form asks you to reconnect and submit again; otherwise you are warned that the file needs re-uploading.
• Turning the setting off deletes any drafts and queued entries from students’ browsers the next time they open the form.

Privacy. Browser storage is not encrypted. Anyone using the same browser profile — a shared clinic or campus computer, for example — could read it. Leave this off if your students share devices. The reflection itself may contain identifying details even when demographics are excluded.

When autosave is off, nothing is kept in the browser, and if the connection drops while saving the form says so and keeps your work on screen so you can try again.

Voice dictation

In browsers that support speech recognition (for example Chrome and Edge), a microphone button appears next to the reflection box the first time you click into it. Select it, allow microphone access, speak, and select it again to stop; the text is added to the reflection, which you can then edit. A help button explains the steps and tips (say “comma” or “period” for punctuation). Dictation uses the page’s language setting. In browsers without speech recognition the button simply does not appear.

Privacy: dictation uses your browser’s own speech recognition. Some browsers (for example Chrome) send the audio to the browser maker for transcription. The plugin never receives or stores the audio. If you would rather not, type instead.

Voiding an entry

Voiding is how an administrator deals with a duplicate or mistaken entry without deleting it. A voided entry stays in the logbook and stays visible to the student, marked Voided — not counted on their overview, but it no longer counts toward requirement progress, clinic minimums or demographic totals.

Who can void. Administrators (users who can manage site options). Students cannot void entries and there is no delete button for students.

How to void (free plugin)

1. Go to Clinical Training Logbook → Logbook Entries and open the entry.
2. At the bottom of the entry, select Void this entry.
3. On the confirmation page (“Void this entry?”), select Void entry, or Cancel.
4. The notice reads “Entry voided. It stays visible here and to the student but no longer counts toward requirement progress.” The entry now shows Voided — excluded from progress.

How to restore. Open the voided entry, select Restore this entry, then Restore entry. The notice reads “Entry restored. It counts toward requirement progress again.” Voids and restores are recorded in the Activity Log.

Edge cases

• If the student opens a voided entry and saves it, it is restored to counting. Tell students not to re-save an entry you have voided.
• Voided entries are still included in the free Reflections admin page.

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

With Pro active, the Logbook Entries screen is replaced by the full reports screen, which does not include the void or restore controls. Entries voided before Pro was activated stay voided and remain excluded from progress. To remove a duplicate under Pro, an administrator can delete the entry instead — see Logbook Entries and Reports.

Worked example

Mei is a second-year myotherapy student. After a Tuesday shift in the student teaching clinic she logs her third session with a returning client.

1. She opens Log a Treatment from her logbook navigation.
2. Section 1: Level Year 2, Clinic type Student Teaching Clinic, Treatment date today, Treatment number 3. The Section 4 badges change to Notes upload required and Reflection required (150 words min), and the clinic’s prompt asks her to reflect on her assessment reasoning.
3. Section 2: Client alias J., age 42, Female. She ticks the case detail Chronic presentation.
4. Section 3: She ticks Orthopaedic testing under Diagnostics, Cupping and Trigger point therapy under Techniques, and Home stretching program under Advice.
5. Section 4: She uploads a PDF scan of her SOAP notes, then focuses the reflection box and dictates her reflection, tidying it by hand. The counter reads 162 / 150 words.
6. She selects Save Treatment. The page reloads into edit mode with “Treatment saved…”.
7. The next day her supervisor notices the wrong date. Mei opens My Logbook, selects View / edit, corrects the date and selects Update Treatment.

Troubleshooting

• “Treatment logging is unavailable until an administrator adds at least one study level.” No levels exist yet (or, with Pro, none the student can reach). Add a level and clinic types in Logbook Configuration.
• The intervention columns are empty. Either no items exist in that category, or none apply to the chosen level and clinic. Check each item’s level and clinic scope under Logbook Configuration → Interventions.
• A file won’t upload. Check the type is ticked in Evidence Defaults and the file is under the size limit. A file renamed to a different extension is rejected.
• “Invalid request.” on save. The page has been open too long. Copy the reflection, refresh, and save again.
• A student with Pro sees “Awaiting logbook allocation”. Allocations are in use on the site and the student has none. Allocate them under Student Allocations.

See also Troubleshooting and Student Overview and Progress.