Forms let you complete your district's PDF forms directly on a student's page in Branching Minds. Fields your district has mapped to student data (name, grade, date of birth, tier, and so on) fill in automatically, so you only need to complete the parts that require your input. Finished forms stay on the student's record and can be downloaded as a PDF at any time.
Table of Contents:
Who Can Complete Forms
Any staff member who can view the student can complete a form.
Starting a Form
1. Open the student's Supporting Documents tab
Go to the student's page and click the Supporting Documents tab. The Forms section appears at the top, above Supporting Documents.
2. Click the Add button in the Forms section
To start a form, click the Add button. You will then see the various templates your district has published. Select the form you want to complete. If the list is empty, your district has not published any templates yet. Your Branching Minds Admin can add them (see Creating a Form Template).
Filling Out the Form
The form opens as a PDF with fillable fields. The header shows the student's name, grade, and school.
Prefilled fields: a banner reads "Some fields were filled in from Branching Minds. You cannot change them." These fields pull from the student's record, your own name and role, and today's date. If something looks wrong in a prefilled field, update the student's record in your rostering; it cannot be changed on the form itself.
Fields you complete: click into any blank field to type, check a box, or choose from a dropdown. Press Tab to move to the next field in order.
Saving vs. Marking Complete
There are three buttons at the top of the form:
Save and close: saves your progress and returns you to the Supporting Documents tab. The form shows as In progress and can be reopened and edited later. Required fields do not need to be filled in to save.
Mark complete: finalizes the form. All required fields must have a value; if any are empty, Branching Minds tells you how many and scrolls to the first one. After you confirm, the form becomes read-only and no value can change, so review it before you click Mark complete.
Download PDF: downloads a flattened copy of the form, including anything you have typed but not yet saved. Required fields must be filled in to download.
If you leave the page with unsaved changes, your browser will ask you to confirm first.
Finding, Downloading, and Deleting Forms
All of a student's forms appear in the Forms table on the Supporting Documents tab, with the form name, Status (In progress or Completed), Last Updated, and Updated By.
• Reopen a form: click its name. In-progress forms open for editing (if you have permission); completed forms open read-only.
• Download a completed form: click the download icon in the row. The file is named "Form name - Student name.pdf".
• Edit or Delete: select the 3 dots (...) to open the row's action menu. Edit is available for in-progress forms only. Delete permanently removes the form from the student's record and cannot be undone.
FAQ
Can I edit a form after marking it complete?
No. Completed forms are read-only. If something needs to change, delete the form and start a new one from the same template.
Can I complete the same form for several students at once?
No. Each form is started from an individual student's page.
What happens if my district archives or changes a template?
Forms you already started or completed are not affected. They keep the version of the template you started with and stay on the student's record.
How is this different from logging a Supporting Document?
Supporting Documents are files you upload or generate from Word templates. Forms are completed inside Branching Minds, track their own In progress and Completed status, and are not listed in the Supporting Documents table.