Check-ins & progress tracking
Use forms as onboarding intake and weekly progress check-ins, see exactly what gets tracked, log entries yourself, and compare a client's numbers and photos over time.
Basic A progress-tracking form isn’t just a survey — its mapped answers become measurements you can chart. This is how onboarding intake and weekly check-ins turn into a picture of a client’s progress.
Onboarding intake vs. weekly check-ins
The same kind of form does two jobs:
- Onboarding intake — the questionnaire a new client fills once at the start. When you add a client, tick “Ask client to fill onboarding form” and choose the form; they get it by email (no app yet) or in the app on first login. Set a default onboarding form so it happens every time. Once it’s in, the answers are pinned to the client’s Overview as an Initial Questionnaire quick-access card (it resolves to the form tagged Initial Questionnaire, or, failing that, the client’s earliest submission) — one click to revisit where they started.
- Weekly progress check-ins — a Progress tracking form a client submits on a cadence. Per client you set the check-in form and whether they’re notified:
How “weekly” is set: the schedule rides on a recurring check-in appointment that carries the form — each occurrence creates the client’s check-in reminder and to-do. The settings above pick which form and whether to notify; the recurrence lives with the appointment.
Assign a check-in to a teammate
On a check-in reminder — and on a manual client to-do — you can set an optional Assignee: a team member who owns this client’s check-in. It’s the same person idea as the Progress inbox assignee filter, set up front instead of after the fact.
When you set an assignee, every progress entry the client submits against that check-in is automatically assigned to that team member — so it lands in their slice of the Progress inbox with no extra step. Leave it blank and entries arrive unassigned, exactly as before. You can still add or change assignees on an individual entry afterwards (up to two), and a coach-logged entry keeps whatever assignee you set on it.
What a check-in tracks
A progress check-in (or an entry you log yourself) captures a dated snapshot across these groups — each mapped question feeds one of these fields, so they chart over time:
| Group | Tracked fields |
|---|---|
| Body composition | Weight · Body fat % & kg · Muscle mass % & kg · Lean mass % & kg · BMI |
| Body measurements | Height · Chest · Waist · Waist at navel · Hips · L/R arm · L/R thigh · L/R above-knee · L/R calf |
| Strength | Bench / Squat / Deadlift — 1RM & 10RM · Max pull-ups |
| Cardio | 1 km time · VO₂ max |
| Health markers | Blood pressure (systolic / diastolic) |
| Lifestyle | Sleep average (hrs) · Sleep quality, Energy, Mood, Adherence (each on a 1–10 scale) |
| Notes & photos | Trainer notes · Client notes · Progress photos (by pose) |
Editing weight or body-composition values auto-recalculates the fields that depend on them, and everything shows in your units (kg/cm or lb/in).
The subjective metrics are on a 1–10 scale. Energy, mood, adherence and sleep quality are scored 1–10 (not a percentage) — so a “7” means seven out of ten. Sleep average is still in hours.
Where submissions land
Every check-in becomes a dated progress entry in the client’s profile, under the Tracking tab — split into focused views:
- Overview — every tracked metric at a glance: latest value, change since last check-in, trend line.
- Check-ins — the list of submitted entries (date, weight, source), with view, edit and compare.
- Biometrics / Labs — body metrics and bloodwork as trend charts with optimal ranges.
- Form submissions — answers from non-tracking forms (intake, surveys, consults).
Log an entry yourself
You don’t have to wait for a client. Add progress entry opens a tabbed editor where you fill in any of the tracked groups, write notes, and add photos by pose:
Where each entry came from
Every entry carries a source chip so you know who created it:
- Reminder — the client answered a scheduled check-in reminder.
- Coach — you logged it.
- Ad-hoc — the client logged it freely, outside a scheduled check-in.
For triage across your whole roster, the Progress inbox lets you filter entries by status (your own configurable stages — Pending / Processing / Done by default), labels, and assignee.
Track & compare over time
Progress is about change, so Protocol makes it easy to put two points side by side:
- Per-metric trend — click any metric for a full line chart, with start value, end value and total change.
- Timeline slider — drag to pick any two check-ins and read the delta on every metric at once; switch to a grid view for category tables with overlaid charts.
- Progress photos — compare before / after by pose (front, side, back) so the same angle lines up across dates:
When you’ve got a check-in’s numbers and photos in front of you, the last step is turning them into feedback — which an automation can draft for you.
Next: turn a check-in into a report you can send → Progress reports →