Review and approve a submitted form
When a parent submits a form, it lands in your review queue. Approve it, or reject it with a note so the parent can fix and resend.
When a parent submits a form, it lands in your Awaiting your review group on the Documents page. From there you can approve, reject with notes, or just take a look at what they entered.
Find submissions waiting for you
- Go to Paperwork → Document Requests.
- Look for the Awaiting your review group near the top.
- Each row shows: the form title, the family / child, when it was submitted.
If nothing is in that group, there's nothing waiting on you — assignments still being filled show up in Outstanding instead.
Open a submission
Click any row in Awaiting your review. The submission page opens with:
- All field values the parent entered, laid out as a clean list.
- Electronic signature block — typed name in script font, plus the date, time, IP address, and (truncated) browser user-agent. This is your audit trail if you ever need to prove a parent signed something.
- View signed PDF — opens the stamped PDF in a new tab. This is the parent's signed copy of your original document with their values stamped in the right places. Save it for your records.
Approve
If everything looks right, type a short optional note (gets emailed to the parent) and click Approve. The submission status flips to approved, and the parent gets an email confirming.
The signed PDF stays available forever from the submission page and from the parent's Documents inbox under their Completed group.
Reject with a note
If something's missing or wrong (allergy field is blank, wrong signature, photo release option not selected), click Reject and request changes. A note is required here — the parent receives an email with your wording so they know what to fix.
When the parent goes back to the form, they see your reject note inline at the top, can edit any field, and resubmit. The new submission lands in your review queue again.
Both the approve and the reject emails go out under your daycare's name with your own account email as the reply address, so if the parent hits Reply to ask a question, it lands in your inbox. That exchange is not saved in NestliCare; if you want it on record, answer through Messages instead.
What "approved" actually means
Approving a submission is your record that you've seen what the parent submitted and you accept it. It doesn't trigger anything else automatically. The signed PDF remains the legal artifact; the audit data on the submission (signed name, IP, timestamp) is preserved indefinitely.
If a parent later disputes a signature, the audit trail is your evidence: typed name, IP, browser, exact timestamp, signature method.
What the parent sees after approval
- An email: "[Your daycare] approved your [Form title]"
- The assignment moves from "Awaiting review" to "Completed" in their inbox
- They can re-download the signed PDF anytime
Tips
- Review weekly, not daily. Most parents complete forms in batches when they're newly enrolled. After that, review queues stay short. Set yourself a calendar reminder for once a week.
- Reject early, reject specific. If you reject for a vague reason, the parent will resubmit with the same problem. Mention the exact field ("Please add your child's pediatrician phone number — section 5").
- For tuition disputes, do not rely on the structured value. Some forms ask the parent to enter a tuition amount; some don't. The legal binding is what's in the signed PDF, not the value field. The PDF wording always wins.
Troubleshooting
The "View signed PDF" link doesn't work. This was a bug fixed in late April 2026. If you're seeing it, the deploy may not have landed yet — refresh the page in 5 minutes.
I approved the wrong submission by accident. There's no Undo today. Go to the submission page; the next state-changing action you take (e.g., reject) will overwrite the approval. Or message us and we'll fix it on the backend.
A parent submitted a form, then re-submitted before I reviewed. The latest submission is what you see. The earlier draft is preserved in the database for audit. Approve the latest one.
The audit trail shows an unfamiliar IP. That's the parent's external IP at submit time. If they were on coffee shop wifi, it'll look unusual. Not a security issue by itself.