Question 1

What is FormVault?

Accepted Answer

FormVault is a FERPA-compliant school forms platform built for schools. It replaces paper physicals, permission slips, and clearance forms with a fully digital workflow — parent signing, coach access, and admin oversight all in one place. Every feature ships on one platform with no per-feature upgrades.

Question 2

How long does it take to set up my first campaign?

Accepted Answer

Most athletic directors send their first campaign within 10 minutes of signing up. Create a campaign, upload or scan your form using AI Smart Form Scanning, set a deadline, and share the QR code or link. There's no training required and no implementation team needed.

Question 3

Do parents need to download an app?

Accepted Answer

No. Parents receive a unique link by email. They tap it on any phone or computer, complete the form, and sign digitally — no app download, no account creation, no password. The entire signing process takes about 3 minutes on a smartphone.

Question 4

What happens if a parent misses the deadline?

Accepted Answer

FormVault sends a 5-touch automated email reminder sequence — at Day 14, 7, 3, and the deadline day — before the link expires. Once the deadline passes, the link deactivates automatically. You can see exactly which parents haven't completed forms on your dashboard and reach out directly if needed.

Question 5

Can we use our existing paper forms?

Accepted Answer

Yes. FormVault's AI Smart Form Scanning lets you upload a photo or PDF of any paper form — physicals, waivers, permission slips — and the AI maps every field into a live digital form automatically. No manual re-keying. The digital version mirrors your existing form structure for compliance continuity.

Question 6

Is FormVault FERPA compliant?

Accepted Answer

Yes. FormVault was built FERPA-first. Student data is encrypted at the application layer with AES-256-GCM before storage, every access event is logged in an immutable audit trail, and coach access is strictly scoped to their assigned sport. We run on SOC 2-certified cloud infrastructure and sign a Data Processing Agreement with every school.

Question 7

Can coaches see sensitive medical information?

Accepted Answer

No. Coaches sign a data handling agreement before gaining access and can only view students in their assigned sport. Sensitive medical fields are never exposed to coaches — they see clearance status, emergency contacts, and insurance information only. All coach access is logged in the audit trail.

Question 8

How is student data stored and protected?

Accepted Answer

All student data is encrypted with AES-256-GCM at the application layer before it reaches our database. Data is stored on SOC 2-certified infrastructure, transmitted over TLS 1.3, and access-controlled by role. FormVault logs 84+ distinct event types — every view, edit, signature, and download — in a tamper-proof audit trail.

Question 9

What happens to our data if we cancel?

Accepted Answer

Your data remains accessible through your account until cancellation is complete. Upon request, we provide a full data export in CSV and PDF format within 30 days. After 30 days, data is permanently deleted from our systems. We never hold data hostage or charge for exports.

Question 10

How does the physician signature workflow work?

Accepted Answer

When you configure a campaign to require physician sign-off, FormVault routes the form to the physician after the parent and student sign. The physician receives their own secure link, reviews the completed physical, and adds their digital signature. All three signatures are time-stamped and logged in the audit trail.

Question 11

Is there a limit on sports or campaigns?

Accepted Answer

No limits. Create as many campaigns as you need — fall sports, winter sports, spring sports, individual events, field trips — all under one account. Each campaign gets its own QR code, deadline, and dashboard. There's no per-campaign fee.

Question 12

How does year-over-year carry-forward work?

Accepted Answer

At the start of each school year, FormVault automatically increments every student's grade level, preserves all historical records, sends renewal notifications to parents asking them to verify updated emergency contacts, and re-opens clearance for the new season. You never re-enter a student. Seniors are archived, not deleted.

Question 13

Can I import our existing student roster?

Accepted Answer

You can add students individually through the admin dashboard. Bulk roster import is on the FormVault roadmap — when it ships, you'll be able to bring in your full student list by CSV. Students added to the system receive their parent invitation automatically.

Question 14

What email reminders does FormVault send?

Accepted Answer

FormVault sends an initial parent invitation when a campaign goes live, then automated reminders at 14 days, 7 days, 3 days, and on the deadline day before the link expires. Reminders stop immediately when a parent completes their forms. All emails are sent from your school's campaign identity. SMS reminders are planned for a future release.

Question 15

What encryption standard does FormVault use?

Accepted Answer

AES-256-GCM — the Advanced Encryption Standard with a 256-bit key in Galois/Counter Mode. This is the same cipher used by the U.S. Department of Defense for classified information, by financial institutions for transaction data, and by healthcare systems for protected health information. It is widely regarded as the strongest commercially available symmetric encryption standard.

Question 16

What does 'only decoded in the app' mean?

Accepted Answer

FormVault encrypts student data at the application layer before writing it to any database or cloud storage. The storage infrastructure — Amazon, Google, or whoever hosts the underlying hardware — only ever receives encrypted ciphertext it cannot read. Decryption happens inside the FormVault application server when an authorized, authenticated user requests a record. Not at the database level, not at the CDN edge, not by any storage provider.

Question 17

Can FormVault staff access our student records?

Accepted Answer

No. FormVault staff have no operational mechanism to decrypt individual school records. Decryption is scoped to authenticated application sessions — there is no admin backdoor or support override that exposes plaintext student data. Any support interaction that requires record-level access goes through a formal process that generates an audit log entry visible to your account.

Question 18

Is student data encrypted while being transmitted?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with two independent layers. First, data is encrypted at the application layer before transmission — the network never carries plaintext. Second, all connections use TLS 1.3 transport encryption, protecting against network-level interception even if an attacker were positioned between your browser and FormVault's servers. Both layers are always active and cannot be disabled.

Question 19

How is FormVault's encryption different from a standard password on a file?

Accepted Answer

A password on a file protects access at the file level but the file contents may be readable by anyone who can reach the underlying storage. FormVault's AES-256-GCM encryption is applied mathematically at the application layer — the resulting ciphertext is structurally unreadable without the specific decryption key, regardless of who can access the raw storage. Even FormVault's own infrastructure engineers see only encrypted blobs in the data stores they maintain.

Question 20

What happens to encryption if there is a data breach?

Accepted Answer

A breach of the storage layer alone yields only encrypted ciphertext — mathematically unreadable without the application-layer keys, which are stored separately from the data. An attacker would need to simultaneously compromise both the encrypted data and the key management system, which are architecturally isolated. FormVault also monitors for anomalous access patterns and logs all access events in the tamper-proof audit trail, enabling rapid incident response.

Question 21

Does FormVault encrypt backups and replicas?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Because encryption is applied at the application layer before data is written, all backups, replicas, and snapshots of the storage system contain only ciphertext. There is no separate backup encryption step that could be misconfigured — the backup is encrypted by definition because the underlying data was encrypted before it was stored.

Question 22

Does the encryption slow down the app or affect performance?

Accepted Answer

The impact is negligible in practice. AES-256-GCM is hardware-accelerated on all modern server CPUs via AES-NI instructions, meaning encryption and decryption operations complete in microseconds. FormVault users do not experience any perceptible latency from the encryption layer. The same is true for mobile — the encryption workload is handled server-side, not on the parent's phone.

Question 23

How does the free trial work?

Accepted Answer

Sign up and get full access to every FormVault feature for 60 days — no credit card required. You can create campaigns, invite coaches and parents, collect signatures, and review the full audit trail. At day 60, you choose a plan based on your enrollment or let the trial expire with no charge.

Question 24

How much does FormVault cost?

Accepted Answer

Pricing scales with your school's enrolled student count — not per user or per sport. Sign up for your free trial to see exact annual pricing for your enrollment tier. No sales call required for most schools. Athletic directors at large programs can book a demo for custom pricing and multi-year options.

Question 25

Is there a contract?

Accepted Answer

FormVault plans are annual. There's no multi-year lock-in — you pay year to year and can cancel before your renewal date with no penalty. We also offer multi-year pricing for schools that want to lock in current rates.

Question 26

What is the Founding School program?

Accepted Answer

Founding Schools are the first 5 schools to join FormVault's paid cohort. They receive 6 months free (on top of the 60-day trial), weekly direct access to the FormVault team, and a permanent Founding School badge in the app and on our website. Applications are reviewed within 48 hours.

Everything you need to know

Getting Started

Compliance & Security

Features & Workflow

Data Security & Encryption

Pricing & Trial

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