What setting up looks like
Real screens from KiNBY Chart, in the order you will meet them. About ten minutes, and you do not have to finish it all in one sitting.
This page is a walk-through, not the app. Nothing here is your chart and nothing you see can be typed into. Your chart is created on the device that will stay with your loved one — which is the one thing worth getting right before you start.
The device you will need
KiNBY Chart keeps the record on the device it is used on. So the first decision is not about software — it is about which device is going to live with the person being cared for.
One dedicated device, and it stays put. Not a device that goes to work in someone's bag. Everyone — family and caregivers — signs in on that one device.
A touchscreen tablet is best, and an iPad is what we test on. Charting is tapping: a dose given, a feed ticked, a reading typed with one hand. A laptop works, and some families will prefer one — but a tablet at the bedside is what this was designed around.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How old can the iPad be? | Older than you would think. KiNBY Chart needs iPadOS 13.4 or newer, which reaches back to iPads sold in 2014. The one in your drawer is very likely fine. |
| What do you actually recommend? | An iPad 6th generation (2018) or newer — not because older ones cannot run it, but because Apple still sends those security updates. A device holding a health record should still be getting them. They are inexpensive secondhand. |
| Does it need to be online? | Only to set up, and afterwards for anything that is shared — notes, and the read-only copy for a parent. Charting itself works with no connection at all, which matters in a hospital basement or a cottage. |
| Can it be locked to KiNBY? | Yes. iPadOS Guided Access pins the tablet to one app, so it cannot be wandered away from. Worth switching on once it is set up. |
| How much storage? | Very little. The chart is text; years of it is a few megabytes. |
We have tested on current iPads. The older end of that range is what the app requires rather than a promise we have checked on every model — if you are dusting off something ancient, try it before you rely on it.
Step by step
Everyone signs in here
One tablet, one sign-in screen. Family and caregivers all sign in on the same device — the one that stays with your loved one. Caregivers use a username and their own password; you can also get in with the family PIN.
The first time you open it
A brand-new chart offers two doors: start fresh, or load a backup file. Restore from a backup is how you move to a replacement tablet later without losing anything.
Who the chart is for
A name and a date of birth. That is the whole of the first step — nothing medical is asked yet, and nothing here is sent anywhere.
What you keep track of
You choose what this chart follows. Most families start with a handful and add more later; anything you leave off simply never appears. There is no wrong answer on day one.
A family PIN
Four to six digits, tapped on a keypad. Deliberately not a password box — a browser would offer to save a house PIN into a password manager, and then suggest it to whoever opens the tablet next.
Setup done — and a backup folder
The last step is the one families skip and later regret: choosing where backups go. The record lives on the tablet, so the exported file is your second copy. The tablet remembers the folder, and every later backup is two taps.
Yellow means you can change it
Everything editable in KiNBY is yellow, and this page gathers all of it in one scroll. A yellow dashed line is something not filled in yet, with a line underneath saying what does not work while it is blank — so nothing important hides.
Then the everyday screen
This is what a caregiver sees at the start of a shift: what needs attention today, what happened since they were last here, and what is still to do before they sign out.
After that
Two things are worth doing on the first day and are easy to put off:
Save a backup, to the folder you chose. The record lives on the tablet. The backup file is the copy that survives a lost or broken one — and KiNBY cannot save it for you, because a web app is not allowed to reach into your cloud storage by itself. You tap save; it takes two taps once the folder is remembered.
Add your caregivers. Each one gets their own username and sets their own password — you never see it, and neither do we. What they chart is stamped with their name.