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Rivet includes both SOAP and DAP. They’re standard clinical note formats — neither is proprietary, and both are taught in graduate training across psychology, social work, counselling, and psychiatry. The differences are small but real, and most practitioners settle on one and stick with it. Pick one, try it for a week, switch if it doesn’t fit.

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SOAP — four sections

Subjective · Objective · Assessment · Plan.
SectionWhat goes here
SubjectiveWhat the client reported. Chief concern, symptoms in their own words, narrative since last session.
ObjectiveWhat you observed. Affect, mood, behaviour, session work completed, screening scores.
AssessmentYour clinical formulation. Interpretation of S+O, working diagnosis, risk considerations.
PlanNext steps. Interventions for next session, homework, referrals, follow-up.
SOAP comes from problem-oriented medical records (Weed, 1968). It’s the default note format in hospital-based therapy, psychiatry, integrated primary-care behavioural-health teams, and any practice with a medical chart upstream of it. The Subjective/Objective split mirrors the way a physician separates patient report from physical-exam findings. In Rivet, SOAP fits when:
  • You work in a multidisciplinary clinic and your notes sit alongside physician notes
  • You bill insurance that audits for SOAP structure
  • You were trained on SOAP and don’t have a reason to change
  • You want a clean place to put screening scores (the Objective section is the natural home — see Auto-fill from templates)

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DAP — three sections

Data · Assessment · Plan.
SectionWhat goes here
DataWhat was reported and what you observed, combined. Client narrative + affect + presentation + session work + screening scores.
AssessmentSame as SOAP — your clinical formulation, working diagnosis, risk considerations.
PlanSame as SOAP — interventions, homework, referrals, follow-up.
DAP collapses Subjective + Objective into a single Data section. Practitioners who use DAP usually argue that the split between “what the client said” and “what I observed” is artificial in mental-health work — affect, mood, and content of speech are observed through what the client says. One Data section, one place to write, less copy-paste-shuffle when you’re documenting a session that didn’t divide neatly. DAP fits when:
  • You’re a counsellor, social worker, psychologist, or marriage-and-family therapist in private practice
  • You’ve ever felt like you’re writing the same thing twice in S and O
  • You want a faster note (one section means one decision about where content goes)
  • Your provincial regulator doesn’t mandate a specific format

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What Rivet does for either one

Both templates carry the same machinery:
  • Auto-fill from completed client-fillable templates in the same session — PHQ-9 / GAD-7 / K10 / DASS-21 / PCL-5 scores land in the appropriate section, EMDR target ID and SUDS readings land in the observation section, thought records and safety plans land in the assessment section. See Auto-fill from templates.
  • Voice-to-text dictation via the browser’s built-in SpeechRecognition (mic icon on every textarea).
  • Snippet rail with quick-insert phrases like “congruent affect”, “no SI/HI”, “safety plan reviewed”. Default seeds ship with the template; you edit the list to match your phrasing.
  • Per-field private annotations for clinical reasoning you want in your record but not visible if a colleague reads the printed note. See Private annotations.
  • Three export paths — copy to clipboard, per-note PDF, session- summary PDF that bundles every template with your note at the top. See Exporting notes.

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Which format does Rivet default to?

Neither. The picker shows both under Your notes (private). Pick the one you want; Rivet doesn’t remember a default yet. If a default preference becomes useful, we’ll add it; until then the two-tap pick is faster than a setting screen.

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What about BIRP, PIRP, GIRP, narrative?

Not included. SOAP and DAP cover the great majority of clinical-practice usage. If you’d find BIRP or another format useful, email hello@getrivet.ca with the request and we’ll track it.
There’s no wrong answer here. Practitioners who learned SOAP in graduate school and now work in private practice often keep SOAP out of habit even though DAP would suit them better — and the reverse. Try the one you weren’t trained on for a few sessions before committing.

Auto-fill from templates

What lands in which section automatically when you open the note.

Reviewing and editing notes

The hands-free dictation flow and snippet library.

Treatment plan

A separate, longer-form template for the start of treatment.