The Form screen type is the primary way that you can build data capture screens on the platform. This allows you to rapidly replace paper forms with digital versions, as well as extend existing data capture screens from desktop or web systems to a mobile app. Your users will be able to collect data in the field using the mobile app and avoid the costs and time delays of data capturing from paper into your existing systems.
Whenever you want to make changes to a Form, our publishing process automatically takes care of distributing the changes out to app users in the field. In this way your workers always have the latest Form Screens at their fingertips, no matter where they are.
You create Forms using our drag and drop Form Designer tool. Your Forms can contain fields that leverage mobile device abilities such as taking photos and video, scanning barcodes and capturing signatures. All these advanced functions are easily added with a simple drag and drop.
After creating a new Form Screen, you will be taken to the Form Design screen. Every Form must have a Form design in order to be published. You can later access this Form Designer screen via the “design” link that is displayed when you hover over a row within Design Tools > Forms/Screens.
The Form Designer screen provides a visual view of your Form questions and gives you a drag and drop approach to creating your Form design. Along the left section of the Designer, you will see a column of question mark icons; each one has a brief description. Details are also included in our series of articles on design controls located here.
To create your Form, drag and drop the question types you desire onto the white work area. You can move questions around to change the order, and drag questions between pages as you wish. When you click on a question in the work area, you will notice that a Properties bar appears on the right-hand side of the screen.
The Properties bar is where you specify the details and function of each question.
- Every question must have a unique Data Name which is the column heading you will see in the Data tab, as well in data exports you may perform. Data Names cannot have spaces or special characters.
- Display Text is the question text that will display on the Form to the app user.
- The Hint property lets you specify additional text to explain the question to the app user.
- Most questions have Read Only and Required options, which enable you to prevent data entry and require an answer respectively. The Read Only option is generally useful when you want to show a message or fixed answer to the app user.
- Most question types also have an Advanced section which lets you specify a default value, control question visibility, validate answers and redirect answers to another question. Advanced properties require you to define a special formula that is similar to an Excel formula in nature. See our Creating a Formula topic for details.
Once you have created your Form design, make sure you click the “save changes” link in the options bar to save the contents.
After saving your changes, you can then go on to Test or Publish the form. See this article for details on deploying in Test mode, which is highly recommended.
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