Building a Web Form

In this document, we’ll discuss the basics of building a web form and working with our various field and question types.

Starting From Scratch

After you first choose which type of web form you want to create, you’ll find yourself on the Design tab of the web form builder. On this tab, you’ll define the structure of your form. You’ll also see tabs along the top labelled Customize, Publish and Analyze, all of which you’ll use later on in the building process.

To begin, start by giving your form a name and a description, and choose whether to allow users to save their partial answers and come back at a later time to complete their submission.

Adding Content to Your Web Form

Once you’ve completed the top section, you can begin adding content to your web form. You can add fields or questions, depending on which type of web form you’re building, or group those fields into sections with the Add Section option.

You also have the option to Add Text between sections or fields to give the user some instructions. You can also add an introduction page to your web form if you’d like to give your users instructions or other information before they begin.

Reordering Fields

You can quickly reorder the questions and fields in your web forms just by clicking and dragging the cross-arrows icon, as shown below.

Field Status

You also have the option of making your questions and fields Required, Optional or Hidden.  The field’s current state is displayed in orange in the upper-right corner; you can change the status in the lower-right menu. Required fields must be completed by respondents before they are allowed to submit the form. Optional fields may be skipped or left blank. Hidden fields are shown only to you as the form’s creator, but not to any respondents completing the form.

Other Options

Also in the lower right-hand menu, there are options for duplicating and deleting a field, both of which come in handy from time to time.

Archiving Fields

When initially designing your web form, you can make whatever changes you like. However, once your web form has been activated and data has been collected, you will not be able to delete any existing fields. You are able to archive them, which is the next best thing.

First pause your web form on the Publish tab then go back to the Design tab.  You’ll now see an Archive link in the menu options.

Archiving fields will remove them from all pages, reports, and workflows where they appear, as well as from all analytic pages. Hence, be sure you’re not using the field anywhere else before you archive it.

All of your archived fields are not gone forever, they appear at the link in the upper-right corner of the design tab.

Clicking on this link will allow you to unarchive, i.e. restore, any archived fields.