Template Versioning allows users to have more flexibility when editing a template. With Template Versioning enabled, users can Save template changes as a draft, test those changes in a Preview form editor and Publish these changes to their form users when they are ready. Each time a template is Published, a new version becomes available for future forms to be created from.

Saving a template using the Save Draft button allows you to optimize your template at your leisure, without losing your latest changes or publishing to your users before you are ready. We highly recommend regularly saving your draft while making changes to your template.

Note: Saving as a draft does not make these changes available to Form Users and does not create a new version of your template.

Previewing your template can be done at any time using the Preview button. When selected, your template will automatically save as a draft and open a form in a Preview Form Editor.

While in preview mode, you can test all calculations, database references, custom actions, and field functionality set in the Template Editor. However, you will not be able to submit the form as it is just a preview of template changes.

Note: Selecting the Preview button will automatically save your latest changes as a draft.

Once you have saved and previewed your changes, you can confidently Publish a new version of your template. With your edits Published, new forms utilizing said template will include these modifications while filling out their forms. Meanwhile, any data collected within previous versions of the template will remain untouched and available within your account.

Note: The publish button will only be active if all recent changes have been saved as a draft or previewed first.

Published changes do not impact forms created from a previous version of the template. Rather, each form will maintain the same template version that was available at the time the form was created.

This functionality is especially useful as it allows users to optimize their templates as needed, without risking the loss of data saved within forms generated from earlier versions of the template.

Note: This is a change from how GoFormz templates have worked in the past. Without Template Versioning enabled, any changes made to your template would automatically update all existing forms if they are edited or reopened from a Completed state.

Can a form be updated to use a different Template Version?

Yes, Admins can update a Form to use a different Template Version of the same Template from the Web Form Editor.

Note: Only an admin can update a Form's Template Version and the admin must own the form before they make this update. This action is only be supported on the Web App in the Form Editor

No, a new version of your template is only created when you select the Publish button in the Template Editor. This also means that Form Users will not be able to access any changes that have been saved as a draft and not published.

The GoFormz Reporting tool will always report on the latest published version of the template. For example, if a field is deleted from the template and a new version is published, the reporting tool will only include the fields that exist on this new version, not the fields that existed in previous versions.

Yes, template users can view and revert to past versions of their templates in a Read-Only Template Editor on the Web App. To access the Read-Only view of a past Template Version, open the Template History modal and selecting the linked version number you would like to view. In this view of the Template Editor, you can:

Note: In the read-only Template Editor, you cannot edit/add fields or modify the Form or List Views.

Workflows will continue to trigger when a form is completed from any version of the chosen template. However, if a field name is changed from one version to the next and the workflow input is not updated to reference the new field name, it will only pull in data from the forms that use the old form name in the previous version.

For example, if you are referencing "Field A" of your template in a workflow and then change the name of the same field to "Field A-2", the workflow will NOT automatically update to this new name in the input section. It will still pull in data from forms that use the template version where the field was named "Field A" but it will not pull in data from new forms that are created from the template version where the field name is "Field A-2".

Have more questions? Reach out to our support team using the bubble to the right or send us an email at support@goformz.com