The form template is the master version of your form. Creating a template is the first thing that you must do before you can start using any other GoFormz functionality. This document goes over the basic steps of creating a template, with links to more detailed articles about the various steps of the process.
A form template can be initially created as a Form View or a List View. A Form View Template requires a PDF or JPG to be uploaded as the form background, allowing you to map your desired fields to the same location on your uploaded form.
Alternatively, a List View Template is a simple way to stack your fields on top of each other and organize them in sections/tabs, but does not require a PDF or image background to map fields to.
To create a new Template in GoFormz, start with the following:
1. Select the Create button on the Templates tab
2. Select the type of view you would like to use to create your template.
Note: you can always add the alternate view to your template in the Template Editor. If you're not sure where to start or which view to use, we recommend selecting Form View and uploading a PDF or JPG form.
3a. Form View Selected:
Upload a form PDF/JPG into your template.
Form View Template creation begins with uploading your paper form into GoFormz. Start by dragging your PDF or JPG file to the upload box in the center of the Template Editor. Alternatively, you can click the Browse button to select your PDF or JPG form from the file chooser. Your file will automatically upload to the Template Editor. See here for more on uploading your paper form into GoFormz.
Build your Form View.
Now that you’ve uploaded your form, you have to tell GoFormz where on the form the fields are located, and what kind of fields they are. This is necessary in order to determine where on the form users will need to click or tap in order to fill out each individual field, and what kind of input control will show up once they do so. To do this, drag fields from the Template Fields panel on the left side of the Template Editor into the Template Builder area in the middle. Then resize and reposition your field to fit into the desired space on the form. See here for more on building out your Form View.
3b. List View Selected:
Build your List View.
To start a List View Template, simply drag a field form the Add New Fields section to the center of the Template Editor.
Organize Fields into Tabs and Sections
List View Templates focus on organizing your form fields into logically grouped sections and tabs allowing for enhanced navigation on smaller screens.
To add a new Tab, select the '+ Add Tab' option at the top of your List View.
To add a new Section, select the '+ Add Section' option at the bottom of the List View builder.
4. Set field properties.
Click on a field in the Builder to see its properties in the Properties panel on the right. Then click on the various properties to edit them. Properties are split into Field Properties that govern a field’s functionality and metadata; and Display Properties that govern the field’s appearance and layout.
5. Save your template as a draft.
Click the Save Draft button in the upper right corner of the Template Editor to save the template. Note that this is a necessary step because the editor does not have auto-save!
Once the template has been saved, Preview your form in a Preview Form Editor.
6. Preview your template as a form.
Click the Preview button in the top right corner of the Template Editor to open your Template in a Preview Form Editor. In the Preview Form Editor, you can test all calculations, database references, custom actions (except Workflow triggering action types), and field functionality set in the Template Editor. However, you will not be able to submit the form as it is just a quick preview to test your changes.
Note: Selecting the Preview button will automatically save your latest changes to your template as a draft.
7. Publish your Template so that it can be downloaded and used by your users across all devices.
Finally, click the Publish button to deploy your changes to your Form Users. When selected, a new version of your Template will be made available to be downloaded and used by your end-users. The publish button will only be active if all recent changes have been saved as a draft.
Note: Once a template is published, all new forms created will use this latest version unless an Admin manually updates the template version used by the form from the web app. See here for how to manually update a Form's Template Version.
8. Add another View (Form View or List View) Optional
Regardless of which view you started with, you can always add the other view to your Template in the Template Editor. Simply select the '+ List View' or '+ 'Form View' respectively.
Both views can be completely independent of each other — you can choose to carefully build out your List View and have your Form View be secondary, or vice versa. Similarly, a Template can have just a Form View or just a List view. Only one view is required to build a template. See here for more on the difference between Form View and List View.