Table of Contents
Forms
Updated
by Lesley
What are Forms?
A form view is used to add or edit a record in your app. This means creating a record or editing an existing record from a table within your app.
What do Forms look like in a Live App?
In the live app, fields from your table are used as form inputs and displayed as shown below:
Manage Forms
Adding, editing and deleting views are mostly managed the same regardless of view type. However there are exceptions noted below depending on the type of form your are looking to use.
To learn the general steps to how to add, edit, and delete views from your app, see About Views.
Add a Form
You can add a form by selecting the “Add View” button from the toolbar at the top of any page. This will open the toolbox where you can select the form view type to add to your page.
Once you have selected the form view, you will have the option to customize which table records the form will work with.
Add a Form to Create a New Record
After you have selected the form view type when adding a view you will be prompted to choose which records the form will work with. If you would like the form to create a new records, select the “add a new record” option then choose a table.
Add a Form to Update Existing Records
You can add a form to update an existing record on any details or edit page.
After you have selected the form view type when adding a view you will be prompted to choose which records the form will work with. If you would like the form to update an existing record, select the “update an existing record” option then choose a table.
Click here for more on using action links to add details and edit pages.
Add a Form to Insert a Connected Record
If your app is using connections, you can add forms to insert connected records to any details page. After you have chosen the type of form and which records it works with, you will be prompted to select how the record will connect within your app.
For example, in the example below, you can add a Form view to the Project details page that will add a new Task record connected to that Project.
You can also go one step further and add a form that will create a record further connected to your parent table. In the example, although Project is the page's source table, the form will create a new Task record connected to the Milestone connected to the page's Project record.
Copy or Move a Form
To copy your form, click and drag the form view from its original page and drop it on a new page in the page hierarchy tree. This will trigger a Copy/Move pop-up menu:
You can also copy or move a form by editing the form view on your page, clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner of the form settings page and then selecting copy or move from the dropdown menu:
To move your form view and rearrange your page, click and hold the form view and move it above or below other views present on the page.
Form Settings
To access the settings of a form view, hover your mouse over the view and click on the pencil icon that appears at the top left of the view. This will open options for Settings, Add Inputs, Rules and emails which can be edited in the toolbox to the left of the page preview.
Here you can also see the form’s source above the settings. This displays the records the form works with.
Settings
The settings section contains options to change the submit button text, the text shown to reload the form, the title and description and the option to enable e-commerce.
Submit Button Text
Here you can update the text on the submit button to custom text. The default text for the button is “submit”.
Reload Form Text
After a form is submitted there is the option to show text which allows the user to reload the form. Here you can customize that text shown to the user.
Title & Description
This section allows you to customize the title and description for the form view. The title will be added directly above the view in your Live App. The description will be added above your view below the title. Descriptions can be used to give your users more context about how to use a view.
E-Commerce
In this section you can enable e-commere in your app. This will allow you to accept payments through this form and create a customer to charge later.
You can read more about using e-commerce in your app here.
Add Inputs
This section is where you determine which fields are included in the form. Here you can include either fields from tables with your app or static fields like title/copy and dividers.
When adding a new form, all the fields are added as form inputs by default. However, if you add a new field on the table in your Data section of the Builder, you will need to add that to any form you'd like to include that on.
Add Field Inputs
The left menu lists all the fields available to add as inputs. Click on a field to add it to your form.
Each field can only be added once, and any fields that have already been included in your form will be grayed out. When added, each field will preview with an input based on the field type.
Add Connection Field Inputs
Connection fields are added to forms the same way as other fields by selecting the field from the field list.
In a form, a one to many and one to one connection field looks like a drop-down with the added feature to dynamically search the available choices. For example, if you had one Project connected to many Milestones, the field would display as shown below:
A connection field using a to many to many connection type lets you select more than one record at a time. For example, if one Project connected to many Project Managers, the field would display as follows on a form:
Static Inputs
Forms have static input options including title/copy and dividers. Clicking the Static tab in the Inputs menu allows you to add these to your app by selecting the static content option.
The Title/Copy option lets you insert titles and text throughout your form. This field can be edited by clicking the edit icon on the field
The Divider option lets you add a horizontal divider within your form. This can be used to create different form sections within a single form view.
Input Layouts
You can change the layout of your inputs to display in one, two or three columns. Field inputs in a form can be rearranged by clicking and dragging the input into the desired location on the form.
When dragging the form input, a black line will appear showing you where the input will land. These can be dragged horizontally into columns or vertically reorganizing the fields from top to bottom.
Edit Inputs
To edit an input, hover over the field and click the pencil icon.
The toolbox to the right will reveal options specific to the the input type.
- Field: The name of the field.
- Read Only: Selecting this option will display the field’s value without an option for editing the value in the form. This is only available on edit forms.
- Label: The label that displays with the input. This defaults to the field's name.
- Instructions: Add additional instructions for using the input. This will display in smaller text below the input, except in the case of paragraph fields, where it will display above the form input.
Custom Options
Both multiple choice and connection fields have options to allow a user to create new choices directly from the form. As an example, if you have a multiple choice field to select the Industry, and yours doesn't exist, you could add that as a new option.
This presents the user with a "plus" icon they can click to add additional options right from the form:
When this option is selected for a connection field, it creates a child form that is managed in Pages like any other form.
When this option is selected for a multiple choice field, no child form is created. Instead, the user will simply see a modal popup to add that new multiple choice option in the Live App.
Connection Field Show Option
Connections have an additional option. When you have multiple connection fields on a form and that are connected to one another, you will see the Show option for limiting which connected records are available to select from:
For example, if you have Milestones connected to a Project record, you can limit the Milestones that are shown here, by selecting to Show only the Milestones connected with the form's Project.
Then, when a specific Project is selected on the form, only that Project's Milestones will show up for the Milestone field:
Connection Field Filters
Connection fields can also have filters that will further limit which connected records are available to select from:
This will allow you to determine exactly which records will display in your connection field based on the filters you add. For example, if you only want to display Project Managers that have an 'Active' user status, this could be done by applying filters.
Delete Inputs
Hover over an input and click the "trash can" icon to delete that input:
Rules
You can add powerful workflows to your forms with different Form Rules. There are three different types of Form Rules: submit rules, display rules, and record rules.
Submit Rules
Submit Rules determine what happens after a form is submitted and each form has a single submit rule that shows a confirmation message by default.
Submit Action: the result of the submit rule. The chosen action will occur once the criteria have been triggered. There are five actions that can occur once a submit rule has been triggered:
- Show a confirmation message: after the submission, the form will fade out and the confirmation text will appear. There are 2 additional options here: Show a link to reload a form and Automatically reload the form.
- Redirect to the parent page: after the submission, the user will be redirected to a parent page. This is perfect if you're adding a child record and want to quickly go back to a parent list showing all those records. This is also helpful when you are adding a new record from a popup modal form and would like to refresh a grid listing to include your newly created record.
- Redirect to an existing page: after the submission, the user will be redirected to the selected page.
- Redirect to another website's URL: after the submission, the user will be redirected to the entered URL.
- Redirect to a new child page: create a new child page to direct the user to. You can add any views you wish to this page and it will automatically work with the form's record. This means you can insert a new record and immediately show other views for that record.
When: the criteria that will trigger the submit rule. The first rule present is the default action that will trigger when no other rule is met. You can add multiple criteria to each rule based on field values, in which case every criterion must be true.
You can find more information and examples on using submit rules here.
Display Rules
Display Rules control how the form is displayed. You can show and hide form inputs and change input labels based on other form and record values. These rules are checked and triggered when a user changes the value of a form or an edit form is initially populated.
A Display Rule is added by defining the conditions that “Run when the following criteria is true” and that actions that “Do the following”.
Run when the following criteria is true: the conditions that will trigger the actions when each condition is true. More than one condition can be added to trigger the action, in which case every condition must be true.
Do the following: the action to trigger when the condition is met:
- Show/Hide: Show the input when the condition is true, hide it when it is false.
- Show: Show the input when the condition is true.
- Hide/Show: Hide the input when the condition is true, show it when it is false.
- Hide: Hide the input when the condition is true.
- Rename Label: Change the label of the input when the condition is true.
Multiple conditions and actions can be added for each rule by using the green "plus" button.
You can find more information and examples on using display rules here.
Record Rules
Record Rules add or update records in your database. For example, you can insert or update a connected record, or update record this form is working with.
A record rule is added by defining an action and the conditions (when) that trigger the action.
Action: the action to take when the rule is triggered:
- Update this [the form’s] record: useful for setting status or workflow fields on submissions. You can also assign logged-in users, so you can track who submitted a comment, rating, or ranking on a form.
- Update connected records: similar but updating any records connected to the form's record.
- Insert a connected record: add a new record connected to the form record. Your form's table must be connected to other tables for this option to be available. Great for adding history, version, and archived records based on the submission.
When: the criteria to trigger the rule. Add criteria based on one or more form values, or you can run the rule for every form submission. Multiple criteria can be added, in which case every criterion must be true.
Values: When the action is inserting or updating records you can also set one or more Values for those inserts and updates. Values can be set to a:
- Connected value: choose a field from a record connected to the form record.
- Custom value: enter a value manually.
- Form value: choose one of the form inputs.
You can find more information and examples on using record rules here.
Emails
You can trigger emails to be sent after a form is submitted. For example if you would like to receive an email each time a form is submitted or if you would like to send a confirmation email to the user who filled out the form.
Action: Choose the kind of email you would like sent.
- Send a custom email for each record: Customize your email contents and recipients.
- Send a basic email notification: Send an email containing all form inputs to an email address of your choice.
When: the criteria to trigger the Email to be sent. Add criteria based on one or more form values, or you can run the rule for every form submission. Multiple criteria can be added, in which case every criterion must be true.
Email to send:
- From: the name and email address the recipient will see the "From" email address.
- Recipients: the recipient can either be a custom email address entered here or an email field within the table used by the form.
- To: the main recipient.
- CC: recipients who should receive a carbon-copy of the email.
- BCC: recipients who should receive a blind carbon copy of the email.
- Reply-To: the email address where email replies will be sent to.
- Subject: the subject the recipient will see for the email. You can use form field values in the subject line.
- Message: the message for the body of the email can be created by combining your own text and any fields available in the form record. Clicking on the “{...}” option will allow you to add fields from the table into the email body as well as template variables. There are 3 template variables you can add to your message body:
- Record ID: Include the internal ID for the record. This comes in handy when you want to add a link to edit/view the specific record.
- Page URL: Include the URL for the form where the email is originating from.
- Parent Page URL: Include the URL for this form's parent page, if a parent page exists.
- Payment Summary: Includes a summary of the payment when e-commerce is enabled on the form.
You can read more on using emails and notifications here.
Use Forms in your App
Form views are generally used to either add or update records in your tables. However, there are a number of other uses for forms as well.
Equations and Calculators
Forms can be used as online calculators by adding equation fields to the form. If all values used in the equation are present in the form, then the equation will automatically update as the user updates those fields in the Live App.
Here's an example of an online calculator for calculating employee compensation based on a sales commission:
This will generally only work for simple equations like the above example. Current limitations include:
- Only numeric equations will work, date-based equations currently will not.
- All values for the equation need to be present in the form for the equation to calculate live.
- Equations displayed on the form that use other equations will display inconsistent results as there is no set order in which these equations process.
- You can use a single equation which includes all the individual fields for the formula that is currently divided up into several fields to correctly show your total.
- If values from connected records are needed, then the equation won't update automatically.
Notes & Troubleshooting
How do I add a new field to my form?
If you need to add a new field to your form that doesn't exist yet, you'll first need to add it to a table within your app.
What happens if I change my field name that is used in my form?
If you change the field name in the table, every existing input label will be updated unless the label has been changed to something different.
Can I copy a form layout?
Currently, form view layouts can't be saved and reused in other forms. However, you can copy a form or link to an existing form if you need to reuse the same form elsewhere in your app.
How-to Guides
There are several How-To Guides that use form views to display records:
