Publishing a form

A form has a status, which decides whether it can be answered, and a version, which is a frozen copy of its questions. They are two separate ideas, and they are changed by two different buttons on the form detail page.

Draft, Active and Closed

Every form is in one of three statuses. A new form starts as Draft: yours to build and rebuild, and not yet open to anybody. Active means the form is live and can be answered. Closed means it is finished with and takes no more answers.

One button on the detail page moves the form on. A Draft form shows Set Active, and an Active form shows Close Form.

Publishing a version

Publish is a separate button, and it asks you to confirm first, with the question “Publish a new version of this form?”.

Publishing takes a snapshot of the questions exactly as they stand and stores it as a numbered version. That version becomes the form's current version, and every response collected from then on records which version it answered.

If the form was still Draft when you published, publishing also sets it Active, so one action can take a form from unfinished to live. Publishing is written to your workspace activity log with who did it and when.

Reading the version history

The detail page lists the versions the form has had, each with the date it was published, and marks the latest one.

Because each response records the version it answered, an export can put early and late answers side by side and still tell you which set of questions each person actually saw. That is what makes a mid project change to a form safe to make.

Closing a form

Close Form ends collection. While a form is Closed its public link no longer opens the questionnaire, and a visitor who follows the link is told the form is closed instead.

Closing changes nothing you have already collected. The responses, the scores and the exports all stay exactly as they were, and the version history stays with the form.