Building a form

Creating a form, the twenty one question types, and what you can set on each question.

Forms is where you design a questionnaire of your own and then collect answers to it. You build the form once, publish it, and your team can then fill it in inside the workspace while people outside your organisation answer the same form from a public link.

Starting a new form

A new form begins empty, and you add its questions one at a time in the builder.

Open Forms from the workspace menu and create a form.
Open the new form and choose Build.
Add a question, choose its type, fill in its settings and save it. Repeat until the questionnaire is complete.

Building needs the Forms edit permission. The builder sits at an address of this shape: /forms/<id>/build/

The twenty one question types

A question is one of twenty one types, and the type decides both what the person answering sees and what the platform stores. Choose the type first, because it governs which of the settings below appear.

Family	Types available
Text, numbers and dates	Short Text; Long Text / Paragraph; Number; Phone Number; Mobile Number; Date
Choices	Radio Button, single choice; Checkbox, multiple choice; Dropdown Select; Yes / No
Scales, grids and ordering	Likert Scale (1 to 5); Rating (1 to 10 stars); Matrix / Grid; Ranking
Media and capture	Photo(s); Video; Voice Note; Document / File Upload; Signature; Barcode / QR Code Scan; GPS Location

What you can set on a question

Every question carries a label and, if you want one, a line of help text. Both are text, so both are entered once for each of your workspace languages. Beyond that, the settings you see depend on the type you chose:

Required, so the form refuses to move on until the question is answered.
Choices, added and removed as rows. Each row carries a label the person reads and a value the platform stores.
A minimum and a maximum value, for questions that take a number.
Labels for the bottom and the top of a scale, so a rating reads as something more useful than a bare number.
A variable name. It is required, and it must begin with a lowercase letter and then use only lowercase letters, digits and underscores, for example household_size
The file types you will accept, for upload questions.
A formula, for a calculated field whose answer the platform works out instead of asking for it.
Validation rules, including a regular expression and the error message shown when an answer does not match it.
The rows and the scale of a matrix, the items to be put in order for a ranking, and the parent question for a cascading select.

The variable name matters more than it looks. Skip logic refers to a question by its variable name, and the codebook export lists it against every column, so give each question a short name you will still recognise months later.

Screenshot: a question open in the builder, showing the label boxes for each language, the choice rows and the variable name.

Grouping questions into sections

A section is not something you create. It is a label you type on a question, in each of your workspace languages, and that question then shows the label as a heading above itself.

So there is no separate screen for sections and nothing to tidy up when you change your mind. Type the label on the question that opens the group, and clear it again if you no longer want a heading there.

Putting the questions in order

Each question card has a drag handle. Take hold of it, drag the card up or down to where you want it, and the new order is saved the moment you drop it. There is no separate save step for the order, and no numbering to keep in step by hand.