Building your first form

When to use this

You'll come here whenever you need to:

• Build a brand new form from scratch — for example, a daily site inspection that doesn't yet exist
• Set up a reusable template you can roll out to lots of projects later
• Start a new form quickly by copying one you already use elsewhere

The New Form button at the top-right of the Forms list is the starting point for all three.

The three options

Click New Form and you'll see a small dropdown with three choices. Pick whichever matches what you're trying to do:

• Create New Form — build a fresh form from scratch and link it to a project
• Create New Template — build a reusable starting point that isn't tied to any single project
• Create from Template — start a new form by copying one of your existing templates

Each option opens a slightly different flow. Read on for the one you need.

Creating a brand new form

This is the option you'll use most often — you have an idea for a form, you want to build it, and you want to attach it to a project (or several).

1. 1

   Click New Form > Create New Form.

2. 2

   Give the form a clear Name — for example, "Daily Site Inspection" or "Scaffold Pre-Use Check". The name is what your team will see in the list, so make it obvious what the form is for.

3. 3

   Add an optional Description — a short note about who should be filling it in and when.

4. 4

   Pick the Projects the form should be linked to. You can pick more than one, or leave it blank if the form will be linked to a project later.

5. 5

   Click Create. The form is created as a draft and the Form Builder opens for you to drag in fields.

Creating a reusable template

A template is a form that doesn't belong to any project. You build it once, then use it as the starting point for new forms whenever a project needs one.

1. 1

   Click New Form > Create New Template.

2. 2

   Give the template a clear Name, e.g. "Standard Daily Site Inspection". Add an optional Description.

3. 3

   Click Create. The template opens in the Form Builder for you to add fields.

There's no Projects field on a template — that's the point. Templates live separately in the Template Library so you can browse and import them later.

Once you publish a template it becomes available to anyone in the company creating a new form. See Reusing forms with templates for how the library works.

Starting a form from an existing template

The fastest way to get a working form on a new project is to copy one you've already built.

1. 1

   Click New Form > Create from Template.

2. 2

   The Template Library opens with all your published templates. Drafts are pinned at the top so you can see anything you're still working on.

3. 3

   Use the search box to find the template you want — type part of the name or description.

4. 4

   Click a template to see a quick preview with its name, description, version and field count.

5. 5

   Click Create Form in the preview. A new form is created as a copy of the template, with all its fields, conditional logic and structure already in place.

6. 6

   The new form opens in the builder so you can make any project-specific tweaks before publishing.

A small Library badge appears on the new form's row in the list, showing the original template name. That makes it easy to see at a glance which forms came from which template.

What you get at the start

Whichever option you picked, your new form starts off with:

• The name and description you typed in
• A status of Draft
• A version number of 1
• Any project assignments you selected
• Either an empty canvas (for a new form) or a full set of fields copied from the template (for Create from Template)

Everything else — the fields, the layout, the show/hide conditions, which fields are required — gets built in the Form Builder.

Editing the name or projects later

Made a typo, or need to add another project? Use the Modify Form action from the form's row on the Forms list. It lets you edit the name, description and project assignments at any time, even after the form has been published. Existing submissions are not affected.

For changes to the form's actual fields and structure, see Updating a published form.

Next steps

• Using the Form Builder — for the drag-and-drop editor that opens after creation.
• Reusing forms with templates — for the library that Create from Template browses.
• Updating a published form — for how to change a live form without breaking existing submissions.