Customizable forms
Often, businesses have custom data collection requirements and forms that are tailored to their specific organization. Chronicle accommodates this by supporting the ability to create "custom forms". Custom forms are Google Form like forms where you can add questions, set validation rules and require your staff to fill out during any business process, whether that's creating a new customer profile, logging a service entry, or enrolling a new staff member. Custom forms allow you to collect and analyze data the way you want.
How to access custom forms
To see your custom forms and mange them:
- click on the Customize Forms option on the side navigation
- You should see a list of all custom forms in your organization.
What if I don't see the option on the side navigation?
If the Customize Forms option is not available for you, it likely means you do not have access to the feature. Ask your administrator to grant you access to custom forms to access the feature.
How to create a new custom form
To create a new custom form follow the following instructions,
- Access the custom form list, you can follow the instructions above if you need assistance.
- Click the Create button on the page.
You are now navigated to a new form creation page, follow the form to create your form.
- Make sure to provide a title and description for your form, forms with clear description and title are more likely to be used.
- Select a purpose for the form, forms with specific purpose are displayed before all other forms when used by your staff, they are also marked as recommended.
- Give your first section a title, every form must have at least one section and one question.
- Add a question to the new section, a question must have a title.
- You can change the question type using the Question type dropdown next to the question title
- For multiple choice and multi-select questions, you must also create a list of options, add option titles and press Add option to create more options
- For dynamic data select questions, you must select a data source to populate the options from.
- You can add a description to a question by clicking Add description, question descriptions are optional
- You can make a question optional to complete by unchecking the required toggle.
- You can add more questions to the section by clicking on Add question.
- You can add more sections to the form by clicking on Add new section.
- Make sure to press save at the bottom of the page when you are done.
Update an existing form
When you update an existing form, Chronicle creates a new version of the form and maintains the previous versions just in case they are being used in existing activity entries. This system ensures you will not lose any existing data when modifying form fields. You currently can't browse previous versions of your form, we are actively working to enable this feature.
Steps:
- Access the custom form list, you can follow the instructions above if you need assistance.
- Click on the form you want to update.
- Follow the create form guide for details on how to use the form builder.
Custom form best practices
- While it is possible to create a form with no sections and no question, this is not a recommended practice.
- Use the paragraph option if you want your staff to provide text responses longer than a sentence.
- It is recommended to not delete fields from forms that are being used. While it will not affect any existing entries, you may potentially lose track of data.
Custom form limitations and in-progress features
- Currently you cannot reorder the fields you created, this is an in-development feature.
- Currently you cannot duplicate an existing field, this is an in-development feature.