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From a form designer's point of view, a form is a collection of pages containing information and input fields that end-users will navigate through and fill in to perform a task (for example to complete and submit an online application). Some pages in this collection are mandatory and cannot be deleted as they carry certain functionality.
When a form is created from a "Blank Form" template, it includes 4 There are 4 types of pages:
 | Start Page |
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is a mandatory page |
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. The main purpose of this page is to inform users what the form is for and provide a button to start the form. No input fields are allowed on this page as the form is not instantiated till the user clicks on the Start button. | |
| Data Entry Page |
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is a page where you add content (information, warnings, prompts, etc.) and input fields. You can add as many |
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Data Entry Pages |
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(see Adding & Removing Pages) to a form as necessary, placing them between Start and Submission pages in the order they will be presented to users. Data Entry Page can be deleted at any time. | |
| Submission Page |
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is a special type of Data Entry Page. This page is mandatory and cannot be deleted. It can contain any information and input fields as any other Data Entry Page but it also has an important function - when users get to this page, Submit button that allows users to submit completed form |
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will appear in the Form Controls panel. | |
| Completed Page is a page which displays a message to users when the form is successfully submitted. No input fields are allowed on this page as the form at this stage is already submitted. You can delete this page. |
Note: the Start and Submit buttons are not displayed in the Visual Designer. They are automatically added at run time (together with the Next, Previous and Quit buttons). You can modify their properties in the Visual Designer, for example, change the text displayed on the Quit button to "Exit", see {Form-level properties} for more details.
At the very least a form will contain two pages - the Start and Submission . An pages. You can create the form from "One Page Form" template. An example of such form would be a simple request Request form with few input fields. You can create such form from "One Page Form" template.
For more complex forms, placing all input fields on one page would make it too long and will force end force users to scroll back up and forth down - not a great design. It's much better to group information and input fields into sections and place them on different pages, assign them proper headers to clearly idenify identify what the groups are about, and give the users navigation controls to switch between the pages.See how the navigation is done {How Form works}.
When you publish your form, what you (and users, when the form is released) will see first is the Start Page. The Start Page is a good place to put information that explains what the form is for, what is expected of users and any other content you want users to see before they start the form. The page also has a Start button, when a user clicks on it, the form session related to this user is instantiated and the user is presented with the first Data Entry (or Submission, in case of One Page form) page.
Form Navigation and Control
How the screen looks and what navigation tools appear after a form is instantiated is highly customisable. Here we explain the default settings.
For one page form
As the form has only one page there is no need for navigation tools. The form has two control buttons - Submit and Cancel. Submit button allows a user to submit the form. Cancel button allows the user to exit the form without submitting it.
For multi- page form
The default configuration for the multi-page form includes Page links at the top, Data Entry area in the middle and Form Controls at the bottom.
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Data Entry area is where the pages of the form are displayed, one at a time. | ||||||||||||
Depending on the form configuration form navigation can be one-way (forward only), two-ways (back and forward) or user can be allowed to switch between pages using the Page Links or the Progress bar (see Form-level Properties). |
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| Form is assembled from form components. Data Entry Page is a Page form component, it works as a container for other components to form a page. You display content on the page using Content form component and collect user responses using Input Field components (Text Field, Choice Field, etc). See Form Components for more details. |