Forms enable your employees to complete reports, forms, checklists, requests, and more directly from their mobile app. Gone are the days of filling out paperwork using pen and paper and storing them in the file cabinet! Using Forms will improve compliance, standardize operational procedures for your employees, and move your business forward. With Connecteam's Forms, everything is digitized and accessible on the go.
In this article, we'll go over how to activate the Forms feature and how to create a form from scratch. We'll show you how to navigate the dashboard and introduce the tools you can use to maximize the feature's potential in gathering and tracking information.
How to Activate the Forms Feature
To activate the Forms feature, enter the launchpad, navigate to the sidebar on the left-hand side, and click on the Forms feature. Click on Activate Forms and now you're ready to get started!
How to Create a New Form
The first step in creating a form is choosing whether to start from scratch or select an already-made template. Whether you create a new one or edit an existing one, you can choose various "building blocks," such as free text, multiple-choice options, image uploads, a scanner, signature, location stamp, and more, so that you can capture all the necessary information. With a variety of fields to choose from and a mobile preview on the right, creating a beautiful form for your users has never been easier. Below is a guide explaining how to create a form:
Step 1: To begin creating your form, click "Add New" and select either "Start From Scratch," "Use a Template," or "Create From File" (AI-powered). For this example, we will start from scratch.
Step 2: Name the form, and start adding fields to build your form. To do so, click on the Add field. In the example below, we will be adding a Yes/No field.
Types of fields you can add to a form:
When adding a field, you'll be offered the option to customize the field's settings. Note: Not every setting is available for each question. The two settings applicable for all fields are Required and Location stamp capture.
All Field settings
Customizing the form fields' settings ensures the data you receive is accurate and complete, so that you receive only the exact information you are looking for.
Required: This field must be completed by employees, and they will not be able to submit the form without doing so. An example would be a daily task list where you want to ensure that your users are not missing any tasks. The rule of thumb should be: if the information is crucial for you, set the field as required.
Location stamp capture: This feature captures users' locations when they input their responses to this field.
Multiple selection: This allows your employees to select multiple values. An example of this is a merchandise order form, where users can select multiple items to purchase.
Allow multiple uploads: For the image upload or scanner field, this enables employees to upload multiple files.
Image source: This allows you to choose if to allow employees to upload images from the camera and/or their phone's photo gallery. If you want to receive only updated and live photos, set the image upload to only come from the camera, not the gallery.
With the Advanced plan, you have the option to add Conditional fields to your form. Conditional fields will appear based on the answer to a previous question. If you want to up your Forms game, this is the way to do it!
Step 3: Once your form is complete, review the mobile preview again to ensure it looks good and that you have captured all the necessary information. When you are satisfied with your form, click Save to proceed to the following stages: assigning the form to your users and confirming the publishing settings.
Step 4: Once your form is complete, set the necessary permissions for the various asset admins to ensure the form is managed correctly and appropriately. On the form's page, click on the asset admins at the top and add the admins you need to have access to the form.
To learn more about admin permissions that are specific to the Forms feature, check out this article about Forms: Admin Permissions!
Form Management
When your employees submit the form, their entries are saved and documented on your dashboard and can be accessed whenever you need them. By clicking on the Activity tab, you'll receive an instant report of the form's activity and employee engagement. You'll see the percentage of users who submitted the form and the number of entries made by each user.
On this screen, you will also find the Settings and Edit Form options.
By clicking on the Users tab, you can track which employees have submitted the Forms and which have not. You can follow up with employees who didn't submit an entry by checking the box next to their name, then clicking Notify. Send a customized notification, reminding them to fill it out.
To see all form submissions, access the Submissions tab. This is where we will analyze all our entry submissions and provide feedback to our users. Our dedicated article on Form Entries and Summaries provides all the information you need to know about viewing your users' entries and gathering the relevant data you require. To view the full submission, click the form itself.
Here, you will be able to select whether you wish to view the submissions in a Table or Inbox view. To learn more, see How to View Form Submissions and Summaries.
Connecteam offers several tools that will help you continue processing the form and its information. The opportunities to maximize efficiency, improve communication, and process information are endless!
Sharing options
Setting up sharing options will enable your users to share the form with the relevant stakeholders, ensuring that the necessary people stay informed. The form can be shared with internal users or external users, simply by pressing a button at the end of the submission.
Manager Fields
Manager Fields will enable managers to add information to an entry, either internally or externally as user feedback. For instance, you can notify members by tagging them, signing off entries, adding a status field, a specific note, and more!
💡 Tip: We highly encourage adding Manager Fields to provide feedback to your users. Based on our experience, providing feedback serves as positive reinforcement and leads to higher Form submission rates.
Download Entries
By accessing the Submissions tab, you can download entries individually or select multiple submissions and download them in bulk.
Additional Automation
With the Advanced plan, you can create automatic form reminders that are sent to your users on specific days and at specific times, ensuring that your forms are completed on time.
From the Expert plan, you can create automatic form reports for each of your forms that are sent out at specific times, based on specific criteria.
Tips & Tricks
From the Advanced plan, you can save a form you've created as a template. This way, you can continue to re-use it and save yourself time from building it again and again!
You can have several Form sections. For example, you can have an HR Forms Section, a Compliance Forms section, and so on. You can easily move forms between folders if you need to reorganize them.
You can customize forms even further, such as setting when to send reminders, limiting the number of entries per user, and making the form anonymous, all from the Form Settings.
If you need to make any changes, you can always return to the form and make the necessary adjustments. You can move the fields around or edit them by hovering over the field and clicking on the edit icon.
Summary
In this article, we went over how to activate the Forms feature and how to build your form. We showed you how to navigate the dashboard and introduced some useful tools for tracking and processing information. We hope you gained some inspiration for how to start collecting information efficiently while maximizing Connecteam's capabilities!
For more resources on the Forms feature, check out our full list of articles here!
Want a Pro to create your Forms for you? 🤓 Click here to learn more.
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