Forms allow your employees to fill in reports, forms, checklists, requests, and more, all 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 digitalized 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.
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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 if to start from scratch or select an already-made template. Whether you create a new or edit an existing one, you can choose various 'building blocks', like free text, multiple-choice, image uploads, documents scanner, digital signature, GPS location stamp, and much 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 on Add New and select either Start From Scratch or Use a Template. 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 Add field. In the example below, we will be adding a yes/no field.
These are the 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. Please note that not every setting is available for each question. The two settings applicable for all fields are 'Required' and 'Location stamp capture'. See next an explanation of each setting.
Question Settings
Customizing the form fields' settings ensures the data you receive is accurate and complete, projecting exactly the information you are looking for.
Required: This requires employees to fill out this field, and will not let them complete the form without filling it out. An example would be a daily task list where you want to make sure that your users are not missing out on completing any tasks. The rule of thumb should be: if the information is crucial for you, set the field as required.
Location stamp capture: This captures users' location when they input their response to this field.
Multiple selection: This allows your employees to select multiple values. An example of this would be in a merchandise order form where you want users to be able to select a few items to buy.
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 only receive updated and live photos, set the image upload to only come from the camera and not the gallery.
From the Advanced Operations plan, you have the option of adding 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: When your form is complete, make sure to take another look at the mobile preview to make sure it looks good and that you are capturing all the necessary information. When you are satisfied with your form, click Save to continue to the next stages - assigning the form to your users and confirming the publishing setting.
Step 4: Once your form is complete, set the necessary permissions for the various asset admins to ensure the form will be 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!
Navigating the Forms Dashboard
When your employees submit the form, their entries are saved and documented on your dashboard and can be accessed whenever you need them. On the dashboard, you'll receive an instant report of the form's activity and employee engagement. You'll see the percentage of users who did or did not submit the form, and the number of entries made by a user. You can filter users by the number of entries, submission date, or status and export this as an Excel file. These tools are great for reporting purposes or for tracking employee engagement!
On this screen, you can also click on the Options button to reach the form's settings, edit the form, edit assignments, or archive the form.
Connecteam allows you to track which employees have submitted the Forms and which have not by using the "Filter" button at the bottom of your Form page. Importantly, you can follow up with employees that didn't submit an entry by checking the box next to their name and using the "Notify" feature, which will allow you to send them a customized notification, reminding them to fill it out.
To see all form entries, click on Show Entries. This is where we will be able to analyze all of our entry submissions and provide feedback to our users. Our dedicated article on Form Entries and Summaries will give you all the information you need to know on how to view your users' entries and gather the relevant data you need.
Tools for Follow-Up
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!
Share options
Setting up share options will enable your users to share the form with the relevant stakeholders so that the necessary people stay in the loop. The form can be shared with internal users or external, just with the press of 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. From our experience, providing feedback acts as positive reinforcement and leads to higher Form submission rates.
Download Entries
The entry submission screen allows you to export form entries for further information processing and handling. You can download entries individually or you can select multiple submissions and download them in bulk.
Additional Automations
From the Advanced plan, you have the ability to create automatic form reminders that are sent out to your users on specific days, at specific times, ensuring that your forms are filled out on time!
From the Expert plan, you are able to 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, Compliance Forms, etc. You can easily move forms between folders in case you need to re-organize your forms.
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 go back to the form and make the necessary changes. 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 own form. We showed you how to navigate the dashboard, and we introduced some useful tools for information tracking and processing. We hope you gained some inspiration for how to start collecting information in an efficient manner while maximizing Connecteam's capabilities!
For more resources on the Forms feature, check out our full list of articles here!
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