Forms Designer Quick Start Guide

Forms Designer Quick Start Guide

Overview

Field2Base Forms Designer is the proprietary software application that allows your existing Forms to be quickly converted to an active, online, smart Form available to your end users via our Mobile Device and Web-based Applications.
This article describes the basic steps for creating a new Form using the Field2Base Forms Designer application. If you need to install Forms Designer, please see the  Forms Designer Install Guide. Field2Base uniquely allows customers to use their existing Forms as the background for their new digital Forms. A digital form is built by inserting Regions on top of this background image.
 

Creating the Form Background



1. Open the Forms Designer application on your PC.
2. In the upper left hand corner, select the file folder icon then New. 


3. Click the corresponding button to the type of file your form background is in. 

      a. Use Image File – Select the image files to import. Valid file types are PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP.
      b. Use PDF File – Select the PDF file to import.  
      c. Use Microsoft Office Document – Select the Microsoft Office document to import. Valid file types are XLS, XLSX, DOC, and DOCX.  
Note: Forms Designer converts all backgrounds to images using GhostScript. You will be prompted to install GhostScript the first time you try to use a PDF or Office document as a background.

4. Select the Page Quality for your imported Pages. Default settings are 24 bit colors and medium resolution. 

5. Select the Pages you want to import. All Pages are selected by default. You can click each Page to deselect or select specific Pages. 

 

Adding Regions to the Form



Now that your Form background has been imported, you need to create areas on the Form for your users to enter data. These areas are called Regions. You will need to create a Region for every area of the Form where the user will enter data. For more details on creating regions, see the article  Creating Regions.

1. To create a Region, click and hold down the left mouse button to draw a box on the Form starting at the top left corner of the box and ending at the bottom right hand corner.
Note: Make sure the Region button is selected under the Form tab in Forms Designer when creating a Region. This button is active by default.
2. Once your Region is completed, the Create Region dialog box displays.
 

Setting Region Properties

Each Region Type has a unique set of properties that can be set. These properties determine what data is required for the Region and how the data will appear on the Form background.

1. In the General tab, set the Region properties using the fields below.


Note: The only region properties that require a value are Region name and Region type. All other region properties are optional.
  1. Region name - Enter a unique name for your region. Region names need to be in one of the following formats: one word ("ClientApproval") or with an underscore ("Client_Approval"). The name cannot contain spaces or special characters. 
  2. Region type: Select the Region Type you need from the drop-down menu. For more information on all of the Region Types available, see the article on Region Types.
  3. This field is required: Selecting this option will require the Region to contain data before the Form can be sent. If no data has been entered, the Mobile Forms application will direct the user back to this Region for completion before being able to send the Form. 
2. In the Display tab, you can set the Font, Color and Alignment to determine how the data will appear. The red preview box displays how your Region appears on the Form.
 
 

Previewing the Form



At any time during the design process, you can preview your Form to see how it will look on a mobile device.
1. Select the Home tab on the menu ribbon at the top of the page.
2. Select the Preview button. 


3. Click on any of the Regions you created and enter data to ensure they are working properly.
4. Click on Validate + Send to test any validation and sending scripting. 


5. Click on the End Preview button to exit the preview screen and return to the design view.

 

Note: The preview mode in Forms Designer may not function exactly as the Form would function on a mobile device. It is recommended that you publish your Form and review it on a mobile device for more accurate testing. For example, you cannot read barcodes for a Barcode Region or register signature events.

Note: You can uncheck a checkbox in Preview Mode by highlighting it and pressing the space bar.

Saving the Form



Your digital Form can be saved as a file (*.eform) to your local PC. As part of the installation process, a folder in your documents directory called “My Forms” was automatically created. Forms Designer will attempt to save your eForm files to the "My Forms" folder by default.
Note: In order to prevent losing your work, Forms Designer will automatically save the Form your are working on (every 5 minutes) to the Autosave folder in the My Forms folder.

1. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, click on the File icon and select Save.
2. The first time you save your Form, you will be required to name it. This name will appear on your user’s mobile device as the Form Name. You can name it whatever you like. Spaces are allowed for Form names, however you may not use special characters.
3. Select OK.

4. By default, the file name will be the same as the Form name.
5. Select Save.

Form Properties



You can customize additional Form Properties by opening the Form Properties dialog box. To open Form Properties, just click on the Properties button at the top of your Forms Designer window.

General Tab

 
  1. Form ID - This is the globally unique ID that is used to apply versioning, workflows and folders to your form. If you want to re-id your form, you can now Edit the Form ID. For example, if you have a live version of a form, and you make updates to the form in a test or sandbox version of the form, you can assign a Form ID to publish in another folder simultaneously. When you're ready to publish the test form updates to the live form, you can re-id the test form with the id of the live form. 
    1. To change the ID on your form:
      1. Click the Edit button.
      2. You will receive a warning that changing the Form ID will change previous associations to folders. It will also change any workflow or integration projects associated to your current form ID. If you are sure you want to change the ID, click Yes. 
      3. The Form ID field will now be editable. You can copy and paste the ID from the desired Form.
  2. Revision - Displays the current version of your Form. 
  3. File Format - Displays the version of Forms Designer that your Form is saved in. You can use the drop down to change this version. 
  4. Description - You can add a description of your Form and it will be part of the form metadata. 
  5. Disable page navigation and require scripting or buttons to navigate the form - If you want to use buttons or scripting to control the page order of your form, you can check this box to disable page to page navigation. 
  6. Disable Quick Copy for the entire form - Check this option if you do not want your tablet users to be able to Quick Copy data from previously Sent Forms. 
 

Title Tab

You can set a customized title for your form which includes data from Form Regions. This is very useful when receiving e-mailed PDFs or when trying to find a specific Sent Form. For example, the Form Title for a Sent Form can be: F2B Sample Form - Customer: Mary Morvan Date: 4/28/2018.

 

Publishing the Form



Now that you have created your Form, it is time to publish it so your users can access it on their mobile device.
1. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, click on the file folder icon and select Publish.
2. Enter the publishing credentials that were supplied to you by Field2base.
3. The first time you publish a Form, you will be asked to associate it with a Folder in your Company. Choose the Folder you want to associate with the Form and select OK.
4. Once your Form has been published, you will receive final confirmation and you can view the published Form on your mobile device.

 


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