Form Pages and Sections

A well-structured form gives your field technicians the context they need to complete their work quickly, correctly, and efficiently. Design your form to enhance the field user experience and make it simpler to implement your business logic, workflows, and integrations.

Tip:Take the time to plan your forms. Remember that the overall structure can make it easier to apply Conditional Logic and integrate with your back office systems.

Video Demo

Learn from an expert! This video describes the structure of a ProntoForm, including both Regular and Repeatable Sections.

Form Building Cookbook

Get “recipes” for best practices in setting up pages, sections, and questions in your forms.

 

 

Key Concepts

  • A ProntoForm consists of virtual pages, organized in a page index.

    Diagram that shows five pages on the Page index, from which the field user can select. This takes the user directly to the selected page in the form.

  • Each page contains sections, and each section contains questions. You can set up the form to show or hide the section header (title). You can also make the section collapsible to save screen space.

    Form that shows a page with two sections. Field users can collapse and expand each section by selecting the arrows next to the section header (title).

  • Different types of sections provide different types of user interactions.

    Regular Sections

    Regular Sections contain sets of questions that the field user answers only once.

    Side-by-Side Sections (Enterprise tier only)

    Side-by-Side Sections display questions and answers in a condensed, two-column layout. This can make it easier and faster for field users to scan, complete, and confirm the answers in a form.

    Repeatable Sections

    Repeatable Sections contain sets of questions that the field user can answer multiple times, “repeating” the process as needed. For example, the field user can answer the same set of questions for each piece of equipment that they need to inspect.

    Template-Based Sections (Enterprise tier only)

    Template-Based Sections contain reusable groups (blocks) of questions to help you build your form more quickly and consistently. Field users see no difference between these and Regular Sections.

    Info:You can use a template within a form, but not across different forms.

Configuration

Items to consider Guidelines ProntoForms features you can use
User devices

  • Design your pages and sections to display clearly on the device and to minimize scrolling.

  • Organize your pages so that the page index makes the form easy to navigate.
User experience

  • Group relevant items into sections to provide your users with context.

  • Organize the form in the order of tasks to be completed.

  • Use a condensed, two-column layout for easier scanning and less scrolling.

  • In each Repeatable Section, optimize the Summary Table display and enable row copying and inline editing.
Documents used as reports

  • By default, a document created when the user submits the form is based on the page and section structure of the form. Make sure the form structure works with your document requirements.

Information from:

  • For a large number of data points in a Repeatable Section, enable row copying and inline editing of the Summary Table.

  • Use a custom column setup to combine different data points in a single display column.

  • You can route or push data from a question to subsequent questions in the form. Place the source question before the target questions.
Workflows and Business Logic
IntegrationsClosed Integration refers to secure communication and data sharing between ProntoForms and a third-party system, such as Salesforce or ServiceMax. Connections, Data Sources, Data Destinations, and App-to-App calls and callbacks can be used as part of an integration solution.

  • You can send data from a submitted form directly to your system of record. Structure the sections in your form to align with your third-party system requirements.

    For example, you might use SharePoint to store data for downstream processing by reporting or analytics platforms. You can map data from a Regular or Repeatable Section into one or more SharePoint columns as required by your third-party system.

  • Use a Repeatable DestinationClosed A Repeatable Destination is a ProntoForms Data Destination that sends data from a Repeatable Section to a field-based, third-party system. to send data from a Repeatable Section to Salesforce or SharePoint (Advanced and Enterprise tiers only).

  • Set up the structure of your form so that it’s easy to map to the hierarchical structure of your third-party system. For example, use Regular and Repeatable Destinations to map data from different sections in your form to parent-child objects in Salesforce. Parent-child relationships could include Account and Contacts objects, or Work Order and Work Order Tasks objects.

Troubleshooting