Handlebars: Advanced Question References

This article is about using Handlebars to reference questions in custom PDF, Word, and HTML documents. We recommend reading about Basic Question References before trying this.

About

Handlebars is a templating language that can be used to reference answers from a form submission. These references can be embedded within HTML, or whatever language you are using to define how a document should be structured.

It is used with the following features:

This topic covers more advanced question references. Read about Basic Question References first.

What can I use this for?

Using Advanced question references, you can create more dynamic documents. Here are some things that you can accomplish:

These things require you to understand more of the data structure of a form submission. 

If you are building a custom PDF, Word, or HTML Document using Handlebars, scroll past the "answers" node until you get to "dataRecord" under Reference Data in the document editor screen. This will show you which questions you can reference.

Reference Questions in Regular Sections

Example Form

This is a sample describing the basic data structure of a form with regular sections. (Highlighting added for the purposes of documentation).

Remember that a form is structured like the following:

  • A form can have one or many pages
  • Each page can contain one or many sections
  • Each section can contain one or many questions

The form submission data is structured in the same way: 

Example Handlebars Reference

You could have the answer to "CustomerName" printed in your document using the following reference:

{{dataRecord.pages.HoursWorked.sections.WorkOrder.answers.CustomerName.values.[0]}} 

Result

Jane

How does it work?

The final part of the reference (after the last ".") is what will get printed in the document; everything before it tells the document what path to follow through the data structure in order to find it.

The reference above tells the document to:

  • Look for the "dataRecord" container
  • Look for the "pages" container inside of it
  • Look for the specific "HoursWorked" page 
  • Look for the "sections" container inside of that page
  • Look for the specific "WorkOrder" section
  • Look for the "answers" container inside of that section
  • Look for the specific "CustomerName" question
  • Look for the "values" property inside of that question
  • Look for the first thing wrapped in square brackets inside of "values"

Referencing Questions in Repeatable Sections

Repeatable sections allow you to add multiple entries for the same set of questions, as many times as a user needs to. Because of this, Repeatable Sections have some extra containers in their data structure.

Example Form

This is a sample describing the basic data structure of a form with a Repeatable SectionClosed A Repeatable Section is a subform that contains a set of related questions. The data captured is “repeating”, because the field user can complete the same subform more than once, which creates multiple entries., "type": "Repeat"(Highlighting added for the purposes of documentation).

A form submission with Repeatable sections is structured like the following:

  • A form can have one or many pages
  • Each page can contain one or many sections
  • Every Repeatable Section can have multiple rows (entries)
  • Each row contains the structure of the Repeatable section

    • The single page

    • The sections within that page

    • The answers within that page

Example Handlebars Reference

You could have the answer to "TodaysDate" from the first entry in your Repeatable section printed in your document using the following reference:

{{dataRecord.pages.HoursWorked.sections.Timesheet.rows.[0].pages.Timesheet.sections.TimesheetSection.answers.TodaysDate.values.[0]}} 

Result

2018-2-22

Typically, you wouldn't use this exact reference -- you would be better off using a basic reference if you're referencing the answer to a single question. But, understanding this structure is useful for the following tasks: