Additional Comments on Questions

Contents

• Additional Comments on Questions
• About
• Using Additional Comments on a Mobile Device
• Set up an Additional Comment in the Form Builder
• Hide Additional Comments in output documents
• Dispatch into Comments

About

Additional Comments are useful for when certain answers from a user require further information, like a comment or reason. For example:

• When inspecting an item with the options Pass, Fail, or Not Applicable, selecting Fail will show the comments field and make it required, asking users to provide a reason for the failure.
• When a field user enters a reading from a piece of equipment that is not within the ideal range, show a comments field asking users to enter a corrective action.

Using Additional Comments for these scenarios is beneficial because:

• The "comments" answer is directly tied to the question that triggered it, giving you more structured forms and data.
• They can be built with no Conditional Logic, making it easier to build and manage your forms.

Using Additional Comments on a Mobile Device

Additional Comments appear on the device as a text field or text area. They're triggered by selecting an answer that matches criteria set up by your administrator.

For example, if you're using an inspection form and select "Warning", a comment field will appear beneath the question. Fill it out to give more detail on the warning.

Set up an Additional Comment in the Form Builder

You can set up an additional comment on the following question types:

• Button Group, Dropdown, Radio Button, Card List: The comment appears beneath the original question when a particular answer is selected.
• Text Field, Stepper, Slider, and Calculation: These questions must be number-based, i.e., integer, decimal, or other numeric data types. The comment appears beneath the original question when an answer falls under a certain exception. For more information on Exceptions, please read: Answer Exceptions.

To set up an additional comment:

1. Open the appropriate form in the Form Builder and go to the question you want to add a comment to.

2. Select the Properties tab and scroll to the bottom. 

3. Select what makes the additional comment question appear to your mobile users from the dropdown menu. You may select multiple options.

   

4. Select further options, such as setting what message will show up on the mobile user's device when the additional comment appears.

   The Comments field can be a text field or text area. It can also be Required.

5. Select Save.

You can see which questions have Additional Comments in the Form Builder. Additional Comments show up underneath their parent questions:

Hide Additional Comments in output documents

When you set up Word, PDF, or HTML documents, you can choose to hide Additional Comments. This is useful when you use Additional Comments for internal-only information and you want to exclude them from customer-facing reports.

To hide Additional Comments in a document:

1. Navigate to the PDF, Word, or HTML document you want to set up. You can choose a new or existing document.

   • To create a new document:

     MANAGE FORMS > Documents > CREATE DOCUMENT

     Select the type of document that you want to create.

   • To edit a document:

     MANAGE FORMS > Documents > Document Name > EDIT DOCUMENT

   Info:The topic PDF, Word, and HTML Documents describes how to set up these documents in more detail.

2. Go to Formatting > Answer Format > Additional Comments.

3. Switch off the option to Show additional comments in the document.

4. Select Create or Update to save your changes.

   Result: When the system generates the document, it won’t show any Additional Comments.

Dispatch into Comments

For information on dispatching into additional comments via the API, please read the API documentation: Dispatch Forms.