Report Designer screen & layout
The palette, the canvas and the Settings panel, and the settings every field shares.
The designer has three panels. Choose what to add on the left, see and arrange the form in the middle, and change whatever is selected on the right.
- Form Actions - new, open, save, availability, form groups and themes
- Add Sections and Add Fields - click one to add it to the form
- Design, Mobile Preview and Report Preview tabs
- The canvas - the form as it is being built, section by section
- Settings for whatever is selected: the form, a section or a field
The left panel
Form Actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| New Form | Asks for a Form Name and starts a form with one section |
| Open Report | Lists your forms, with a search box. See Copy, export and reuse forms |
| Save Form | Saves the form. Nothing is kept until you do - an Unsaved changes note shows at the top meanwhile |
| Save As / Duplicate | Saves a copy under a new name |
| Import Document | Builds a draft form from a Word document |
| Availability | Where the form appears and what happens to it. See Publishing |
| Form Groups | Named groups of forms, each a button on the phone’s home screen |
| Health & Safety Form | Uses one of your forms in place of the standard Health and Safety questionnaire |
| Themes | Saved styles - fonts, colours, underlines - to apply to forms |
+ Add Sections - Section, Heading Only and Page Break. See Sections.
+ Add Fields - every kind of field, in this order: Sub Heading (shaded divider), Read Only Text, Text Input (Single line), Text Input (Multi line), Yes No, Numeric Input, Formula, Date Input, Time Input, Multiple Choice, CheckBox, Signature, Image Upload, Display Image, Job Fields and Username. On a quote layout, Quote Fields and Company Fields are added too.
The middle: Design, Mobile Preview and Report Preview
- Design - the form you are building. Drag fields by their handle to reorder them, and right-click a field for Add child field or Delete.
- Mobile Preview - the form as a technician sees it on the phone.
- Report Preview - the real PDF the server will produce, for checking layout exactly.
On the Design tab, the Form / Output switch in the top bar changes the canvas. Form is the list of fields. Output is a page-shaped preview of the report, where you can drag sections, resize columns and edit text in place, with zoom at 75%, 100% and 125%.
The right panel: Settings
- Selected Item - a list of everything on the form. Choose from it to select something without hunting for it on the canvas.
- Search Settings - filters the settings below by name.
- The settings themselves, for the form, the section or the field selected. Click Design while you are already on it to get back to the form’s own settings.
Settings most fields share
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Heading | The question, as the phone and the report show it |
| Header Bold / Field Bold | Bold the question, or the answer, on the report |
| Font size override | A size for this field only. 0 uses the section’s or report’s size |
| Is Mandatory field | The phone will not save the form until it is answered |
| Hide heading in report output | Print the answer without its question |
| Hide field on form | Keep it off the phone. It still holds its value and still feeds formulas |
| Hide field in report output | Keep it off the report |
Each field’s own page lists the settings particular to it. A field’s Delete button is at the bottom of its settings.
See also
- Creating your first form - using all three panels end to end.
- Sections - section types and their settings.
- Show a field only when it is needed - child fields.