Overview
Fieldwire 'Forms' is a premium module that allows users with Business and Business Plus subscriptions to replace paper forms with digital versions that are fast to create and distribute, easy to fill out in the field on our mobile apps, and housed permanently in a searchable Fieldwire database for improved accountability.
When viewing the main Form tab page, there are options to create new forms and form templates, buttons to go more in depth with managing your form templates, and a button that you can use to filter your forms. In addition to those, you have have the ability to duplicate and export your forms as well as publish and unpublish your form templates with ease.
With transparent tracking of who did what, when, and why, five industry-standard but customizable templates, and the ability to create completely custom forms, you can use this module to streamline all your processes that require standardized documentation. Forms can be assigned in real-time and embedded seamlessly within our plans, tasks, and files modules, all of which reside in our left menu in any project:
Note: If you don't see forms in your menu or it is there with a 'lock' icon next to it, we'd love to give you a demo of exactly how they work so you can decide if you'd like to upgrade to Business or Business Plus to add this module to your Fieldwire account.
Table of Contents
Form Templates
When first accessing the Forms tab, you'll see a few different buttons. To get started, you'll need to click on either the '+ New form' button or the 'Manage templates' button. These buttons will allow you to either create a new form template or import an existing one from your account.
Account form templates allow the Account Owner and Account Managers to easily standardize the Forms their Fieldwire Projects will leverage. Project Admins can pull forms from the Account to projects. Project Admins can also choose to 'push' form templates from the Project-level to the Account level. (See this article for more information on importing form templates: Account Form Templates).
Creating & Managing Custom Form Templates
The Custom Form Template Builder allows you to build your own completely custom forms from scratch:
- Introduction to Custom Forms and Templates
- How to use Custom Lists?
- How to publish, submit, export, and/or share one or multiple Forms?
'All forms' & 'My forms' Views
The 'All forms' and 'My forms' views are there to make it easier for you to see all of the forms that have been created on the project if you have the proper project permission level as well as filter which forms are assigned directly to you. Specifically, if there are forms on the project that are not assigned to you, you will not see them when using the 'My forms' view, even if you created the form. (For more information about permission levels and what you can do with forms, check out this article: How to use Forms based on your Project Permission level)
Note: The 'All forms' view shown in the short video above is different than the 'All forms' folder under the "Template name" column.
Video Tutorial: Custom Forms
Form Builder
Types of Default Form Templates
In addition to creating your own custom form templates, Fieldwire provides five standard form templates listed below. Each of these form templates can also be customized to suit your company's particular needs and preferences for documentation:
Form Template Folders
Once you have form templates on your project, each form template will have it's own folder that will contain the forms, themselves, that have been created using that specific form template. To see each individual form, you'll need to either click on the relevant form template folder or on the 'All forms' folder under the "Template name" column.
On each form template, at the far right, you'll see a '3 dot' button. When you click on that button, you'll see several options:
- Ability to create a new form from that form template
- Ability to manage that form template, i.e. edit the various fields that are displayed in the individual forms,
- Preview what the individual form will look like
- Unpublish the form template (or publish it if it is currently unpublished)
- Ability to export QR codes for published form templates
Note: These options will differ whether you are an Admin, Member, or Follower on the Project. (For more information about Project permission levels, take a look at this article: Introduction to Project Permission Levels: Administrators, Members, and Followers).
'All forms' folder
Although this folder is not its own form template, the 'All forms' folder is the quickest way to see all individual forms that have been created on the project. In addition, the 'All forms' folder allows you to quickly see the status of each individual form, when each individual form was created, and who the current assignee of each form is. Lastly, this folder can make duplicating forms created from different templates much easier instead of having to go to each individual form template and duplicating forms there.
Creating a New Form
There are a few different ways to create a new form in Fieldwire. The first way is by clicking "+ New form" and then selecting from which form template you'd like to create the new form. The second way is by clicking the button in between the "Status" column and the 3 dots. Finally, you can create a new form by clicking the 3 dots and selecting "New form".
On each form, at the far right, you'll see a '3 dot' button. When you click on that button, you'll see the options to email the form to anyone, the ability to rename the form, as well as the ability to export the form as a PDF.
Once the form has been created, you can click on any form within the Forms tab, and in the info/detail section at the top of the document, you'll see the "Created by" field. The name of the user who originally generated the form is auto-populated by our system and cannot be modified within the project, making it a source of truth for you and your team.
Submitting & Exporting Forms
Once you've customized your form templates, you can use them to create and assign as many individual forms as you like with the click of a button. The article listed below details how form assignees can fill-out and submit forms, as well as export them when completed.
Note: You can't create a new form if that form template is unpublished.
Note: When the status of a form is changed, the form creator, assignee, and last editor will all get notified on the web and will receive a push notification on any mobile device associated with a Fieldwire account.
Tip: You can export (to store in your own records, share with folks outside your Fieldwire account, print, etc.) as many completed forms and/or form templates at once as you like! Just navigate to the 'Forms' tab, click on the checkbox on the left to select the relevant form template(s) or click on the form template, itself, and select the checkboxes on the left to select multiple forms, then select 'Actions' > 'Export forms' as a 'PDF' or 'CSV', and all the selected forms are then emailed to you:
The highest number of Forms that can be exported from your project at one time is 250. Previously, if you attempted to export more than that, an email notification would be received stating that the export exceeded the limitation. This email notification has been replaced by an in-app message titled "Export limit exceeded".
Note: Any forms you export from Fieldwire will include the Logo and color header a Project Administrator has specified under the Project Settings tab. (See this article for more information about the project Settings tab: The Project Settings Tab on Web and Mobile).
Email Distribution Lists
If you'd like to ensure that project users are notified when a form's status has been updated, please do the following:
- Go to the Forms modal
- Click the Manage templates button in the upper right-hand corner
- Choose the form template you would like to edit
- Click the Unpublish button in the upper right-hand corner and click Unpublish again on the pop-up to unpublish the form template
- Navigate to the Statuses table
- Notice the Email distribution list option
- Click the search bar under Recipients bar
- Enter the project users' email addresses in the that you would like to be on the list
-
IMPORTANT: Make sure to turn the toggle On next to each individual form status
- If done correctly, an email will be sent to the users on the email distribution list whenever a form enters that status. The email notification will have a link to the exported PDF of the form.
- Click the Publish button in the upper right-hand corner to republish your form template
Note: These steps must be taken on each individual form template. The changes/updates made to one template will not affect any other templates on the project, and they will not affect any account form templates.
Columns of the Forms tab
Once you have form templates on your project, you'll see a checkbox as well as several column headers:
Checkbox: Selects all of the form templates as well as all of the forms under each of those form templates, which allows for easy export or duplication in the 'Actions' dropdown menu.
Template name: Name of the form template, and you can sort your form templates A -> Z or Z -> A.
# of forms: The number of forms created from each form template. Based on the screenshot above, there are 6 forms created using the 'Daily Report' form template and 16 forms created from the 'Inspection Request' form template.
Status: Indicates whether the form template is published or unpublished. If a form is unpublished, no new forms can be created from that form template until is published again.
Once you click on a form template, you'll be able to see all of the individual forms that have been created using that form template. As with the form templates, for the individual forms, you'll see a checkbox as well as several column headers:
Checkbox: Selects all of the individual forms that have been created under that particular form template. This one does not select all of the forms under other form templates.
Template and #: The template that was used to create the individual form as well as the number that's automatically given to that specific form. This column is particularly useful when viewing your list of forms in the 'All forms' folder.
Name: The name you've given to that particular form.
Assignee: The person who is currently listed as the 'Assignee' on the form.
Date created: The date that the form was created.
Status: Indicates which status the form is in. The most common are 'Draft' and 'Submitted', but you can create your own statuses to suit you and your team's needs.
Note: Whether or not you're looking at the Form Templates or at the individual forms, themselves, you have the ability to sort the forms table by clicking on each column header. For example, if you want to sort your form templates by the "# of forms", you can simply click on the "# of forms" column header.
How to Filter Forms
You can filter your form templates by clicking the Filters button. Doing so will make the following form template filtering options appear:
- Template: Filter by the specific template(s) you want to view at that moment
- Assignee: Filter by the Assignee of the individual forms
- Creator: Filter by the original creator of the individual forms
-
Time: With the Time filter, you can break it down even further with the following options:
- Last modified
- Created
- Due date
- Form date
You can also add filters when viewing your list of forms created from a template by clicking the Filters button. Doing so will make the following form filtering options appear:
- Assignee: Same as the description listed above.
- Creator: Same as the description listed above.
- Time: Same as the description listed above.
- Status: Filter by the status of individual forms. Since different form templates can have different options for the statuses, the options in the dropdown will vary.
If you are using the Assignee, Creator, or Time filters on either view, the selected filter will carry over to the other view.
Forms on Mobile
The form templates you leverage on the Web have parity on the Mobile version of Fieldwire. On both the iOS and Android versions of Fieldwire, when the 'Forms' tab is selected, you have the option to view All of the Forms on the project, or just view the Forms you've created (My forms).
iOS & Android
On iOS and Android, you will see the form sections laid out in blocks shown in the screenshot below. The updated view has inline columns, real-time calculations, and a clearer hierarchy making filling out forms in the field much more field-user friendly.
Each block will contain the same fields and information that you are able to see when viewing the same form on web.
More information
These articles dive into more specific features and workflows you can use to get the most out of Forms:
- Form statuses/permissions
- How to export your Forms
- How to Duplicate a Form
- Who is authorized to create, view edit, and delete or reopen submitted Forms?
The "Introduction to Forms" webinar demonstrates the Daily Report, RFI, Inspection Request, and Timesheet Forms offered in the Forms Module:
The "Custom Forms" webinar gives more information on the Safety Audit and T&M Form and gives quite a lot of information about the Custom Form Builder: