Overview & Background
Publishing a form is a vital step to make sure that the form becomes available to all users on your project. Once a form template is published you can begin to create, submit, download and share forms. This article covers how to publish a form and the prerequisites to submitting forms like adding your signature, how to confirm your form is submitted, what happens once it is submitted, who gets automatically updated, and how to email your completed form to additional recipients if you like.
Table of Contents
How to Unpublish and Publish a Form
If you need to make edits to a Form Template, you would first need to unpublish the form template.
Note: When a form is unpublished, no users can see it.
The option to unpublish a form comes from the Form editor page. There are two ways to access the form editor page.
| Select the dropdown menu next to the form, then select 'Manage Template'. | |
| Select the Form from the 'Manage Templates' drop-down menu in the top-right corner. |
To unpublish the form, select the 'Unpublish' option in the top-right corner. Now, you are able to make edits to the form template:
To publish an unpublished Form select the 'Publish' option in the top right corner of the template builder to make the form visible and editable to the individuals on your project:
How to submit a Form
After you have completed all the mandatory sections of the form you can submit by changing the Status section at the top from 'Draft' to 'Submitted':
Alternatively, choose to 'Update status and close'-- change the Form status from 'Draft' to 'Submitted'.
Note: If a member or follower is not the creator or assignee on a form, the button is hidden.
If you try to submit a form without completing a mandatory form field, you will receive an error message to indicate the form field that needs to be completed:
Note: 'Draft' and 'submitted' statuses are indicative of 'editable' and 'non-editable' states. Form statuses are customizable, however, the logic is static; required fields must be filled before the form is moved into a 'non-editable' state.
What happens when a form is submitted?
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. The form is NOT automatically sent to anyone else, so if you have additional folks who want to see the completed form, you will need to follow the directions below to download the form and email it to whomever else you like.
What if I need to edit a form after submitting it?
If you are a Project Administrator, you can click on the "status" dropdown to change it from 'Submitted' to 'Draft' in order to edit the form again.
If you are not a Project Administrator then you can reach out to a project Administrator to request the edits or ask them to change the status from 'Submitted' to 'Draft'.
Note: You can edit the Form when it is in 'Draft' status again - though you would need to re-download and resend the Form via email to the designated recipient.
What does 'Form Incomplete' mean?
There might be an instance where you'd like to submit a form, but you receive a 'Form Incomplete' error message:
Web Version Error message:
Mobile Application Error Message:
The 'Form Incomplete' error message indicates that the content of the Form has not fully synced with Fieldwire yet. This may be because another user is editing the same Form but on a different device or the Form content was finalized and was syncing to the Fieldwire server but the finalized content is not fully synced yet.
Solutions to the 'Form Incomplete' Error
On the web, wait for a few minutes, then try the following troubleshooting steps below:
- Perform a Hard Refresh in your browser window using "Control + R" on Windows or "Command + R" on Mac.
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Verify you have a high-speed internet connection
- You can verify the speed of your network connection by reviewing this article: Is your WiFi speed 10 Mbps (megabits per second) or faster?
- You can verify the speed of your network connection by reviewing this article: Is your WiFi speed 10 Mbps (megabits per second) or faster?
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Verify the time is exact on your computer.
- if the time on your computer is ahead or behind, changes might not be saved
Connect with other teammates to verify who may be editing the Form
Depending on how your team uses Fieldwire, you could even create a Task and assign the task to them!
If you receive the 'Form incomplete' error message on iOS or Android:
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Ensure that your device OS and Fieldwire are up to date.
- Please click here to review the latest Fieldwire version.
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Within the Fieldwire app, go to the Forms page and use your finger to swipe down the screen.
- That will re-sync the page. You should see a blue bar moving along the top of the screen
- Disable and re-enable the project.
How to Download & Email Forms
How to download an individual Form as a PDF on the Web
To download a single form, navigate to the 'Forms' tab in the left menu of any project:
1. To the right side of the form name, click on the arrow pointing down:
2. The Form will begin to download in your web browser:
How to download multiple Forms as PDF or CSV on the Web
While there's not a way to download several forms at once, you can choose to export and download several forms at once. To do so, navigate to the 'Forms' tab in your project, and:
1. Click the white box to the left on each form you'd like to download:
Tip: If you select the white box to the left of the Folder title, all the Forms in that folder will be selected.
2. While the Form checkbox is selected, click on the 'Actions' button, and then 'Export':
3. Choose to export the form as a PDF or CSV:
4. This sends an email to your email address with a link to download the Forms.
How to email a Form on Web
From the 'Forms' tab on the web, select the envelope icon to email a form:
After you select the email option, a pop-up window will appear - here you can enter the recipients, include a message, and choose whether or not to attach the form as a PDF or CSV:
Note: Each user cannot send more than 250 form exports per day. If you exceed this limit, you will not be able to send another form export email until 24 hours have elapsed since the 250th email:
PDF Form Export:
CSV Form Export:
Note: The date/time shown on the Form export is based on the project timezone; you can check or change this under the 'Settings' tab of the project. The date/time shown in the Form interface is based on the local timezone.
How to email a Form on Mobile
You can also export a Form on your iOS or Android Device. When a form is open, select the 'Share' icon and then choose the way you'd like to distribute the form:
Note: You will need to be logged into Apple's default 'Mail' app in order to email a form from your device.
On Android, when a Form is open, choose the 'Print' icon:
After you select 'Print', a PDF of the form will be created on the device. You'll have the option to email the form from the 'Share' icon on the left, or you can print the form from your device by selecting the three vertical dots on the right:
More Information:
These Articles give more information on how to use Custom Forms: