How to create a Form
In Landscape, a Form is a set of custom questions you use to gather data on a Work Item. Most organizations first use Forms for monitoring on Site Visits, but a Form can be attached to any type of Work Item or Report.
You build Forms in Settings, then attach them to a specific Work Item Category and/or Type. Once attached, the Form appears automatically whenever someone creates a Work Item of that Category and/or Type.
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"What's the difference between a Form and a Report?"
Although you might think of these terms as interchangeable in your daily work, they are distinct objects in Landscape. A Form asks custom questions, like "What was the weather during your site visit?" A Report merges that data, and any other data in Landscape, into a customizable PDF.
Building a new form
Prerequisites:
You must be a Landscape Administrator to access Settings.
Instructions:
- Start a new Form from one of two places. Either way, an empty Form opens in the form builder in Settings > Work > Forms.
- Settings > Work > Forms: Click the + button next to Forms.
- Settings > Work > Work Customization: Select a work category, click + Add Form next to a type, then click Create a new form.
- Enter a name in the Form Name field. Forms created from Work Customization are automatically named after the Category and Type (e.g. "Acquisition Approval - Conservation Committee"); rename the Form if you like.
- (Optional) Use Automatically attach to work items and Only attach to specific type to attach the form to a Work Item type. If you started from Work Customization, these are already filled in. See Linking a Form to a Work Item, below.
- Click Add field to create the first question, then click the text block that appears to open the question editor. The first question is always a Text question. You can delete it once you've added others.
- To add more questions, hover over an existing question and click the + (plus) button above or below it. Then choose a question type; see Input Options and Layout Options, below.
TIP: Only add questions to your Form that Landscape can't already answer. For example, you don't need questions for things like monitor's name, visit date, landowner name, or property address, because the Work Item and record already hold that data.
Input options:
Input question types set what kind of answer is expected. For example, a Text question expects a text answer and a Number question expects a number.
Each question type has these fields:
- Question: The question text the user sees, like "What is the overall condition of the property?"
- Description: Further explanation of the question.
- Current Condition: Documents the state of the item in question.
- Show Description: Shows or hides the description while the user fills out the form.
- Question is sensitive: Hides the question from the final report.
- Ask this question: Makes the question appear only based on the answer to another question. For example, "If yes, describe the issue" can appear only when someone answers "Yes" to "Are there any issues?"
- Question to check: The question this one depends on. Only appears when Ask this question is set to "Based on the value of another question."
- Values to check: The answer(s) that make this question appear. You can select more than one.
- Available Options (single and multiple choice only): The choices offered to the user. Type them separated by semicolons, then press Tab to save the list.
Layout options:
Layout items structure the form.
- Section: Groups related questions, like "Site History", "Soil and Water", or "Visit Observations".
- Sub-form: Pulls another form from your template list into this one. Use it for a core set of questions shared by several forms. For example, a "Site Observations" form could be a sub-form of both "CE Annual Monitoring" and "Fee Lands Annual Monitoring".
Did you know? Report templates can be configured to include only certain sections of a form, or only specific questions. Read more HERE.
Linking a Form to a Work Item
Attach a Form to a Work Item so it appears automatically whenever someone creates that kind of work. For example, a Form attached to a Site Visit item with Type = Annual Monitoring appears on every new Annual Monitoring Site Visit. You can attach Forms when building them from scratch on the Form list page, or when adding a Form to a Type on the Work Customization page.
Prerequisites:
You must be a Landscape Administrator to access Settings.
Instructions (from Form List):
- Go to Settings > Work > Forms and create a new Form, or click on one you wish to edit.
- In Automatically attach to work items, choose the work Category (e.g. Tracked Right Activity).
- In Only attach to specific type, choose the Type (e.g. Construction).
If you fill in Automatically attach to work items but leave Only attach to specific type blank, the form appears for every type in that Category. You cannot select a Type without first selecting a Category.
TIP: If you need a different version of a form for certain records, like sites with special funding requirements, you can link the template Form to those records directly and customize it from there. Forms linked to a record override the form attached to the Work Item Category and/or Type in Settings. Read more HERE.
Instructions (from Work Customization):
- Go to Settings > Work > Work Customization.
- Select a Category, like Acquisition Approval. Use the filter box to find a category by name. The category's settings open on the right.
- Under Types, find the type you want and click + Add Form.
- In the Add a Form window, choose one:
- Create a new form: Opens an empty form in Settings > Work > Forms, already attached to this Category and Type. Build it as described in Building a new form, above.
- Use an existing form: Select a Form from the list, or search for it by name. A preview of its questions appears on the right. Click Add Form.
Once a Form is attached, the Type's button changes to Open Form. Each Type can have one form.
To remove the Form from the Type, click the … (three dots) next to the Type, then select Unlink Form.
The Form builder and Work Customization options stay in sync. A Form linked to a Type with Add Form shows its Category and Type in the Form's Automatically attach fields in the Form builder, and vice versa.
Editing a Form
This section describes how to configure an existing Form in Settings. For information on how to update a Form after it has already been added to a Work Item, go HERE.
Prerequisites:
You must be a Landscape Administrator to access Settings.
Instructions:
To edit a Form in Settings, click on its name from the Form List or by clicking Open Form in the Work Customization page. The available actions are:
- Rearrange questions or entire sections by clicking and dragging them up or down the page.
- Add questions above or below the selected one.
- Delete questions. If data has already been collected in any Work Item using this question, Landscape will prompt you to confirm whether you want to delete the question. This will not delete the collected data, but it will be difficult to query for it in the future.
- Change the settings of a question by clicking on it. See the callout below.
Changing the text of an existing question will prompt you to confirm your changes before you click OK.
Archiving a Form
Archive a Form instead of deleting it if that Form is no longer used, but you still need to query on responses to its questions. Once a Form is Archived, it will appear in a new section at the bottom of the Form list.
