First steps

In this article, we introduce you to an example workflow that shows you how you can create, publish and share a form in just a few steps. After reading the article, you will also know where to find the responses that have been submitted for your form.

Are you looking to create a form but unsure how to go about it? These step-by-step instructions are the perfect way to get started. In this article, we guide you through the form creation process from start to finish. We show you how to create, edit and publish your form. We also show you where to find the link to share your form and then later view the responses you have received. We have chosen a simple usage scenario to illustrate the overall process. You’re planning to give a presentation to your team about staying healthy. To help you plan your talk and ensure that people find the subject you pick interesting, you want to find out what kinds of health topics your team would most want to hear about. You’ve narrowed down the choice to three key topics: diet, stress and exercise. Your team now has to pick one. The topic with the most votes will become the main topic for your presentation. But let’s start right at the beginning.

You use the Forms area to create and manage your forms. Depending on your requirements, you can have all of your forms displayed or just the forms from individual folders, the archive or the recycle bin. A clearly structured list of your forms is shown, which includes the name of the form as well as other important items of information. You can also create new folders in this area and therefore set up your own filing system.

Do you want create a completely new form that you can then design to suit your requirements? Then you need to start with an empty form. An empty form contains no form elements and all of its settings are set to default values.

The Editor is the most important part of Formcentric: this is where you create, edit and translate your forms. Directly next to the editing area, the Editor also shows you a preview of your form, so that you can always check your current state of progress while you are working on your form. If you create a new form, it will be opened directly in the editor.

The Media area is the central media library for your images and files. You can upload anything you need to create and design your forms to this area. The order in which you do this is not important. You can upload your files before creating your first form, so that you can access them immediately during form creation. Or you can upload them only when you create a form or are working on your designs. Whatever strategy you choose, you will always find your uploaded files in this area. As with the Forms area, you can create a folder structure that suits the way you work. You can organise your files by your topics, teams or events, for example. Read on for an introduction to this important area.

Our article The editor - an overview has already given you a first look at the Editor. In this article, we introduce you to the various views in the Editor. When you are working in the Editor, a preview of your form is shown on the right of the editing area. As you make changes to the form, you can see the effects immediately in this preview. This live preview of the state of progress of your form means that you can check to confirm that the form looks as it should while you are putting it together. And it’s not just the form design, either: you can also check the functionality of your form and confirm that it is working as it should be. You do not need to publish the form first. Instead, you can try out all of your changes beforehand.

In the Submissions area you will find all of the submissions – i.e. the responses users have made to a form. These are presented to you in an overview. If you only want to see certain kinds of information, you can also hide columns as necessary. You can also use drag-and-drop to change the sort order used in this overview. Read on to find out more.