Form designer

The visual builder for a form item. Drag in questions, set validation, preview, publish.

basic

The form designer is the visual builder that defines a form item's question list, layout, validation, and submission behavior. It opens from a form item's detail page (Open designer).

The four panels

  • Question palette (left). The catalog of question types you can drop into the form. Drag onto the canvas.
  • Canvas (center). The visual layout. Drag questions to reorder; click to select; right-click for delete / duplicate.
  • Question editor (right). Per-question settings: label, backing field, validation, default, conditional visibility, hint text.
  • Preview (toggleable). Renders the form the way a respondent would see it. Submitting in preview mode does NOT write to the backing layer; it's purely a UI dry run.

Authoring flow

  1. Decide the backing item (data layer for spatial forms, form submission collection for non-spatial). Picked at form creation; can't change after.
  2. Drop the first question from the palette.
  3. In the editor on the right, pick the backing field. The portal lists the fields available on the backing item; the question reads/writes that field.
  4. Set label, hint, validation, default.
  5. Repeat for each question.
  6. Use the preview toggle to verify the flow.
  7. Save. Saved forms are queryable but not yet shared; share deliberately from the detail page.

Page breaks and sections

For long forms, break into pages:

  • Section header: a non-input question that groups subsequent questions visually. Renders as a heading.
  • Page break: forces a new page in the runtime; the respondent clicks "Next" between pages.

Both are drag-in palette items.

Conditional visibility

Questions can be hidden based on the answers to earlier questions. See Conditional logic for the full expression syntax. The designer surfaces conditional state in the canvas (faded-out questions show as conditional on a tooltip).

Importing instead of authoring

If you already have an XLSForm (from Survey123, ODK, KoboToolbox), use Import instead of building from scratch. See Importing an XLSForm.

Versioning

Saving a form publishes a new version. The detail page shows version history; you can roll back to a previous version, which becomes the new latest.

Notes

  • Field type drives question type. A question bound to a date field can only be a date question; the designer disables incompatible question types in the palette per selected question.
  • Required vs. constraint. Required means "must answer"; constraint means "answer must match this expression." Constraint without Required allows blank.
  • Hint vs. label. Label is the question text; hint is secondary helper text below.