What are web forms?

Web forms allow your site visitors to fill out information and submit it, all in their browser. You define a series of fields, and when someone fills out the form the information entered by your site visitor gets saved to a database, sent in an email to you, or both.

Web forms are handy for many things -- signing up for events, requesting information, providing feedback, even completing short surveys (see the "Making sure your forms are Kosher" section below if you want to use Reason forms as a survey tool.)

The Web Services Group's make a request page is an example of a web form.

How Reason forms work for your site visitors

1. Visitor enters information into form - depending upon the setup of the form, some information may be pre-populated for users that are logged in.

2. Visitor clicks on submit button

3. Depending on how you set up the form, either an email is sent to a specified email address, the results are stored in a database for later retrieval, or both

4. Visitor sees a thank you message that you supplied, and if the option is enabled, a copy of the information submitted.

How to make sure your forms are kosher

Whenever you place a form online, it's important to figure out if you are collecting any information that could be considered "human research." The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is responsible for ensuring that any research carried out at the College follows federal guidelines for human research. If you are conducting a survey or collecting any other information that may wind up being presented outside the college, it is a good idea to apply for approval from the IRB.

You can find out more information at the IRB web site.

Before you start

1. Log in to the computer and then start up Firefox (if you are on a Windows PC, you may also use Internet Explorer).
2. Go to http://go.carleton.edu/reason
3. Log in with your Net ID and password
4. Go into the Reason site where you would like to create a form.
   • If you see "Forms" in the Add/Edit menu, everything is set.
   • If you do not, you will need to have forms added to the site. Please contact a member of the Web Services Group and ask them to set you up.

Creating a web form

1. Choose Forms in the Add/Edit menu
2. Click Add Form
3. Fill out the fields:
   • Name: An internal name for the form. This will help you find the form later.
   • Save to Database: Enter "yes" to save the results of the form to a database.
   • Email of recipient: You can enter either netids or email addresses. If you want the results of the form to be sent to multiple people, you can separate them with commas.
   • Form Content: This field is where you will build your form.
     • Add form elements by clicking on the buttons at the top of the field. When you add an element, a box pops up that allows you to enter information about the form element. Here are each of the form elements you can use, and the options available for each:
       • Insert Text Field: For entering a single line of text
         • Label: Enter the name of the field.
         • Default value: If you enter something here, that text will automatically be entered for site visitors.
         • Required Field: Check this to make the field a required element for people who fill it out.
       • Insert Textarea: For entering multiple lines of text.
         
         • Label: Same as above
         • Default value: Same as above
         • Required Field: Same as above
       • Insert Checkbox Group: Prompts visitor to select one or several options, using checkboxes
         • Label: Same as above
         • Default Values: Enter the options here. Add options by clicking on the + button; move them up and down by clicking on the arrows, and delete them by clicking on the X button. You can make an option be checked by default if you click the checkbox to the left of the option.
         • Required Field: This will ensure that a visitor checks at least one of the options.
       • Insert Radio Button Group: Prompts visitor to select one -- and only one -- of several options, using "radio buttons." This is best for when there are only a few options.
         • Label: Same as above
         • Default Values: Same as above, but only one option can be selected by default.
         • Required Field: This will ensure that a visitor chooses an option in this group
       • Insert Select Field: Like the Radio Button group, this element allows the visitor to select only one of several options, but it uses a dropdown menu instead of radio buttons.
         • Label: Same as above
         • Default Values: Same as above
         • Required Field: Same as above
       • Insert Hidden Field: Places information into the email without it being visible on the form. This can be useful for providing instructions to the recipient of the email.
         • Value: Whatever text you want to be included in the email
       • Insert Text Description/Comment: Places information on the form. This can be useful for breaking up your form into several sections, or for providing more instructions than will fit in an element label.
         • Value: Whatever text you want to be displayed on the form
     • Modify already created elements by clicking on their Edit buttons
     • Move elements up and down in the form by clicking on their up and down arrow buttons
     • Delete elements by clicking on their X buttons
   • Autofill Options: Choose "None", "Autofill (Editable)", or "Autofill (Not Editable)." These options will fill in certain specially named fields for logged in users. If you choose the Autofill (Editable) option, the user will be able to change the pre-filled information. You may set up one or more of the following special field names in your form to take advantage of this feature
     • Your Full Name
     • Your Name
     • Your First Name
     • Your Last Name
     • Your Department
     • Your Email
     • Your Home Phone
     • Your Work Phone
     • Your Title
   • Thank You Message: After submitting a form, visitors will see this message.
   • Display Return Link: Toggles whether or not to place a link after the thank you message which allows the user to return to the form.
   • Show Submitted Data: Toggles whether or not to display a copy of the submitted data on the thank you page.
4. Click Save and Continue Editing
5. Check your work
6. Click Finish to return to the forms listing page

Placing a form on a web page

1. go to Pages in the Add/Edit menu
2. Select Add Page
3. Fill out the Add Page form.
   • You can make the page a normal page for now.
   • If you want to preface the form with any text, place that text in the content area of the page.
4. Click on Save and Continue Editing.
5. In the left-side workflow menu, choose Associate a Form with this Page
6. Click Select next to your new form
7. Choose Finish in the workflow menu

You are not quite done...

If you go to the site at this point, you will notice that form is not showing up. There is one more step you will need to take to make the form go live:

• Contact one of the web team and have them make the page a "form page."
• Check the form out and make sure it works as expected.
• Make any needed adjustments to the form.

Now your form is done!

Additional form capabilities

Sometimes we may want to restrict a form to a certain group of users. To do this, we need to relate a reason group to the form. You will need to have "Groups" available as an option on your site. If you do not have "Groups," contact the Web Services Group and we will add them to your site.

How to allow only a particular group of users to view/submit the form:

1. Go to the form Add/Edit screen.
2. Select the option "Choose group that can fill out the form" on the left-hand menu.
3. Choose an existing group or create a new one.

The form page will prompt the user to log in if they are not logged in, and only show the form to individuals who are in the related group.

Viewing database form data

You may associate a reason group to a database-backed form in order to control who can see the submitted data. If you do not associate a group, only the reason site managers and anyone who receives the form results via e-mail will be able to view submitted data. Note that you need to have "Groups" available on your site (and a form that saves to a database) to setup access privileges to form data.

How to setup privileges to view submitted data:

1. Go to the form Add/Edit screen.
2. Select the option "Choose group that can see all results" on the left-hand menu
3. Choose an existing group or create a new one.

The individuals in this group (when logged in), will see an option to "switch to form data view" when looking at the form on the public website.

Modifying database backed forms

Once a form that saves to a database has data, the form is no longer editable. To make changes to the form, you will need to export and delete the data currently stored by the form.

1. Go to the form Add/Edit screen.
2. Select the "View / Delete stored data" link above the form name field.
3. Use the links provided to visit the page on your site where the form exists.
4. In the data view, choose the "export as .csv" option.
5. Return to the "View / Delete stored data" screen for your form in the Reason Administrative Interface.
6. Choose the link "Delete stored data."
7. Confirm the deletion.
8. From the form Add/Edit screen you should now be able to modify the form.

Before export and delete of form data, it is a good idea to unlink the form from the page or to change the "save to database" option to "No." This is to make sure that data is not submitted between the time you delete stored data and modify the form.

Other form possibilities

If you need features that the Reason form tool does not provide, contact Nate, Mark, or Matt in the Web Services Group. They will discuss your needs and figure out the best way to do what you want to do. As with anything, there are pros and cons to different kinds of forms:

• Custom forms
  • Pros
    • Can do all kinds of things: credit card payments, multiple pages, etc.
  • Cons
    • It takes significant time to develop a custom form -- on the order of weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the form.
    • You won't be able to edit the form yourself once it is created -- you will need to ask us to make changes.
• Reason forms
  • Pros
    • You can have a form up and running in less than an hour
    • You can edit the form directly
    • You can save results to a database
  • Cons
    • Not as flexible as custom forms