In this example, we will create a form that pulls specific information from a customer contacts table that a user is looking for.
Before creating a form, you must have the CLI package set up in your environment
You must also have installed and configured the Meta-Forms experience
In this example, we are using a form to pull information about contacts from specific table, to display in the forms experience.You can also use a form to push data to a connected table. See: Step 5, Creating New Records.
Navigate to the Forms table by searching for "Forms" on the homepage (Image 1).
Fill out the following sections of a new row (Image 2):
Table: For a pull request, this will be whichever table you want to be receiving information from. In this example, we have used the Contacts table.
Name: This will be the name of your form. In this example, we have used Contacts Form (Example Test).
Display Name: You may enter an alternative display name if you wish
Brand: Select a branding colour. In this example we have selected light green.
Is Accordion: Select whether you want your form to appear in accordion format or not.
Lookup Label: This option will designate how you pull information from your assigned table. We have designated the Contacts.People.Name column from the Contacts table, in order to pull information based on a contact name.
Owner Groups: Select which groups have ownership of the form. In this example we have used the Product Success group.
User Groups: Select which user groups have access to the form. In this example we have used the Product Success group.
Bookmarked Users: If you want this form to appear in your "My Forms" view on the Forms table, enter it here.
The next step is to set up your various form sections. These act as the headers of the form, and help organize your information.In this example we will create section to pull information from the Profile, Contact Info, and Company sections of the Contacts table.
Navigate to the Form Sections table by searching for Form Sections on the homepage (Image 3).
2. You will fill out a new row for each form section you want, filling out the following (Image 4):
Form: From the drop down, select the name of the form that you just created. In this example, that would be Contacts Form (Example Test).
Sequence: This section can be used to dictate the order in which your sections appear on your form, with 1 appearing first.
Name: Enter the name of your field. In this example, we are entering Profile for the first row, Contact Info for the second, and Company for the third form section row.
Columns in Row: Enter in how many columns you want to appear for this section. In this example we have chosen 1 column for the Profile section, and 2 each for Contact Info and Company.
Auto Expand: Check this box if you want your sections to auto expand when someone opens the form.
The final step of form creation is to populate the Form Fields section.
Navigate to the Form Fields table by searching for Form Fields on the homepage (Image 5).
2. Populate the following sections (Image 6):
Form Section: Populate this column with the fields that you created in step 2 of "Form Sections". For example, here we will populate five columns, Profile, Contact Info, and Company. Note that we populate Contact Info and Company twice in two separate columns since we inserted "2" as the value for our "Columns in Row" variable in step 2.
Sequence Override: You may input an override to the sequence order here if you desire.
Tale Column: This is where we link to the column that is storing the information we seek. In this example, we link to the Customer Contacts table, and specifically to the section for Name, Email, Work Phone, Company, and Website.
You can open your form by clicking on your Form Name > Open.
To populate our example form, select a record from "Select Existing Record". The information will automatically populate in your form fields (Image 7).
Your form can both pull information from an existing table and push information to that same table.
On the left-hand navigation pane, click on Create New Record (Image 8). The information that you populate and save into the form here will automatically be reflected on the connected table.
To add your form as an applet that users can quickly bookmark and access, navigate to the Cinchy Applets table.
In a new row, fill out the following information:
Domain: The domain that your form sits in.
Name: The name of your form/applet. In this example we use "Contacts Form (Example Test)".
Icon: Select an icon for the widget.
Icon Colour
Description: Add a description for your applet.
Target Window: Select if you want you form to open in a new window or not.
Application URL: Add in the URL to your form here.
Users and Groups: Add in which users/groups can access your form in these columns.
This page outlines how to create a form using the form designer, a simple alternative for making your forms.
Before creating a form, you must have the CLI package set up in your environment
You must also have installed and configured the Meta-Forms experience
The form designer allows users to create new Forms using the Forms experience itself and is an intuitive and easy process.
In this example, a Contacts Form (Example Test) form will be created to pull information from the Contacts table.
Navigate to the Form Designer experience from the homepage (Image 1).
Open up the experience and it should look like this (Image 2):
To create a new form, click the Create New Record button on the left-hand navigation pane (Image 3):
In the Form Definitions section, fill in the following information and click Save once done (Image 4):
Table: This will be the table that you want to push/pull information to/from. In this example, we are pulling information from the Contacts.People table.
Name: The name of your form. In this example we have called it Contacts Form (Example Test)
Display Name: Enter a display name for your form. In this example we have called it Contacts Form (Example Test)
Lookup Label: This option will designate how you pull information from your assigned table. We have designated the Contacts.People.Name column from the Contacts table, in order to pull information based on a contact name.
Is Accordion: Select this checkbox if you want the form to open in accordion format or not.
Brand: Select a branding colour for this form.
Once your Form Definitions are set, the Form Sections tab will open (Image 5).
Click on the plus sign to add a Section Definition to your form (Image 6).
You can now add your Form Sections. In this example we are adding three sections: Profile, Contact Info, and Company.
Fill in the following information and select OK when done (Image 7):
Name: Add in your section name. In this example we are using Profile, Contact Info, and Company,
Sequence: Select the sequence that this section will show up on the form. 1 means it will show up first.
Columns in Row: Select how many columns you'd like to appear in the row. In this example we have chosen 1 for our Profile section, and 2 for our Company and Contact Info sections.
Auto-Expand: Check this box if you want to the section to auto-expand.
8. Click Save.
9. Within the Actions column of each of your sections, click on Design to navigate to the Form Section Designer.
11. Navigate to the Section Fields tab (Image 8).
12. Click on the + in the Fields tab to add a new Section Field. In this example, we are adding two fields to the Contact Info section of our form (since we designated it to have 2 columns per row in step 7).
13. Fill out the following sections and click OK when finished (Image 9):
Table Column: The column you want to pull from/push to in this field. In this example we have used Contacts.People.Email and Contacts.People.Work Phone.
Name: Select a name for your section. In this example we have used Email and Work Phone.
Sequence Override: You can choose to override the sequence in which this section appears on the form, with the section listed as 1 appearing first.
View Only: Check this box if you want this section to be viewable only.
14. Click Save.
15. Navigate back to your Forms Table, click Open, and it will appear with your sections and fields (Image 10):
To add your form as an applet that users can quickly bookmark and access, navigate to the Cinchy Applets table.
In a new row, fill out the following information:
Domain: The domain that your form sits in.
Name: The name of your form/applet. In this example we use "Contacts Form (Example Test)".
Icon: Select an icon for the widget.
Icon Colour
Description: Add a description for your applet.
Target Window: Select if you want you form to open in a new window or not.
Application URL: Add in the URL to your form here.
Users and Groups: Add in which users/groups can access your form in these columns.
Currently, form links will only populate on existing records. They will not appear on a blank form. This feature is forthcoming.
Navigate to your source table. In this example we will use the "Product Content Backlog" table (Image 1) for our "Product Content Requests" form.
Add a new column to your table using the following parameters (Image 2):
Data Type: Text
Default Value: You can set this to your link if you want a single URL to populate as the default. This value can always be updated in the table.
Max Length: 500
Allow Linking: Yes
Add in your URL to your relevant row/record.
Add this column to your form by navigating to the Form Fields table and inputting your new column as a row (Image 3).
Under Data Format Type, select LinkURL.
When you navigate to the form record linked to your row in step 3, you will see the URL populated as below (Image 4):
This page describes Cinchy's rich text editor functionality.
Rich Text Editing was introduced to the Cinchy platform in version 5.4.
Customize the appearance of your text in Forms with our new rich text editing capabilities. Enabling this on your text columns will give you access to formatting options for text previously unavailable in Forms such as:
Bold, Italic, Underlined text
Checklists
Headers
Code Blocks
etc.
You have the option to output the data as HTML.
You can enable rich text editing on your Form text columns through the Design Table tab of your form table (Image 1).
Enable text formatting: Checking this enables the rich text editor in Forms.
Save text as HTML: If you need the data saved from the rich text editor to be in HTML format, check this box.
Max Characters: The rich text editor saves data in Cinchy as structured data (or HTML), which is much more verbose than your actual text. You will need to increase this number much higher than you expect (e.g. 10,000 characters).
Once you have enabled rich text editing on your text column for your form, you can utilize the capabilities by navigating to your form applet.
You will see all the formatting options available to you in the editor toolbar (Image 2). A form field that does not have rich text enabled appears like the "Plaintext" section below.
Note: If you have an understanding of HTML, you can edit the data directly in the table cell and it will automatically reflect in your form. Be mindful that if you write invalid HTML, you will potentially see unexpected results in the Rich Text Editor. You can always revert changes using the collaboration log.
The below section outlines some examples of what you can do with the rich text editor.
The below example (Image 3) shows using the following rich text capabilities:
Bulleted Lists
Bold
Italics
Underlined
The below example (Image 3) shows using the following rich text capabilities:
Headings 1, 2, 3
The below example (Image 4) shows using the following rich text capabilities:
Linking
As you can see below, the text you enter into the Rich Text Editor is saved as structured data (Image 5), and when the "Save text as HTML" option is checked in your column settings, it is saved as HTML (Image 6).