To build a form, you’ll need to add content to it. There are three main types of content: Questions, Forms (which are just sets of questions), and Instructions. In order to understand how these work, let’s take a look at a simple form for surveying teachers in a school about the supplies they’d like to request.
We’ll start by clicking on Form Builder on top menu bar. Once we’re there, you can set up your first Form of questions. Again, a form is exactly what it sounds like - a group of questions on the same topic. It’s designed to make it easier for you to organize your form, and for your collectors to see only the questions they need to see.
For our example, let's start with the first set of questions we'll want to ask our respondents some basic information questions. We'll call this Department Information. Now, to add a question, click Add Form.
Let's click on 'Add Question'. But before we go any further, let’s take a closer look at the question box that pops up. Every question has three components that can be specified: question label, question, and response type.
- Question labels are used if you're going to export this data for further analysis (for example, as a .csv file) - they provide a name for all the data you’ll be collecting for that question, so you should make it short and related to the question type.
- Response types let you choose the type of answer you would like to receive, whether it’s a number, yes/no, multiple choice, or any of the many other question types Dharma supports.
For this question, we want to know the teacher’s academic department. So for the Question Label, we'll write Department. The Question will simply be "What is your department?" Finally, for Response type, we'll choose multiple choice.
To add another question, we can always click the Add Question button again. But if we want to create a question that’s similar to the first one, we can also duplicate the question. We’ll copy this one by selecting the highlighted icon below.
This is the duplicate question that was created by selecting on the icon mentioned before.
You can then edit the duplicate question- such as the question label, question, and response type if needed - to ask another question. For this question, we'll ask the name of requestor and choose an Open Response type.
Now let's try adding a Yes/No question. We'll call this one Manager.
But how do we make sure that respondents who are non-managers are excluded from the data pool? Just click on the EJECT sign to the right of the question box.
When you do, you should see this response:
Click OK. Now, if you're talking to a respondent who's not a resident, just answer NO to that question and the form will stop - no need to proceed.
Another useful feature found on the form builder is the ability to minimize and maximize the question boxes. Clicking on the bar framing the upper region of the question will minimize it. Conversely, clicking on the bar again, will maximize the question. Minimizing the questions allows you to more easily view all the questions written on the form.
Throughout the process of building your form, make sure to periodically save it!
Now we'll move onto creating another category of questions called Request for New Supplies. This set of questions will appear in a separate group on the mobile app. If you select Add Instruction, you can write a short blurb specifying how to fill out the form.
We'll fill in the Instruction Title and Instruction.
Now we'll add questions in the same way we did earlier. Let's try a Number question.
We have the ability to set the minimum and maximum value. Since the instruction writes that it will accept a range from 0-1000, let's set the maximum value to 1000. We can also allow decimal values, but since it isn't appropriate for this question, we’ll skip that for now.
Next we'll add a Date question and set the range of dates that are acceptable to be given as a response.
Let's add another multiple choice question. However, this time we'll Allow multi-selection, giving the respondent an option to select more than one response.
(You can also set up questions so that they only appear under certain circumstances - for example, if the answer to an earlier question was “Yes.” For more information on this, see our Skip Logic/ If-Then Questions article.)
Now that we're done building our form, we're ready to use it. Click Save & Push to Mobile to make sure your changes are preserved, and to send it out. If your collectors' devices are connected to a wireless network, they should receive the form within 30 seconds.