By default, super admins or institute admins can manage forms. Select the 'Manage Forms?' checkbox on the 'Create User' page for other users to give form privileges.
Create Form
You can create forms for your site and study if you have the 'Manage Forms?' privilege.
Click on 'Forms' from the navigation menu or the home screen.
Click on '+Create' to create a new form.
Add the 'Title' of the form and click on 'Create'.
Add Controls
You can add multiple fields to a form using different controls as per your requirements.
Control Type
Description
Control Type
Description
Text Field
Maximum size: 255 characters addresses. You can add a text field or text area field to your form to add URLs. URLs will be visible as hyperlinks on the overview pages upon data entry.
Text Area
Add long text like comments, address, etc. Maximum size limit is 65,635 characters.
Number Field
Supports adding numeric values like age, number of days, etc.
Radio Button
Single select radio buttons. Ideal for less than 5-6 values. If more, use dropdowns.
Checkbox
Multi-select checkbox. Ideal for less than 5-6 values. If more, use the multi-select dropdown.
Yes/No Checkbox
The field to check /uncheck single value.
Dropdown
Select single value from the dropdown options.
Multiselect Dropdown
Select multiple values from the dropdownoptions.
Date Picker
Supports date and time.
File Upload
Supports any file type. Note: If file is greater than 5MB, it is ideal not to upload them in OpenSpecimen and instead use an external file server.
Signature
To collect eSignature.
Note
This is to add ‘information notes’ for the user in between fields or sections.
User
Displays users in the system in a dropdown.
Permissible Value
Displays the PV values from the Dropdown Manager.
Site
Displays sites in the system in a dropdown.
Storage Container
Displays container in the system in a dropdown.
Subform
To enhance the main form, you can incorporate a subform. This subform functions as a table-like structure that links to the main form. For instance, a patient may possess multiple addresses. To accommodate this, an Address subform can be integrated, featuring distinct fields such as city and street name.
To add new controls/fields to the form, click on ‘+ Add Field’.
Select the control type
Add the ‘Display Name’ and click on 'Save'
Note
MySQL DB restricts the number of fields supported in a table, so don’t create too long forms.
The number of fields supported depends on the data type of the fields. E.g., You can have 25-30 number fields in place of a single text field.
If the form is a mix of control types, please restrict it to not more than 75 fields.
Field Properties
The following field properties allow users to customize and configure form fields efficiently.
Properties
Description
Validations
Properties
Description
Validations
Title
Title of the form
Name
System generated name
Please do not change this or blank it out.
Type
Control type (Read-only)
Display Label
Display name of the form field
Variable Name
The attribute name of the form field.
Ensure the variable name is unique within the form.
Special characters and spaces are not allowed.
Tooltip
Pop up displayed when you move the mouse over the field. Useful to set descriptions or guidelines about the field.
Default Value
Default Value set for the field.
The default value can be set within the 'Permissible values' section for enumerated field types like dropdowns, radio buttons, or list boxes.
PHI
Button to make any field as ‘Protected health information’. This value will be hidden from users who do not have access to PHI.
Required (Mandatory)
To set the form field as required.
Show in Grid
For the forms attached at the ‘Specimen Event’ level, this attribute is shown in the events list under each specimen.
This is used for ‘User’ and ‘Date and Time’ type fields, and must have the variable names ‘user’ and ‘time’ respectively. For further information, please refer to Specimen Events | SpecimenEvents CreateNewEvent.
Rows
The number of rows to be shown in the text area.
Only applicable to Text Area
Number of Fraction Digits
The number of digits to show after the decimal
Set this to zero if you want only whole numbers like for ‘Age’.
Only applicable to Number Field
Range
Minimum and Maximum values to be restricted for the field
Only applicable to Number Field
Permissible Values Ordering
The sorting order of the values to be displayed.
Ascending Descending None
Only applicable to enumerated field types like radio button, dropdown, etc.
Options Per Row
Values to be shown per row of the field
Only applicable to radio button and checkbox.
Default Checked
Checkbox to make field checked by default
Only applicable to Yes/No Checkbox.
Format
The format of the date field
Date Only Date and Time
Only applicable to Date Picker.
Default Date
Default date
None Current Date
Only applicable to Date Picker.
Display on the same row as the last field (v8.1)
Adds the field in the same row as the last field
Numeric Value
Enabled only for PV dropdown and dropdown has integer values like 122, 2, 700 etc
Add Permissible Values
For fields like dropdown, radio button, multi-select dropdown, and checkbox controls, you can manually add the permissible values or upload the text or CSV file containing the permissible values.
Create a text or CSV file of the permissible values to be added.
Click on the 'Edit' icon of the field that you want to upload PVs for.
Click on ‘Add Option’ to manually add values or click ‘+ Upload Options’ to add PVs using a CSV file.
When you export a form, the dropdown values are exported as separate CSV only if it has more than 15 values.
Add Permissible Values (From Dropdown Manager)
You can also use the permissible value available in the Dropdown Manager to add to your custom field
Advantages of adding PVs using the dropdown manager
Easier to maintain.
You can directly export the values for the field and use them in other forms.
Changes in the dropdown manager automatically update in the form. For manually added dropdowns, data must be changed separately when altering a value.
Refer to Dropdown Manager to create a dropdown and follow the steps mentioned in the add PVs using the dropdown manager section.
