Ever need to give graphical instructions to your field crews?

Now you can do that in XForms.  In the XForms Designer, there is now a new Picture control that lets you insert a PNG or JPG image into a form template.  At the current time, it only lets you insert a hosted image via a URL.  A future release will let you upload an image directly from your hard drive.

To access the Picture control, when in the Designer editing a form template, click on the “+ Add Field” button, select the Picture control, and add the URL where the image is located. Here’s an example:

 

What it looks like in the mobile app

Whatever image/picture/drawing/illustration you add to the form template in the Designer will appear on the mobile app in read-only mode.  Here’s an example below.

 

 

Use case for this feature

I’ve seen a lot of very technical forms that include a drawing of a device with arrows and captions describing certain things.  These are typically used to instruct the field tech collecting the data on certain aspects of the work being conducted/data collected.  For example, a lockout/tagout form like this one, which includes an explanatory drawing about arc flashing:

 

Future enhancements

A future release sometime in 2023 will include the following improvements to this Picture control:

  • Ability to upload a png or jpg image from your laptop/desktop hard drive
  • In runtime on the mobile app, you will be able to tap on the image to view it in fullscreen mode
  • Offline mode support

 

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