Most companies, particularly larger ones, have multiple divisions, disciplines, departments, etc. As such, the field needs for each division/discipline/department differ. For example, one division might need a few different inspection form types, while another might need a totally different set of form templates, with zero intermixing.
So how do you go about displaying different form templates to different groups of users within the same company using the same software?
Apps…that’s how. AirTable does it this way, and so does XForms. Apps are nothing more than containers…buckets if you will. Each container, or app, can contain any number of form templates, and these can be totally different from the form templates in another app. Everything can be isolated into specific apps, so that there’s no mixing of form templates, data, or even users. You can categorize apps by discipline (e.g., Compliance App, Remediation App, Safety App, etc), customer (e.g., Customer 1 app, Customer 2 app, etc) or any number of ways you feel is best for your business.
This article explores how apps, aka applications, works in XForms and how you can use that feature to isolate form templates and data to specific groups of people.
Getting started with apps in XForms
- Step 1 – Decide how you want to group things and create your “apps”
- Step 2 – Start building form templates within each app
- Step 3 – Configure the application to display the information you want
Author’s note: As of the summer of 2022, some of the app features of XForms are not yet exposed via our self-service toolset. However, in the meantime, we are more than happy to help you design your applications and set this up for you.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so rather than explaining things with words, we’ll do it with screenshots, which are easier to understand.
To switch between apps in the reporting dashboard web app, click on the top center listbox and select the app you want to access.
To switch between apps on the mobile device, you pick the app during login, wherein a popup appears right after logging in. Like this:
You can also control who has access to each app, even your own clients! This is done from the Users screen in the admin and reporting dashboard by clicking on the gear icon and selecting which apps a particular user should have access to.
And this is how you can create different form templates (and other app elements like reference lists, PDF templates, and workflows) within different apps.
That’s basically it. A simple way to distribute different forms to different users within the same organization.
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