Form Do's and Don'ts

What Works Well and What Missteps to Avoid when building surveys forms and note forms in Compyle

Do's

Philosophy

• Consider how you will need to report on the data before you start the form
• Ask for input from the people who work with that data 
• Try it out for yourself
• Look for overlapping forms to combine when similar information is collected in multiple places
• Set aside time every few months to listen to your users, gather input about forms/data needs, and improve your forms
• Look for new features and functionality in upgrades. 
• Reach out to suggest new features and field types.

Practices

• Do: Use option fields instead of short answer text fields whenever possible. You can add "Other" as an option for greater flexibility. 
  • Why: easier for your users to select what they need
  • Why: better for reporting because short answer fields don't pull into analytics
• Do: Add sections to organize your form fields
  • Why: easier for your users to work through a section at a time
  • Why: makes form logic rules simpler to set up and test
• Do: Choose the field type that best matches the information you are tracking
  • Why: formatting is based on the field type, and you will be able to get cleaner data in
  • Why: field types help users know what kind of information you are looking for
  • Why: certain field types have added functionality, like url fields display a link to the website address.
  • Why: numeric fields and numeric values for option fields can be used in analytics, but short text answer and paragraph fields cannot be.
• Do: Use numeric fields and numeric values for options fields whenever possible
  • Why: simplify calculations and aggregating data
  • Why: can feed into custom calculation fields on the form
• Do: Create description fields that will display well on different screen sizes
  • Why: make the forms accessible to users on big and small devices will help reduce barriers to gathering information

Don'ts

General Guidelines

• If data is worth capturing, it's worth capturing well. 
• If information will not be used to support service delivery, program measurement, or performance management, you may not need to collect it.
• Balance ease of reporting with ease of data entry.
• How you collect information determines what you can do with the data.
• A little organization and forethought goes a long way.

Avoid These

• Don't: Name multiple fields on the same form the exact same thing

• • Why: It makes it harder to be certain which field you are using in rules, calculations, and exports

• Don't: Use short answer when you need to report on the answers
   
  • Why: short answer and paragraph fields are not available in calculations. They only appear in survey form instance reports and in outcomes tab summaries

• Don't: Use short answer when you what the answers will likely be
   
  • Why: a set of standardized options will be easier to report on, and the short answer fields are not available for use in calculations

• Don't: Use checkbox or multi-select for questions with a single answer
   
  • Why: checkbox fields always accept multiple options. Multi-select dropdowns always accept multiple options. 
  • Why: If someone can choose both "yes" and "no", they might.

• Don't: Use single select dropdown, likert scale, or radio button when multiple answers should be allowed per person (Which vs What; Any vs The)
   
  • Why: Radio buttons, likert scales, and single select dropdown only accept a single answer.

• Don't: add an extra Date field to survey forms or note type forms to capture the date of the survey or note.
   
  • Why: The date is automatically captured for survey forms and note type forms.
    • Survey forms will use the survey instance start date for assigning response records to a reporting period.
    • Note type forms will use the built-in Date of Note field to assign the note record to a note type instance and reporting period. The Date of Note can be edited on brand new records but not once the note has been saved.

• Don't: Use short answer fields for comment fields where you would like responses longer than a word or two
  
  
  • Why: Short answer fields are only a single line tall. This discourages longer remarks and makes it hard for users to see what they have entered if they go past a sentence or two.

• Don't:  Use decimal for # of persons unless it is an average
   
  • Why: People are whole number units rather than fractions.

• Don't: Use only text options for a numeric scale or weighted scale
   
  • Why: assigning numeric values will allow you to build calculations into the form, use the field in formulas in analytics, and give you layers summaries to work with.

• Don't: Use a multi-select with numeric values in a calculation unless you want the average of the chosen options
  
  
  • Why: having a single record with options like 1,3,4, 8 makes it harder to interpret the information.
  • Why: when a multi-select dropdown or checkbox with numeric values is used in a calculation field formula, the system uses an average of the selected options in calculations

• Don't: Use time fields for values you need to sum or average because these capture the time of day as hours and minutes.  
  
  
  • Why: Time fields cannot be used in calculation fields and in analytics. (Time Spent fields can be used in analytics as a decimal number of hours, but  Time Spent fields cannot be used in form calculation fields.)

• Don't: Capture the same information in multiple places
  • Why: this makes it much harder to report on the information because it has to come from multiple forms or be combined from multiple fields on the same form
  • Why:  the same participant or organization could have conflicting entries for the same data point if it is captured in multiple forms or multiple fields.