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How is a Form's title set?

A Form Template has two fields which are used when listing a form "type": the Form Name and the Form List Name. These are set by the administrator by viewing details the form in question, accessible by selecting the form from Forms and applications.

Each filled-out form also has a Title field. The field is visible, along with submitter's name, and date created on the administrator's list view of all forms of a particular type.

A reasonable question is, How do we determine a submitted form's name?

First, know that the Title is directly editable by an administrator, so you can always change it.

Second, we compute a title, based on information within the form. Good form design will allow us to compute a useful title. Bad design and you're likely going to see not-so-useful titles.

  • Rule 1: We try to use the name of the person filling out the form.
    If the form's fields includes a field code like: 
      name
  firstname
  first_name
  first name
  surname
    we'll assume these fields are used to collect the user's name and we'll use this value. (We'll combine first_name and last_name fields if both are present in the form.)
  • Rule 2: If there is a field called title, we'll use that field's value.
    However, if this field is located after a name field (i.e., Rule 1) we assume "title" refers to a person's title, and will not use that as the title of the form. This title field can be anywhere in the form: If it is before the name fields (or there are no name fields) we'll use this value for the title of the submitted form. If it is after a name field, we'll not the title field as the form's title.
  • Rule 3: Otherwise, we use the value of the first "text" input field.
    If no name fields are found, and there is no field coded a title, we use the value of the first field in the form. We'll skip single-selection and multiple-selection fields, so you can safely do something like have your first field be a drop-down "Returning User" / "Existing User" -- you'll not see all your forms titled "Returning User".

Putting this together, here are some suggestions:

  • For surveys or forms filled out by a person (rather than a company or team), if that person has to be logged into the platform to fill it out, don't include a name field -- we already know who the person is, and this information will appear in Name column in form lists.
  • For surveys or application forms which may be filled out by a person who is not logged into the platform, include a name field in the form.
  • For forms where you're more interested in some other aspect, such as the company name, or name of the proposed project, use title as the field's code. The label displayed to the user can be anything, as we're only looking at the field code.

    And, do not include fields coded as names. Of course, you can have fields labeled First Name, Last Name, if you like, but make sure the underlying field codes are not name, firstname, surname, etc.

One final trick: If the very first field is coded name, and the field type is a single-selection field, we'll use that selected value as the title. No exceptions. This allows you to have a form with an initial field labeled "Team Name", with a drop-down selection of team names (which you have entered). We'll use the selected Team Name as the title of the form. If that's useful, enjoy the feature!

(Note that a form's title is determined when it is initially submitted, so you can't re-arrange or rename fields and get new titles for old submissions: you'll need to manually update the title field at the bottom of the form, to make changes.)

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