Limit access to your feedback form with access management

Some users want their feedback form to be limited to certain people. For example a certain company wants to collect the feedback of its workers and not have the feedback form open to everyone.

The feature that deals with the form access is called 'access management'.

This feature allows you (the form owner) to limit the access to your form/public reports by creating a list of users who are permitted to access. Only the permitted users will have access to the feedback form. Once a user tries to reach your form, the FormLogix login page will appear instead of the form and the user will need to login in order to access the form.

Following are steps to limit the access to your form in the form builder:
1- Press on the 'access' icon of the relevant form in the 'data center'.

2- Once the access window opens you will need to enter the users who will be permitted to access one by one (their names and email addresses).

3- When you press on 'add user' his name will be added to the users list and a turned on checkbox will appear in the 'enter data' column (meaning that you are inviting him to access your form and fill it in).
4- In addition, when you press on the 'add user' button an email will automatically be sent to this person, informing him that he was granted access to your form. If this user is a FormLogix user then he will be able to login using his username and password. If the recipient is not a formLogix user an account will be set up for him and he will need to activate it in order to login.


At this point, if you have any public reports/charts they will appear in the 'public report' column and you will be able to turn on their checkboxes and send an invitation to view them as well (by pressing on "Send Invitation" after editing the access authorizations). You will also be able to turn off the 'enter data' checkbox if you wish, and grant access to view data and not submit it.

How to publish my feedback form

Once you finish creating your feedback form in the form builder you can start using it publically. embed it in your website, send others a link to it, etc. All you need to do in order to use it publicly is “publish” it.
publishing a form means externalizing it. Generating its code and using it in order for other to fill data in it.
There are 5 different publishing methods in the form builder. Choosing the right publish method depends on your needs – whether you want to embed the form to look like an integral part of your site or blog, or you want to use its url as is or as a link. Once you choose a method (by selecting the radio button value) a generated script will appear and you will only need to copy and paste it.

The 6 publishing methods are:
URL - this is the url of the form. This url can be placed in a link or sent to others so they can enter the form. O simply given as is to enter in the browser’s address bar.
IFRAME - this code is used to embed the form in blogs.
LINK - this code is used to add a link for others to enter the form through.
SCRIPT - this code is used to embed the form in a website.
MAIL – when you choose this option a your mailing system window will open, allowing you to send an email, containing a link to the form.
read more about the publish option.

Keeping in touch with your users

A feedback form is created in order to communicate with users. In the last post i discussed one of the basic ways to respond to a user who addresses you (by an auto reply email).
In this post I would like to talk about the option to reply to a specific user. Once a user sends you a message you can of course copy his email address in to your mail application and send him a reply from there, But if this discussion grows long and emails are sent back and forth than it may be hard to track (especially if you have this type of discussion with several other users).
The form builder offers a great solution for this – a "Private Forum". This option allows you to send a user a response from within the data management result table. In addition, each response (from the user or yourself) will be stored in the discussion tree.

How do you use the "private forum"?
1- enter the data management result table.
2- go to the entry row you want to reply to and open the "tools" sub menu in this row.
3- the private forum window will open and you will be required to enter your message.
The discussion tree will appear on the left, showing all the communication between you and the user up till now.

Read a detailed post about how to use the private forum.

Add an auto reply to your feedback form

A feedback form is all about communicating with your users, receiving information from them. A very important part of this communication is your response. Sure, some users require a more in depth reply to their feedback, but all are entitled to an auto response , as if saying "we got your feedback and it is very appreciated…".
Adding an auto reply to your feedback form using a form builder is really easy.

All you need to do is:
1- Make sure you have an "email element" in your form to collect your user's address (how else will you be able to reply?)

2- Go to the element settings on the right and turn on the "send copy" checkbox and the "mandatory" checkbox.
That's it. This operation will send the basic email to the user, containing all the data he/she entered in the form (a carbon copy of the email you will receive).

If you wish to add a short text at the top of this email you can do so by using the "email user message" option in the "form settings".
If you wish to change the auto response layout all together you can use the "custom user email" option.
Read more about auto response.

Web form essentials

There are a few important things to remember when creating any type of web form using a form builder:

1- form name
When you create a new form it is not mandatory to change the default name but it is highly recommended since it helps to distinguish between the forms in the future. In addition the form name appears in the emails sent to you and your users in the subject field.

2- form width and height
If you intend on embedding the form in your website/blog then this feature will be really important in order to make the form fit perfectly.

3- element caption
The element caption is basically the element name. The caption appears in many places (emails, data management result table, filter listboxes, etc) so if you do not provide it with a unique name you will not be able to tell it apart from the other elements.
when you drag a new element to the design area it already has a default name, however this name is general and will not help you identify the element in future use.

4- element tab index
The tab index is an attribute that each element has, which defines the order or fields. This order will be applied when the user tabs through the form, it will also be applied in the emails sent to you/users and in the data management result table.