Custom compliance form templates can be created in AroFlo for compliance needs that aren't covered by Risk Templates or OHS Checklists. The main part of the form template is completely customizable, with options such as headings, text boxes, radio buttons, and more. You can use custom compliance forms for pretty much anything you can think of: unusual compliance requirements customer satisfaction surveys employee incident reports equipment damage reports printable cleaning logs or rosters.

Access your custom forms library via Site Admin > Settings > Compliance > Forms.

Creation Methods

There are various ways to start with custom forms:

Form Categories

Set up your custom form categories in the same way that categories work across AroFlo:

• Use the (plus button) to add main categories.
• Hover over a main category and use the (green plus button) to add subcategories
• Use the (pen and paper icon) to rename categories or subcategories.

Ensure to select the right category or subcategory when creating a form, however, you can easily recategorize forms by using the and dragging and dropping into the category you need.

Form settings

Click a form name to access the form's settings and options:

Create a custom form

To create a form from scratch:

1. Select the relevant category or subcategory and click Create Form.
2. Fill out the form's settings, as above
3. Save.

Add a checklist

Checklists can be added as a component of the custom form. These checklists are a list of checkbox items and don't have the standard response of 'Yes/No/NA' as with other checklists in AroFlo.

This feature is unavailable for ME Safety and NECA forms as they are read-only.

 

When using a custom compliance form, checklists appear at the bottom of the form.

To add checklist items:

1. On the form you want to add a checklist to, click Edit in the Checklist column.
2. Click Add Checklist Item.
3. Enter the name of the Item and click Add Item.
4. Repeat the above steps until you have all the checklist items you need.
5. Optional: Change the Order of the checklist items by clicking the (two horizontal bars icon) and dragging the item to where you want it.
6. Save Checklist.
7. Click Forms, in the top left, to return to the forms list.

 

Link documents to the form

To link another custom compliance form to the form you are creating:

1. Click a form name to access the form's settings
2. Click the plus button in the Linked Form field and click the name of the form you want to link.
3. Save.

If you have Document Storage enabled on your AroFlo subscription, on saving your form template for the first time, you'll see the Linked Documents option. This allows you to upload files to your compliance form template so they can be read in the field, e.g. a PDF copy of a Safe Work Methods Statement (SWMS).

1. Edit a Custom Form by clicking the Form Name.
2. Under Linked Documents, click the Add Documents & Photos button.
3. Click Upload, select a file from your file share and click Open > Done.
4. Click Save Documents.
5. Click Save to upload and link the file.

Build your form

Once you've set up your form and linked any forms / documents or checklists to it, it's time to create the form fields.

Custom compliance forms are made up of cells. The form field editor works in a similar way to the table-editing features within Microsoft Word or Excel. Each cell will contain a piece of information, such as the name of the form or a question that your field staff need to answer. The instructions below show you how to add and edit cells to build the on-screen layout of the custom form.

Access the field editor

Within the relevant Category, click Edit under the Fields column of the form you're working on, or alternatively, if in the Form's settings, click Form Fields.

The first row / cell of the form appears.

Paper-based form

If you are creating a custom form based on a paper version, your job now is to convert the necessary fields into a format that is going to be easily understood and completed on a mobile device.

 

 

 

Form design

1. On the first cell, hover over the (double-ended arrow icon) on the left of the screen. From the menu that appears, click add row below multiple times to add a number of rows.
   

   You can add more rows or delete extra rows later, if necessary.

    
   
2. Hover over the right-hand side of any cell to access a menu that allows you to add cells to a row, extend (span) cells within a row, or delete cells. Using these menu options, you can create a grid that resembles the layout of your source document.  
    
   

When setting up your cells, it's a good idea to have all relevant information for one component on the one row, split into columns. For example, you might have a question and answer to each be in its own cell, like this:

Question

Answer

Or this example, taken from a Pre-built form, uses 4 columns.

This will make it easier for you to know which field relates to which item.

When viewing the form from AroFlo Office, this is how the form will display. When viewing the form in AroFlo Field, however, each cell displays underneath each other.

 

Adding and spanning cells

Remember that you'll need to click into each respective row before clicking add cell right, or your form will look like this:

To make a cell take up the same space as other rows, or go all the way across, hover over the right-hand side of the cell and click span right. You may need to click multiple times, depending on how many columns your rows have.

If you've added a cell in error, just hover over the right-hand side of it and click delete cell. If you've added a row in error, hover over the left-hand side of it and click delete row.

 

 

 

Field types

Click the (edit) icon to access the Add / Edit Field properties box, so you can customize the field's settings. The Field Type determines what settings are available to this cell. Some field types offer more options than others.

Field Type	Use type
Canvas	Provides a field for creating simple drawings, or uploading an image, and then marking it up. For more information on using Canvas, please see Custom Fields.
Check Box	Useful for presenting options where multiple answers can be ticked, e.g. a list of items that have been inspected.
Checklist Label	Used for a subheading within the form, e.g. when using a Check Box. Can also be used in Dynamic Tables.
Documents & Photos	Adds a button that allows you to upload documents and photos to your custom forms. If you use RTF Document Templates to generate documents for your clients, you can set up your custom compliance forms with as many Documents & Photos fields as you need, so that the photos appear exactly where you want them to on the final layout.   Your subscription must include our Document Management add-on for this feature to work. See our Pricing Schedule and contact our Customer Service staff for setup.
Inline Document	Add an inline image into your form for viewing things like diagrams or risk matrices.
Date Field	Use this field when a date needs to be entered.
Empty Block	Inserts blank space in your form. This can be used for creating a more spacious-looking form.
Heading	Heading within your form.
Numeric	Use this field when a number needs to be entered. Note: Maximum of 200 characters.
Radio	Useful for presenting options where only one answer can be selected, e.g. Yes / No.
Select	This will create a dropdown for selectable answers, e.g. Risk Status: Low, Medium, High. The first answer will display by default. If you don't want this, you can make your first entry 'Select', to prompt a selection.
Multiselect	Similar to a Select field, but allows for multiple options to be displayed and selected. See Custom Fields for more information.
Signature	Add an inline signature where a signature may be required against a specific declaration in the form rather than just signing the form as a whole.
Sub-Table Label	Used in Expandable forms.
Sub-Table Header (To add Column)	Used in Expandable forms.
Sub-Table Header (To add Row)	Used in Expandable forms.
Text Block	Use this if you want to be able to write a large block of text. Note: Maximum of 2000 characters.
Text Box	Use this if you only want to write one or two lines. Note: Maximum of 95 characters.
Text / Notes	Standard text on the form that is not a heading. It could be used for an example or a prompt, e.g. ‘Please enter comments here’.
Static Data	Allows you to pre-populate common task-related information such as Client Name, Location Name or Task Type.

 

 

Field options

Once you've selected the type of field, fill out the field options, depending on what information you want to pull across into your template.

Field	Description
Field Type	Lets you define the type of field you want, e.g. Check Box, Date Field, Heading. See previous tab.
Default value	For text boxes and text blocks, you can prefill the field with text, or, select a value taken from the task the form is linked to, e.g. Task name, Location Name, Last Updated, or Completion Date.
Label Text	Lets you enter a field name. This will appear on the field but can be hidden. See Hide Field Label, below.
Radio / Select Values	For Radio, Select, and Multiselect, enter the values you want to appear. For Select and Multiselect, you can click Dynamic if you want to use a prepopulated Users list.
Field Length	Depending on the field type, this field allows you to specify how many characters can be entered into a field.
Link to Checklist Label	This is used when creating dynamic tables.
Hide Field Label	Hides the field label text in either AroFlo Office or Field, or both.
Conditional Visibility	Conditional fields allow you to apply logic to when additional options should and should not appear. For instance, if a high temperature is recorded that would be considered abnormal (by ticking a box labeled ‘>40c’), you can then have a set of additional steps appear in the form to confirm that all relevant steps were taken to remediate it. Additionally, this option impacts how the fields appear on a printed copy of the form when using a standard layout. Printed RTFs will retain all elements regardless of conditional visibility. Show/Hide Conditional Elements on a printed layout To show or hide conditional elements on a layout, click the Custom Form Fields Area element, then in the properties, select the option “Apply Conditions” to make your rules reflect on a printed layout or “Show All” to see every element regardless of visibility conditions. Note that this only applies to Standard layouts as RTF layouts will always show all elements.   For more information including guides and workflow examples, please see Conditional Fields Workflow.
Cell Width / Height	These fields control the dimensions of the cell. They default to zero, with AroFlo calculating the cell width and height automatically. To alter the default cell size, enter values in these fields and click Save. This can be handy if you want to force lengthy cell contents to wrap.
Mapping Name	Enter a mapping name if you want to use this field on an RTF document template. Set your mapping names as all lowercase, use underscores "_" for spaces, and make them short, e.g. a radio button with the label 'Inspect upstream & downstream of the filter' might have a mapping name of 'inspect_up_down'. This will make it a lot easier, when creating an RTF document template, to quickly pick out the fields you need.
Report Name	Complete this field if you intend to run reports on this compliance form. The Report Name becomes the column name on your Forms report.
Hide in Field	Check this box if you want to make this field invisible to staff using AroFlo Field.

 

 

Hiding Labels and Cells

If you're using multiple columns for your information, you'll need to hide some labels and/or cells to prevent duplicate information from displaying.

In this basic example, the label text is displaying for both our question and our answer cells. 

For this particular form, the label text for the left-hand cell is designed for the Office view, and the right, for Field.

In this example, we would hide the label text for the right-hand cell in Office via Edit > Hide Field Label In > 'Office' > Done.

For the left-hand cell, you can either:

• hide the field label in Field, or alternatively,
• hide the entire cell via Edit > Hide in Field checkbox > Done.

Remember to Save Form.

Another use case of hiding labels and cells is if you don't want the same information to display on the form when being viewed in Office vs when viewed in Field. This is something to consider when creating your custom forms.

Further tips and tricks

• When creating a form from scratch, you may need to change the format so that it is easily read and understood on a mobile device.
• Remember that the layout on-screen is used for data entry, and a different layout can be used for printing or emailing the form to your customers. This means that you only need to create form fields for information that is not already in AroFlo. Fields such as 'Customer Name' or 'Technician Name' can be pulled across from your task and be displayed on your layout. However, if you want to use static data from the task or form on a particular field, take a look at the available Default Values that can be selected in the field options.

Link forms to a task type

Linking forms to a task type makes it easier for Field users to locate the correct compliance form for the job at hand. See Linked Compliance Forms for how to set this up.

Use Custom Forms

Custom Forms are generally linked to a task, but they can also be used as a standalone form.

Switch from Site Administration to Office if you need to.

See these instructions for AroFlo Field