Administering Forms

Posted21 June 2022

Updated3 May 2023

This article shows how to create and maintain Project Forms via the Administration Center. The forms can include basic project information, as well as data related to status, schedule and budget.

Overview

ResourceFirst allows easy configuration of multiple project forms. These can be used for maintaining basic project information, project status information, budget information, and more.

Some organizations like to have everything on one form, with different sections for each category of information, while others prefer a different form for each type of information (e.g., project charter vs status information). Forms appear when you click on a project on the Projects > Data page or click on a proposed project on the Projects > Initiation page.

Description

Navigating the Forms page.

Below is the Forms page in the Administration area.

Note that the top pane lists the forms along with a series of check boxes and attributes. Each form can be designated to a specific partition (See Using Partitions for more on partitions) and/or be made active or inactive. Forms can also be designated as appearing on the Project Info page, Initiation page, or both. In addition, forms can be designated as the default form for the related page(s).

Using Smart Forms with Scripts

Note the Before Show Script, Back Script, and Next Script columns. These enable SQL scripts that represent actions that can be taken upon presentation of the form, or upon a user clicking a Back or Next button.

Types of scripts are as follows:

Before Show Script – Any script here will run before the form is shown to the user
Back Script – If a script is specified here, a “Back” button will appear to the user, and the script will run when they click the Back button.
Next Script – If a script is specified here, a “Next” button will appear to the user, and the script will run when they click the Next button.

Using the Back and Next scripts, you can arrange a forms workflow for the user. If desired, this workflow can be based on how the user filled out certain fields on the page (e.g., the script could have conditional routing to another form based on how fields were completed on the current form, and could even conditionally pre-populate fields on the next form accordingly).

Form scripts can also be used in conjunction with field-level scripts. For more on this, see Administering Column Headings.

See your PDWare representative for assistance in creating scripted smart forms.

How To

Adding, Deleting, or Copying Forms

Step 1: To add a new form, click the + sign in the upper panel. To delete a form, click on a form in the upper panel to select it, and then click the Delete (trash can) icon to delete the form. To copy the form to create a new form, click the Copy icon after selecting a form. The three icons are below:

Step 2: Update the form attributes as desired:

Active – The form is active and can be seen by users.
Info – The form is available for selection on the Project Workspace Info tab.
Initiation – The form is available for selection on the Projects > Initiation page.
Default – The form is the default form on its respective page(s)
Before Show Script – Any script here will run before the form is shown to the user
Back Script – If a script is specified here, a “Back” button will appear to the user, and the script will run when they click the Back button.
Next Script – If a script is specified here, a “Next” button will appear to the user, and the script will run when they click the Next button.

Populating Forms

To populate a form, select the form in the upper Forms pane.

In the lower half of the Forms page, the two panes are as follows:

Available Fields – The leftmost window shows the available fields that can be dragged onto the form.
Layout – The rightmost window is the form itself, which consists of Sections. The example above shows two sections: General and Numbers.

Adding a Section

Step 1: To add a section, click the button. The dialog box below will appear.

To add a section, click the “Add Section” option. To add an Event section (e.g., Risks, Issues, Changes, etc.), click the “Add Event Section” option. To learn more about Adding Events, see Adding an Event Section below.

Step 2: If you choose, “Add Section,” the following dialog box will appear:

Step 3: Name the section and choose the number of columns in that section.

[Note: If you select the Phases and Milestones option, the result will be a blank section with automatic functionality that will allow the user to select from a list of project phases and milestones.]

Step 4: Click the Save icon to the upper right of the Layout pane.

About Phases and Milestones

Below is an example of a newly created blank Phases and Milestones section called “Phases and Milestones.” Note that the form section marked Phases and Milestones has nothing underneath it. This is normal.

The image below is how the overall form, including the Phases and Milestones section (in this example, called “Schedule”), will appear to the end user when they select the form on the Project Workspace “Project Info” tab. Note that they have a dropdown icon for adding a phase or milestone to the form. This will allow them to maintain the phase and milestone dates and status right on the form.

Below is the dropdown for adding a phase or milestone.

Reminder! Don’t forget to click the Save icon after making your changes!

Adding an Event Section

In addition to sections with fields and Phases and Milestones section, you can create sections that will automatically show the user related events by Event Type (e.g., Risks, Issues, Changes, etc.). Event Types are defined in Administration > Lists > Project Event Types.

Step 1: To add an event section, click the button in the Layout pane. The dialog box below will appear.

Step 2: Select “Add Event Section.” The following dialog box will appear:

Step 3: Give the Event Section a name and choose which event type you would like to include. Then click the Add button.

The result will be a blank section with automatic functionality that will allow the user to see events of that type. This is how the event sections appear in the Form design (in this case, there are three event sections, for Issues, Risks, and Changes, respectively:

This is how the section will appear to the user on the form (in this case, Issues). Note that the user can add new items right from the form (via the “+” button) or delete items via the Delete (trash can) icon:

Re-ordering Sections

Step 1: To move sections around, click the Order Sections button. You will be presented with a dialog to drag sections up or down. Drag the sessions as needed. Then click Close.

Section Controls

For each section, notice the section controls available:

1) The + sign allows you to add a Label, which is a line of text that will appear at the top of that section.

2) The middle Edit icon allows you to edit a section, in which you can change the name of the section or number of columns in a section. You will be presented with the following dialog. Click the Save button in the dialog box to save your changes. Or Cancel to back out.

3) The Trash Can icon allows you to delete the whole section.

Adding, Moving, or Deleting Fields in a Section

To add or remove fields for the section, drag them from the Available Field pane to the Layout pane or vice-versa. You can also drag fields around on the layout itself.