Administering Forms

Posted21 June 2022

Updated28 February 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. Forms appear when you click on a project in the Project Data tab or click on a proposed project in the Initiation tab.

Below is the Forms page in the Administration area.

Note that the top pane lists the forms. Each form can be designated to a specific partition (See Using PartitionsÂ 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).

There are also the Before Show Script, Back Script, and Next Script entry areas, which are described in Using Smart Forms with Scripts below.

Adding, Deleting, or Copying Forms

In the upper panel, you can click the + sign to add a new form, or you can click on a form and then click the trash can to delete the form, or the Copy icon to copy the form to a new one.

Using Smart Forms with Scripts

You can also specify scripts to go along with the form, 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, and it can even be based on how they filled out certain fields on the page (e.g., the script would have conditional routing to another form based on how fields were completed on the current form, and could even conditionally pre-populate fields accordingly).

This 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.

In the lower half of the Forms page, the sections 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

To add a section, click the button. Then the dialog box below will appear.

You can name the section and choose the number of columns in that section.

If you select the Phases and Milestones option, the section will create a blank section with automatic functionality that will allow the user to select from a list of project 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, will appear to the end user when they select the form. 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.

Important! Don’t forget to click the Save button after making your changes!

Re-ordering Sections

To move sections around, click the Order Sections button. You will be presented with a dialog to drag sections up or down. 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 is 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. Press Save in the dialog box to save your changes.

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

Adding or Removing Fields on 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.