Form Fields

Form fields are the building blocks of your form. They determine the type of data that will be collected from your applicants and how it will be displayed on the application form.

There are several types of form field available, each with its own unique properties and functionality.

Configuration Options

Each form field comes with a set of configuration options that allow you to customise its appearance and behaviour. These options include:

Label

The label is the text that appears above the field when it is displayed on the form.

Placeholder

The placeholder is the text that appears inside the field when it is empty.

Help Message

Additional information that appears below the field.

Required

Determines whether the field is mandatory or optional.

Default Value

A starting value the field is pre-filled with, so the applicant sees it already there instead of a blank field. Available on Text Input, Number Input, Date Input, Radio Buttons, Horizontal Radio, Checkboxes, and the Application Identifier types (ABN, EIN, Charity Number). Not available on File Upload, Multi Column Input, List Input, Expenses Input, Financial Grid, Major Donor Grid, Section, a repeatable field, or a Calculated Field.

If a field is instead set to pull its value automatically from a document or another field, the default value option is hidden — the automatic source fills it instead, and the two cannot both apply.

Validation Rules

Validation rules define the criteria the field's input must meet to be valid. A plain Text Input has a Type setting with four choices: Text, Email, URL and Contact. Choosing Email requires the answer to look like an email address. The Type setting is not offered on other text-like fields such as Number Input or the Application Identifier types.

Contact

Choose the Contact type when you want an answer to become a contact on the application, so your team knows who to get in touch with. Choose what the answer is saved as (name, email or phone) and a role for that contact (primary, secondary or none). A contact needs an email, so use an email field for each role you set up. Contact is only offered on a plain Text Input that is not set to pull its value from somewhere else.

Contacts are created when the applicant first submits the application. If a role has no valid email, no contact is created for it and the submission still goes through.

Number format

Number Input fields, and number columns inside Multi Column Input and List Input fields, have a Number format setting:

• Any number (the default).

• Whole number, or whole number allowing negatives.

• Decimal (two decimal places), or decimal allowing negatives.

• Percent, a whole number from 0 to 100.

Applicants cannot type or paste characters the format does not allow, and scrolling the mouse wheel over the field does not change the number. In a table, each row is checked and any error names the column. A minimum of 0 is allowed.

Not applicable

Text Input, Number Input and Rich Text Editor fields have a Not applicable switch, off by default. When it is on, applicants see a Not applicable checkbox. Ticking it hides the input and records the answer as "N/A". A required field with Not applicable ticked can still be submitted, and unticking it clears the answer. Remember that scoring, exports and reports will see the text "N/A" in that field, including number fields.

Visible to assessors only

Switch this on for a question that only your team should answer or see, such as an internal note on the form. Applicants never see it, it never blocks their submission, and it is left out of what applicants receive, including their PDFs and letters. Assessors see it with an Assessor only label. Conditions and calculated fields can still use its value. This hides the question from applicants, it is not a way to keep a secret from them.

Condition

Conditions decide whether a field is shown or hidden based on the answers to other fields. See the section below for what a condition can and cannot say.

Hidden

Specifies whether the field is displayed or hidden.

Application Identifier

A unique identifier assigned to each application.

Field Types

Available field types include: Heading, Paragraph, Email, Application Title, Text Input, Rich Text Editor, Number Input, Date Input, File Upload, Expenses Input, Multi Column Input, List Input, Select Any One (Radio Buttons), Select All That Apply (Checkboxes), Horizontal Radio, Page Breaker, Section, Financial Grid, Major Donor Grid, and Calculated Field.

Section groups related questions into a titled block that can be shown or hidden as one. Financial Grid and Major Donor Grid collect figures across several years, working their year columns out from the applicant's financial year end and founding date. See The Financial Grid Field. Calculated Field shows a value worked out automatically from other questions on the form, either a number from a formula or a value you set from conditions — see below.

A long list of options on Select Any One or Select All That Apply lays itself out in columns once it passes about ten options, so applicants are not scrolling through one long list. You can also set a fixed number of columns yourself in the field editor.

Calculated Field

A Calculated Field does not collect an answer. It shows a value worked out from other questions on the form. In the field editor, Calculate using lets you choose Formula (the default), which produces a number, or Conditions, which sets a value such as a funding tier.

Writing the formula

In the field editor, type @ and start typing another question's label to insert it, then combine references with +, -, *, / and brackets. A formula can only reference Number Input questions and other Calculated Fields.

Setting a value from conditions

Choose Conditions when the value depends on what the applicant answered, rather than on arithmetic. For example, a field can read "Tier 1", "Tier 2" or "Tier 3" depending on the amount requested.

• Values. Add one or more values. Each one says "set the field to this value when these conditions are met", using the same condition builder as showing and hiding questions, including groups of all or any.

• Order matters. The first value whose conditions are met is used, so put the most specific one first.

• Fallback value. Used when none of the values apply. With no fallback, the field is blank and applicants see a dash.

• Hidden or deleted questions count as unanswered. A question that is hidden by a condition, or that has been deleted, is treated as if the applicant left it empty.

• One method at a time. Only the method you have selected is kept. If you switch back to Formula, the values you had set are not kept.

The result is worked out as the applicant fills in the form, and it carries through to saving, review, exports and assessments like any other answer. If you leave every condition on a value incomplete, Optible drops that value when you save rather than letting it apply to every application.

What the applicant sees

A read-only box carrying a Calculated tag. There is nothing to type, and no default value option, because the value always comes from the formula or conditions.

Blank rather than wrong

If a question the formula depends on is currently hidden, left empty, or the formula would divide by zero, the Calculated Field shows blank instead of an incorrect number. It updates automatically whenever an input it depends on changes.

Entry limits on repeatable fields

A repeatable field can be left open-ended, or you can cap how many entries an applicant can add. Turn on Limit number of entries in the field editor and set a minimum, a maximum, or both.

• The applicant's form opens with the minimum number of entries already there.

• Add stops working once the maximum is reached, and Remove stops working once the count reaches the minimum.

• Submitting with too few or too many entries is blocked, with a message naming the field and the limit that was missed.

How conditions work

Three things about conditions are worth knowing before you build a form around them.

Eight operators, and no "contains"

You can compare an answer using is, is not, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, and less than or equal to. Two more, is answered and is not answered, simply check whether the question has an answer and need no value. File Upload questions can be used in a condition, but only with those two. There is no "contains". A question with no answer is not equal to anything, so for an unanswered question only is not is true.

Two levels of grouping

Conditions sit in groups. Within a group they join one way, all or any, and the groups join the other way. You cannot nest a group inside a group.

Hidden answers are discarded

This one surprises people. When a field is hidden by a condition:

• It is not required, so a hidden mandatory field will not block submission.

• Its answer is not saved. If an applicant answers a question and a later answer hides it, what they typed is dropped rather than kept quietly in the background.

• Later conditions treat it as unanswered, so an old "Yes" in a hidden question no longer decides what else is shown.

Related: be careful deleting a field that other conditions point at. Those conditions are then treated as satisfied, and whatever they were hiding becomes visible to everyone, with no warning.

Pages can carry conditions too, with one extra rule: a page can only be hidden based on answers from earlier pages. See Sections and Conditional Questions.