Question Type: Text Field

The Text Field is one of the most common question types, and the most flexible in what it can collect. You can use it to collect contact information for a person who does not yet exist in your back-office system, for a customer's email address (so that you can email them a copy of the form submission later), numeric quantities, or numeric readings about an asset. This topic describes the details of Text Field questions and the setup options that you have.

Info:If you're looking for a field to hold larger blocks of text, use a Text Area question instead.

Available on all tiers, with more options on the Advanced and Enterprise tiers:

Essentials

Advanced

Enterprise

Contents

Question Type: Text Field
- Form Builder

Form Builder

In the Form Builder, the Text Field question appears as shown below:

The Question Edit screen for the Text Field has three tabs: General, Properties, and Help Options Help Options are ways to add help content, such as YouTube videos, web pages, text, or images, to questions in a form. Mobile users simply tap the help icon next to a question to see the help that the form designer provided. (Advanced and Enterprise tiers only). This article will go through each of the tabs.

General

Unique ID

The Unique ID A Unique ID refers to the specific identifier of a question, form page, form section, or Data Destination. Unique IDs are used as reference points when pulling data for conditional logic, Analytics projects, Data Destinations, and Documents. is the reference for the question. For more information on Unique IDs, read: Overview: Unique IDs. It can either be auto-generated based on the question text, or customized.

Data Types

Data Types are the kind of information your mobile users will be putting into these questions. Setting a data type forces users to enter the kind of information you want in the correct format. This also ensures that the entered data can be used elsewhere in your business process, whether that's by other questions in the form, or in a data destination.

The Text Field supports the following data types:

	Free Text	Email	URL	Phone Number	Integer	Decimal	Currency
Text Field	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

Tips for Form Designers:

Free Text: This data type can collect anything text, or a mixture of text and numbers, e.g., postal codes or addresses.
Email: Use this data type if collecting an email address that you need to send an email to with an Email Data Destination.
Integer, Decimal, and Currency: Use one of these data types if the answer needs to be used in a calculation or aggregation later in the form.
Make sure your Data Type reflects what kind of information your mobile users will be entering. A lot of Data Destinations A Data Destination specifies where to send data from a submitted form. You can use Data Destinations to automate data sharing and storage, routing data to a specific service (such as email or cloud storage) in several different formats. (such as Salesforce or SharePoint List, for example) are extremely picky about data types; fields in those systems may require that you send a numeric data type.

Restrictions

The following table shows which restrictions you can set for the question type. Note that:

✓ indicates a restriction that you can configure.
✓* indicates a restriction that is always on.
✘* indicates a restriction that is always off.

Required

Read-Only

Hidden on Device

Hidden on Reports

Keep question width to 100%

(Side-by-Side Sections Side-by-Side Sections display questions and answers in a condensed, two-column layout. This can make it easier and faster for field users to scan, complete, and confirm the answers in a form. only)

Text Field

✓

Properties

Properties allow you to set up your question in various ways. The Question Properties enable you to apply a validation rule and a default value. You can also apply the Router Setup property to parse and route data to other subsequent questions.

Question Properties

Question Properties change depending on the data type chosen.

Free Text	Email/URL/Phone Number	Integer/Decimal/Currency
Validation Type: Validation checks that your users have entered information correctly. Default Value Keyboard Type: Lets you define what keyboard your mobile users encounter.	Allow mobile users to launch Email, SMS, Phonecall, or Browser to this entry. The browser option is only available for regular, Mobile App forms. This helps to prevent data loss when a customer navigates away from a Customer Feedback (browser-based) form. Default Value	Allowable Range (Min/Max) Decimal Place Precision (Decimal Data Type) Currency Default Value

Tip:Need an answer that matches a specific format, but there's no data type that enforces it? Try a Free Text data type with Validation. The Free Text data type has pre-built validation options for Postal and Zip codes, as well as custom validation. For example, you may have serial or model numbers that must be in a certain format—you can create a regular expression to validate it, ensuring that all data is formatted correctly before it reaches its destination.

Help Options

Available on the Advanced and Enterprise tiers:

Essentials

Advanced

Enterprise

Adding “Help” content to forms gives mobile users access to support and other resources out in the field. Help content is available to users through a button embedded beside a question. Any question in the form can include a link to YouTube videos, web pages, or work instructions.

Info:The topicAdd Help Options to Questions describes how help options work and how to set them up.

Router Setup

Available on the Enterprise tier only:

Essentials

Advanced

Enterprise

The Router Setup property is a question property available for Text Field, Text Area, File Upload, and Barcode Scanner question types. You can use the Router Setup to parse (subdivide) long strings of data captured by a question—such as from a barcode scan—into smaller substrings. You can then push the substrings to subsequent questions in your form.

You can use the Router Setup property to route data from Text Field questions (source questions) to the supported target question types.