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| Visitors can maintain their own entries |
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You are able to have your visitors maintain their own form entries. Your visitor will then need to login to your form using a username and password. Unless you register or import the passwords, new users need to register using a button on the login screen.
Technically speaking, your visitors maintain their own record(s) in your Formdesk database of results. |
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This document discusses the following:
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How to enable this option |
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To enable this option edit your form, go to the 'Settings' tab, section 'General', and enable the option 'Visitor must be able to maintain own entries' as illustrated below. |
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The visitor |
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A new visitor uses the registration button, that appears when the form is opened, to create a login account. The visitor chooses a username and password. You may disable this registration button if you want to register or import the visitors yourself (see the chapters further in this document). |
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Visitors are registered at the account level. This means that once a visitor registered on one form, the visitor can also log in to any other form in your Formdesk account which provides this feature. |
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Please note that Formdesk does not yet allow you to remove users. To prevent access, simply log in using the procedure mentioned above and change the email address and password. |
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Tracking down visitor information |
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In the results overview screen you will find a column 'Visitor' in which the visitor names are listed as a mail-to link to the email address. The username and password are not displayed. To view the username and password of the visitor, download the result. Inside the download you’ll find the username and password. |
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Create and modify visitor information |
You can create visitors manually by doing the same as a new visitor would do, by opening the form and clicking the Register button. Since visitors are registered on the level of an account (and not of the form), you can register the visitor on any of your forms providing this feature.
Using the (downloaded) login data you can login to your form yourself as if you are the visitor of your form. If you have setup the form in a way that the visitor must be able to alter their personal data, you will be able as well.
Beside this manually based method, you can also create/alter visitor information by importing them, as explained in the next chapter. |
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Import visitor information |
You may import visitor information from an Excel file using the 'Import' button from within the results overview.
To prevent users that have not been imported from completing your form, you can set the question Should visitors be able to register? to No.
To import visitor information you can include the following column headers in your Excel file:
- _FD_USER - Visitor name (required, unless the visitor already exists)
- _FD_EMAIL - Visitor email address (required, unless the visitor already exists)
- _FD_USRNM - Login Username (optional, if not present Formdesk will create one based on _FD_USER)
- _FD_PSSWRD - Login Password (optional, if not present Formdesk will create one based on 6 random characters)
Of course, your Excel file may also contain data that is to be imported into fields of the form itself.
Link to existing visitors
If an existing combination of username and password is imported, the data will be linked to the existing visitor.
For each visitor a unique ID will be created. This id is part of the download. You can include this id in your Excel import file. The data to be imported will then be linked to the user based on its id. If, apart from this id, you also include other visitor information, this information will be overwritten.
Group email
If you want to hand out the usernames and passwords using the group email feature, then you include the system codes [_fd_username] and [_fd_password] in your message. You can also include a link in your messages that takes your visitor directly into his/her form: www.formdesk.com/myfolder/myform?username=[_fd_username]&password=[_fd_password]
For more information, view our manual about the import. |
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Samples |
The purpose of allowing the visitor to maintain their own entries is best explained by two examples:
The first example shows the possibilities using a single instance (record) of the form, while the second shows what your visitor can do using multiple instances (records) of the form. |
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Example using a single instance of the form |
A national tourist organization publishes a guide of hotels, boarding houses, restaurants etcetera, on a yearly basis. Each year the AAA sends an email (you can use the optional group email feature) to a number of these companies. They log in to the form, update their information on room size, prices, pet acceptance, etcetera.
Step 1
Create your form, asking for all relevant data.
Step 2
Go to the Settings tab and under the section General enable the option as illustrated below.
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Answer the 'should the visitor be able to fill out your form more than once?' question with No: |
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See the result of these settings in our sample form (use ‘demo’ for both username and password) |
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Example using multiple instances of the form |
You are working for a dog breeders association. You’d like breeders to let you know when they have new pups. By filling out the form for each nest they have, they can also maintain the given data. Pups will eventually be sold. The visitor edits the entry and lowers the ammount of pups for sale. This way you’re always up-to-date on the amount of pups still for sale. When the litter is sold, the form (record) can be removed.
Step 1
Create your form, asking for all relevant data.
Step 2
Go to the settings tab and set the option “Visitors must be able to maintain own form entries” to Yes, and click the Settings button. This will open a new browser window.
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Answer the 'Should the visitor be able to fill out your form more than once?' question with Yes: |
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When a visitor has at least one form filled out, an overview of submitted forms will be displayed when logging in. Specify which field must be visible in this overview. |
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See the result of these settings in our sample form. (use ‘demo’ for both username and password) |
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