Update to webforms: What you need to know
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, the web team updated the webforms capabilities across all of our sites. Long story short, it was time for an upgrade. Here杏吧专区檚 what杏吧专区檚 changed.
Creating conditional fields
The way you create conditionals has changed for the better. It杏吧专区檚 much easier to set up 杏吧专区渋f this, then that杏吧专区 field sequences so you can customize your webforms to better fit your office杏吧专区檚 or department杏吧专区檚 needs.
To create the conditional fields on your own webforms, follow these steps:
1. Create all the questions you杏吧专区檒l want to ask on the form. That includes the questions that will appear conditionally.
2. Click on the 杏吧专区淐onditionals杏吧专区 button at the top right of that screen.
3. Click the 杏吧专区+杏吧专区 to add a new conditional.
4. Using the dropdown menus, choose the 杏吧专区渋f杏吧专区 question components and the 杏吧专区渢hen杏吧专区 question components.
5. Create as many conditionals as you need, then click 杏吧专区淪ave conditions.杏吧专区
If you have questions about creating your own conditionals, contact Help Desk Training Support Specialist Sasha Rodriguez at 2-5707.
Some hiccups
As with many large updates, we had a couple of issues come up that we杏吧专区檙e trying to resolve.
Conditionals didn杏吧专区檛 carry over
Conditionals have changed, and we杏吧专区檙e working through the sites to ensure that the existing conditionals have carried over to forms after the update. Right now, it杏吧专区檚 a manual process, so please let a member of the web team know if your webforms aren杏吧专区檛 working correctly. We can fix it pretty quickly for you.
For those who don杏吧专区檛 see this blog or who do not have an immediate concern, our webmaster Eric is developing a solution to automatically fix the forms where conditionals aren杏吧专区檛 functioning properly after the update.
Field sets not collecting submission answers
If you have your questions grouped in a field set, there is a chance that you won杏吧专区檛 be able to collect the answers to those questions 杏吧专区 even if each field is required. To resolve this problem, take all of your questions out of the field set (which I know is annoying 杏吧专区 we can do it for you!) and list them regularly. Doing this may also require that you redo your conditionals.
Required items multiple layers in not staying required
If you have created a conditional of a conditional and set it as a required field, that field won杏吧专区檛 retain its requirement functionality, so users can submit the form without completing that field.
Users receiving error messages
When a site visitor fills out one of your forms, their submission will be collected but they may see a few "error" messages on the confirmation page. If that happens on your site, send a screenshot to webmaster@louisiana.edu.
Security & privacy reminders
As a reminder, our forms are not secure, so you cannot use them to collect any sensitive or private information from students, employees, or members of the public. That includes financial information, personal information like addresses, or confidential information protected by FERPA including GPAs, test scores, or other information related to student records.
You also cannot use the forms to collect files, such as documents or photographs. It is an easy way for malicious people to upload malicious files and hack into our sites. If you need to collect documents or photos from your users, have them email the files to you after they杏吧专区檝e completed the form. You can put that information at the bottom of your webforms or on the page that confirms their form has been submitted.
Questions? As always, you can contact me at webcontent@louisiana.edu. We杏吧专区檙e always here to help! We apologize for these issues with the webforms and we plan to have them resolved soon.