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About
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 backoffice 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.
It is limited to 255 characters; if you're looking for something to hold larger blocks of text, use the Text Area question type.
An example of a Text Field on an iOS device is shown below:
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. This article will go through each of the tabs.
General
Unique ID
The Unique ID 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 | URL | Phone Number | Integer | Decimal | Currency | ||
| Text Field | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
- 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 (such as Salesforce or Sharepoint Custom List, for example) are extremely picky about data types; fields in those systems may require that you send a numeric data type.
Restrictions
Restrictions control how your mobile users interact with a question. They can be set on the question itself, or controlled by Conditional Logic.
| Required | Read-Only | Hidden on Device | Hidden in Reports | |
| Text Field | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Properties
Properties allow you to set up your question in various ways. Question Properties change depending on the data type chosen.
| Free Text | Email/URL/Phone Number | Integer/Decimal/Currency |
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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
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 HTML-formatted work instructions.
For more information on Help Content, please read: V2 Forms: Adding Help Content to Questions
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