Building a survey with Leap
This tutorial contains two sections.
- Open a new application
- Add form items to the form
- Resize form items
- Edit the properties of a form item
- Set a rule so form items are hidden or visible on the form
- Make form items mandatory
- Redirect users after form submission
- Save the form
- Preview a form during the design phase
- Deploy an application
- Launch an application
- Enter sample data into the application
- Review the submitted sample data
- Delete submitted sample data
The scenario: The coffee services in your office are not ideal. Every morning in the break room, you hear coworkers complain about the coffee, but nothing is being done to improve the coffee at work. Your Office Manager asks you to find out how your coworkers would like the coffee services changed. You must poll everyone in the office to get their opinions.
- Send out an email to all your coworkers and ask them to provide their opinions on the coffee and how it can be improved. If you send out a mass email, sporadic responses from people arrive throughout the day, cluttering up your inbox. You must then take the feedback from the emails and collate it in a spreadsheet program, and there is no easy way to track who did not answer.
- Create a survey
- Create a survey form in Leap. You email the survey link to your coworkers, and they go online to provide you with feedback. All results are stored in a database and are easy to review and sort, and your email inbox is not filled with the sporadic responses.
formand
applicationare both used to describe the output that is created by Leap. Forms are a single page, or collection of pages, that create the user interface with which people interact. When a form is combined with workflow, presentation logic and other elements of the Leap technology, it becomes an application. Applications gather information that is submitted by users when they complete the form, and automatically store the submissions in a database.
Opening Leap and building a form
The following steps describe how to open a new Leap application and build a form.
About this task
- An area that contains the title of the form, and a description of the purpose of the form. Include the amount of time that is needed to complete the form.
- An area that contains the name of the submitter. Also included in this area if the form is the basic question: "Do you drink the coffee that is brewed in the office?"
- An area that contains the survey questions.
Creating an application – When you start Leap, a screen is displayed with two tabs on the Forms toolbar: Use and Manage. The Use tab displays a list of all applications that are created by other users to which you have access. The Manage tab is where you create and manage applications.
Procedure
- Click New Application.
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Enter a descriptive Application Name and Application Description,
and select Create.
A blank form with a two-by-two grid is displayed. The grid automatically aligns form items with one another when you place them on the form, and expands as you add form items. You can add and delete columns and rows as needed by clicking the border bar surrounding the grid.Note: As you add sections and form items to the form, the grid automatically expands to include the additional form items. You can add extra rows to your form manually, but it is not required. If there are empty rows or columns in a completed form, they are not displayed when the form is previewed or deployed.
- You can drag form items from the Palette onto the form
- You can select a location on the grid, then click a form item. The form item is placed into the grid location.
- They group form items in a way that is easy for the user to understand. When the form is viewed, the sections have specific background colors that are based on the style that is applied to the form.
- They make applying complex form functionality easier. For example, our form has a rule to hide the survey until the user selects a specific option. Instead of setting the rule on every form item individually, the rule is on the section. The rule applies to every form item within the section.
- They allow the form designer, and the form user, to collapse and expand entire parts of the form. In longer forms, collapsing sections is useful, as it keeps the form submitter from being overwhelmed by too much information.
- If you finish building your form and decide to change the layout, moving sections of form items is much easier than moving each form item individually.
Creating the general information area: The general information area contains the title of the survey, more information for the form submitter, and an estimated time for completion.
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Drag a Section onto the form. The
Section is placed into the grid area, and is highlighted to show the
section has focus.
Notice that the Section contains a grid within it. Form items for a section are added to the grid of the section.
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Click the field spanning handle and drag it to extend the
section over both columns.
You can resize any form item to span across multiple rows or columns.
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Click a grid box, then select Image from
the Palette.
The image form item is added to the form. You can edit many form items directly on the form, but others require you to use the Properties side panel. To display the list of available options for any form item, click the item on the canvas. The Properties side panel opens.
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Add a Text item to the Image.
This text item contains the name of the survey.
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Add another Text item with the image.
Using the field spanning handle, drag the form item to span both columns.
- Enter the following text: We’d like your feedback on coffee services in the office. Complete the survey to provide your feedback. Time to complete survey: 3 minutes or less.
- Click OK to add the text to the form.
- Save the form, either by pressing Ctrl + S, or by clicking the Save icon.
Creating the primary information area:
Now, create the section that collects the name of the submitter, and
asks the basic question of Do you drink the office coffee?
You
want to have 100% participation, but not everyone in the office might
drink coffee. By allowing users to submit the survey with a negative
response, you receive a complete set of data. Set a rule on the survey
section to ask coffee-relevant questions only if the submitter indicates
that they drink the office coffee.
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Add another Section to the form.
- Click the field spanning handle and drag it to extend the section over both columns.
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Click a grid box, then click Single Line Entry.
The Single Line Entry is placed onto the form. Edit the title of the Single Line Entry directly on the form.
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Select Select One from the Palette
and put it in a grid area with the Your Name text
item.
The Properties side panel opens.
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Save your form and preview it.
The Preview icon is located with the Save icon.Note: Ensure that your browser does not block pop-up windows, as the preview form opens in a new window or new tab, depending on your browser settings.Notice that the Submit and Cancel buttons are automatically added for you. While you can enter data into the form in Preview mode, you cannot submit a form until it is deployed.
To return to building the form, close the tab or the browser window in which the preview opened.
Creating the survey:
Now create the section which contains the survey questions. This section
has a rule set on it, so if the user selects No, I drink other
hot beverages
or No, I don’t drink hot beverages
,
the survey is not displayed. First create the rule, then add the survey
to the section.
- Click the border bar to access the row action menu. Select Insert Row (after).
- Click Section from the Palette, then click the form. Extend the section over both columns.
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Click the Rules icon.
The Rules window opens.
- Two Survey form items: one to ask what roast of coffee the employees prefer, the other to ask them questions about the coffee provided.
- A Select Many form item to provide more information about what they like or dislike about the coffee.
- A Multi-Line Entry form item to provide detailed comments.
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Select Survey from the Palette and
add it to the section grid. Extend the survey over both columns.
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Select Survey from the Palette and
add it with the Coffee preference survey. Extend the survey over both
columns.
An alternative to multiple survey questions is to add a Select Many form item where users can select multiple choices from a list.
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Click Select Many from the Palette
and place it onto the form near the survey. Extend the Select
Many form item over both columns.The properties panel opens.
- Save the form.
To complete the survey form, add a Multi-Line Entry so users can submit other options, or opinions.
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Click Multi-Line Entry from the
Palette and place it onto the form with the Select Many form
item. Extend the Multi-Line Entry form item over both columns.
The properties panel opens.
The functionality of the survey is now in place. When users complete the survey and submit it, they receive a visual confirmation on the screen that the survey is submitted, and by default, are shown the survey again. To prevent user confusion, and to prevent the user from submitting the form again, redirect the user to your company website after the form is submitted.
Adding a redirect URL is done in the Workflow tab. By default, each form automatically has a Start stage and a Submitted stage. The Start stage contains the Submit and Cancel buttons that are seen when you preview the form.
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Click the Workflow tab.
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Click the Design tab to return to
the main body of the form.
The coffee survey is now complete. Save and preview the form.
Results
Application management
The following steps describe how to deploy a completed form, launch a form, enter sample data, review the submitted sample data, then delete the submitted sample data.
About this task
Procedure
- Click the Manage tab.
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Click the Deploy link for your survey.
The Deployment Settings window is displayed.
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Select Set deployment Period. Set
the Start and Stop dates
to span a two week window, starting today.
Tip: It is useful to have a start and end date for some applications because users are forced to complete the form within a specific time frame.
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Click Start.
The application is deployed.After the application is deployed, you need the URL to provide to your colleagues so they can complete the survey. There are two ways to get the URL:
- Click the Launch link. A browser window launches with the URL of the deployed form in the address bar. Notice that the Submit button on the end of the form is now available.
- Expand the information for the Coffee Feedback application by clicking the Show application details button for application. The link is provided on the screen in the URL Links section. Copy the URL for distribution to your coworkers.
Updating an application after deployment – You can change an application at any time. However, you must deploy the application again for users to see your changes. There are two ways to change a deployed application: Update the deployed application, or stop the deployment, and then redeploy.
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To update a deployed application, in the Manage tab
click the Edit link.
A message is displayed to warn you that changing an application after it is deployed can affect previously collected data.
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To stop a deployed application, click the Deploy link.
The Deployment Settings window opens
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Click the Launch link.
The application opens in a new browser window.
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Submit the form several times with various sample data.
Here are some examples to try, but you can use your own combination of survey results.
- John Smith who drinks the office coffee. He prefers dark roast, and does not enjoy the office coffee because it is too weak and cold.
- Mary Jones who drinks only tea.
- Sam Wesson who drinks the office coffee. He likes a medium roast and like the coffee the way it is. He would like management to try a different roast combination by a local roast house.
- Ellen Steele who drinks the coffee, but prefers decaffeinated coffee. She would like the coffee to be weaker.
Note: As you submit each survey, you see a message upon completion, and then are redirected to the company website.
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In the Manage tab, click the View Data link.
The View Data screen is displayed in either a new tab or a new browser window, depending on your browser settings. On the View Data page, all submitted responses are summarized in a chart.
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Click Sam Wesson’s name.
His submitted form is displayed in the Application view.
- Delete individual entries from the View Data screen
- Update the deployment to delete previous records.
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To delete submitted data from the View Data screen:
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To delete submitted data by updating the deployment: