Managing Form Responses

Applying Validation Rules to a Form

You can apply validation rules to text or calendar field types. Validation rules ensure that the information entered by site visitors meets your criteria. For example, a validation rule specifies that a response to the Telephone field is 10 digits. If the response does not conform, an error message indicates the problem. The input must conform before the form can be submitted.

Validation rules are applied when a site visitor submits an entire form, not when the input is entered. If an invalid response is found, the error message that you define appears.

The site visitor must change his response to conform to the validation rule; then, the next field is checked and, if that is invalid, its error message appears, and so on.

NOTE: If you apply validation rules to more than one field, include the field name in the error message. For example, enter The name field only allows text. This is good practice because error messages only appear after a form is submitted. If the message does not identify the field, the user may not know which field needs correction.
If you want to change the visual indicator that a field’s response is invalid, see the following Ektron KB article: http://dev.ektron.com/kb_article.aspx?id=7070.

Creating a Postback Message

The postback message is HTML content, so can contain text or graphics. Typically, the message acknowledges a site visitor’s completion of the form. For most sample forms provided, sample text appears in the editor. Modify it as you wish, using Ektron’s editor to change the style sheet class, insert library items, and so on. You can also insert fields into the Postback Message that retrieve form information. For example, your postback message may be:

Thank you «Full Name» for completing the «[Form Title]».

When the message appears, it looks like this.

Thank you Jay Kohler for completing the breakroom survey.

When you click the Post back message tab and select Display a message, the Merge Field button () appears on the toolbar.

 

When you click that button, a dialog like the one below appears.

 

The list includes all fields on the form plus the following fields.

• Form title
• Form description
• Date submitted

Click any field to insert it into the form. The postback message retrieves the field's value and displays it within the message.

Specifying conditional text in the postback message

Specifying Conditional Text in the Postback Message

You can apply conditions to any portion (or all) of a postback message. For example, you can display one paragraph if the user browsing your Web page is using a smart phone, and different text if the user is not on a smart phone. As another example, you could display a postback message only if the user is not logged into the Web site as an Ektron author.

The image below shows the message content after a condition is applied.

—Image—

To designate a condition within a postback message, select it then click Conditional Section ().

Redirecting Form Data to an Action Page

Prerequisite: Obtain the folder and hyperlink name from your administrator who set up an action page.

To redirect submitted form data to an action page:

1. Go to the page on which you determine the form’s response. If this is a new form, it is page 3 of the Forms Wizard.
2. To modify an existing form, select the form’s folder, then the form. Next, select Edit and click the Post back message tab.
3. Select Redirect form data to an action page.
    

   

4. Click the icon next to File or page.
5. The Hyperlink Manager dialog appears. Click URL. The library appears.
6. In the left panel, select the folder that contains the hyperlink.
7. In the right panel, select Hyperlinks from the file type drop-down.
8. Select the hyperlink whose name was given to you by your system administrator.
    

   

9. Click Insert.

Letting site users see the form results

Letting Site Users See the Form Results

When you create polls and surveys, you can choose to display the results after a site visitors completes the form. The results can display in the same window or a new window. In addition, you can choose how to chart the data. See Chart Types.

To show site visitors poll/survey results:

1. Go to the page on which you determine the form’s response. If this is a new form, it is page 4 of the Forms Wizard. To modify an existing form, select the form’s folder, then the form. Next, select Edit and click the Post Back Message tab.
2. Select Report on the form.
    

   

3. Choose whether you want the results to appear in the Same Window or a New Window.
4. Choose the style of the report.
    

   

Chart Types

Chart Types

• Data Table—Poll/survey answers, with the percentage of users who responded to each item.
   

  

• Bar Chart—Poll/survey answers as a bar graph. Provides a quick, visual representation of responses.
   

  

• Pie Chart—Standard pie chart. Poll/survey answers are color coded, and percentage of people who chose each answer is shown.
   

  

• Combined—Combines Data Table and Bar Chart.
   

  

  WARNING! Data entered into a text box cannot be charted. For example, if one choice in a poll is Other, and the survey has a text box for site users to enter additional information, the text in the box is not charted. However, the fact that a user chose Other is charted.

Viewing Form Reports

If a form is set to store data in the database, you can run a report that displays the submitted data.

Viewing a form

1. Navigate to the folder for which you want to view the report. The View Contents of Folder screen appears.
2. Click the form you want to view. (If you do not see your form in the folder, make sure the Content Type drop-down box is set to All Types or Forms.)
3. Click View Reports (). The View Forms Report screen appears.
   Enter report criteria using the following list.

   • Start Date—If desired, specify a start date. The report displays only forms that were submitted on or after the start date.
   • End Date—If desired, specify an end date. The report displays only forms that were submitted on or before the end date.
   • Report Display—Specify the format to display the report. See Also: Choosing a Format to Display Form Data
   • Select Legacy Report—Specify the version of the form or poll for which to get a report. Using this option lets you see the results from previous polls and forms.
4. Click Get Result to display the report.

Choosing a format to display form data

Choosing a Format to Display Form Data

The submitted form data can be viewed in any of these formats.

Table with totals

Table with Totals

The table of values shows the following information for each completed form.

• a checkbox that lets you delete the response
• an internal identification number of the response
• the name of the user who submitted the form, if the user signed in to Ektron beforehand. If the user did not sign in, anonymous appears.
• date response was submitted
• The name of each field on the survey
  • under each field name is the submitted response for the each user
• the bottom line sums the numerical and percentage totals for each response
   

  

The siteroot\Workarea\controls\forms\FormReportTotals.xslt file has a largeListSize property that affects this report's display. By default, this property's value is 5, but you can change it as desired.

If the number of form responses is less than the largeListSize value, the report lists all responses. In the sample report above, the question Age range has 3 possible responses:

• 22-25
• 26-30
• 31-40

On the other hand, if the number of form responses exceeds the largeListSize value, the report only displays responses that have data. A response accumulates data when a site visitor selects it.

Summary of selected choices

Summary of Selected Choices

This format totals, for choice and select type fields, the number of times each choice was selected. Only choices that were selected at least once appear.

 

Table of values

Table of Values

The table of values shows the following information for each completed form.

• a checkbox that lets you delete the response
• an internal identification number of the response
• the name of the user who submitted the form, if the user signed in to Ektron beforehand. If the user did not sign in, anonymous appears.
• date response was submitted
• descriptive name of each form field appears in the column header; the value entered for each field appears below the header.
   

  

List of submitted values

List of Submitted Values

The List of Submitted Values format provides the same information as the Table of Values, but is formatted vertically rather than horizontally. See Also: Table of Values

 

Submitted data as XML

Submitted Data as XML

Displays the results of the form in an XML format. The following information is included:

• <Title>—title of the form block

  WARNING! With polls you can create a new poll question to replace an existing poll question. By default the poll still has the same Title, ID, and other properties. You can change the title of a new poll question when you are editing the poll.

• <Description>—description of the form
• <SubmittedData>—information that was submitted
   

  

Exporting a form's raw data

Exporting a Form’s Raw Data

After you run a report, you can export its data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file (.xls) for further analysis. If a form uses an XML structure, each XML tag becomes a column header in the spreadsheet.

1. Access the View Form Reports screen for the report you want to export.
2. Click Export Report. A File Download dialog box appears. Choose the option that best suits your needs.
3. After the data is exported, you can analyze and modify the .xls file.

Assigning a Task to a Form

While tasks typically help Ektron users track content activities, you can also assign a task to users or user groups whenever a form is submitted.

For example, your Web site offers a free product demonstration to anyone who completes a form. Whenever a site visitor submits the form, a task is assigned to your sales department’s administrative assistant who uses the form information to schedule a demonstration. The sales manager can review the task history to audit sales leads and ensure demonstration requests are being handled in a timely manner.

To set up a task that it is assigned to users or groups whenever a site visitor completes the form:

NOTE: You should be familiar with tasks before beginning this procedure. See Also: Assigning and Managing Tasks

1. If you are creating a new form, assign the task using the Forms Wizard.
   • If you are editing a form, assign the task on the form’s Edit Properties screen.
   • In either case, you identify only users and groups to whom the task will be assigned whenever a site visitor completes the form. Ektron assigns the remaining task information.
2. Complete the form and make it available on your Web site.

   When a site visitor completes and submits the form, Ektron creates a task and assigns it to users and groups you identified in Step 1. The task created upon form submission has the following information.

   • Title—Form title, as entered by the author
   • Assigned to—As set up by the user who created or edited the form
   • Assigned by—User who created or last edited form
   • Priority—Normal
   • Task Category—Form Submission Task Category
   • Task type—Form Submission Task
   • Created by—User who created or last edited form
   • State—Not specified
   • Due date—Not started
   • Start date—Not specified
   • Description—Data from form “form name” was received on date time.
   • form description—Name of every field on the form: value submitted by user into that field

An email is automatically sent to every specified user who has a valid email address in the User Information Screen. The email’s subject line is the form name. The body of the email contains a name and a value submitted by the user for each field on the form.