Here are some steps to follow when planning out an online form.
Create a Group to "Own" the Form Separate From Approvers
A good practice to follow is have one group "own" the form and other groups for the approval processes. For example, a two-step workflow for ordering office supplies might look like this:
- User submits order
- Someone in the approval group approves the purchase and orders the supplies
In this case you might create two groups:
- "Office Supplies Order - Form Owners" to manage the HTML form itself and workflow steps
- "Office Supplies Order - Approvers" to approve purchase requests
You would build the form using the owners group. Step 1 of the workflow would allow anyone to fill it out (unless you wanted to restrict who can even place an order) while step 2 would be assigned to the approvers group. This way the person who created the form (probably you, dear reader) doesn't get an email every time a new office supply request came in.
Map Out Sections
- Start with the basics of what information you are going to collect and from who.
- Each set of information from a given party should be a separate section of the form.
- Determine which sections are optional and under what criteria.
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