Form Builder Pro Tips

The first of the quote templates are now available in the Pro Suite Template Mate! If you've been holding off building custom forms because it all seems too scary, this is a good time to give it a try.

To help you get the most out of these I am going to share some of my top tips for creating custom form templates that work and look great. And remember, if it's still not your thing, or if you need a little help finishing things off, feel free to contact me for a quote and I'll build one to suit your needs.

The Basics: Fields

This article will not go too deep into how to make the form fields functional. This is adequately covered in the simPRO help guide articles and Pro Suite already has a growing list of functional templates here to get you started.

In a nutshell:

• The dynamic content of the form (customer name, quote number, prices etc) can be populated using the fields on the top left of the Form Builder.

• Content that needs to be listed (e.g. cost centres, parts, test readings, etc) must be surrounded by start and end fields. These start and end fields open and close the loop, and will not show on the form.

• The simPRO hierarchy must be followed when using loops i.e. Quote > Section > Cost Centre > Part.

• Conditional fields start with "if" and will only show if there is data or the argument is true.

Alright, let's get into it.

Make It Personal

You may already know you can embed details of the salesperson, project manager, technician or logged in employee, but this doesn't have to be limited to just the person's name and contact details. It can also include the person's signature and photo.

Add a Signature

While most people know how to add a photo to the employee file, not everyone knows that the signature is actually drawn from the Attachments tab of the employee file. Make sure it is set to default and this will show wherever the signature field is used:

Adding Watermarks

Watermarks can be a nice way to add depth to a form and also help verify authorship. Watermarks will appear on all pages in the document or section you are editing.

Prepare Your Image

First, prepare your watermark image. It should be a .jpeg or PNG. You cannot use a Word doc or PDF as a background. Use an image editing tool to make the image very faint. Remember, it is going to be behind all your content, so bold colours won't work. It should be barely visible, otherwise it will distract from the content and just look messy.

Add the Watermark

1. Go to Layout > Watermark > Custom Watermark.

2. Select Image Watermark > From File > OK.

3. Adjust the scale. It will probably be the wrong size, so go back to Layout > Watermark > Custom Watermark and where it says Scale, remove the word Auto, type in a number and click OK. Repeat this step until correctly scaled.

Adding Background Images

Background images are great for making a cover page which really pops.

The simplest way to add a background image:

1. Insert > Image > From File and select your file.

2. Use the sidebar options to change the image wrapping style to "Behind" and then drag and resize your image as needed. The image will now sit behind any text displayed on that page.

While this works fine, it's easy to accidentally delete the image when editing the text which overlays it. If you click where there is no text you will select the image and may not realise it. Pressing backspace will then delete it. I did this enough times to make me look for a better way.

My solution was to add the image to the first page header and then drag it over the whole page. If you're making a full page image cover page, you probably don't want the regular header displayed on the first page anyway. See below for more details on how to set this up.

Different First Page Header / Footer

This can be useful for cover pages.

To make a different first page header / footer:

1. Double-click on the header area at the top of the page.

2. Tick "Different First Page" on the right-hand side-bar.

To add a background image as part of the first page header:

1. Click Insert from the top menu > Image From File. Add your image.

2. Use the sidebar options to change the image wrapping style to "Behind" and then drag and resize your image as needed. It can cover the whole page.

It is sometimes difficult to click out of the header when it has a full page image behind it. If you're having trouble returning to the main body of the form, click Save and Finish, then re-open the template. You will now be able to edit the body of the form.

Use Tables

If you're going to add looped content, such as lists of cost centres, parts, labour, or asset test results, it's often best to structure these in tables.

Tables help preserve the layout of your data. If you don't want the table to be visible, use the table options buttons on the right-hand sidebar to remove the borders while retaining the layout.

Put the loop start field at the top left cell of the row and the end field at the bottom right:

Loops colour-coded for illustration purposes: red for cost centre, green for parts, blue for labour.

Experiment with layout by selecting text and right clicking, then adjusting the text vertical alignment (top, middle or bottom) as well as the usual horizontal alignment (left, centre, or right).

How to Avoid Empty Rows

Any rows without content will not show up in the final form, as long as the row is otherwise blank. For example, if there are no parts in the cost centre table above, the parts row will not show at all.

Make sure you don't have any extra spaces or empty lines in that row. If you do, when the row has no content the form will show an empty row instead of no row at all.

Put Breaks inside Loops

While it may sound like instructions for a DJ, I'm talking about the layout and spacing between loops.

If you want to create a line break, section break, or page break between each item on a list, insert the page break within the loop, either before or after the content. Putting the break outside the loops will result in empty lines or pages, but when the break is within the loop it will display a break between each item; if there is no item, there is no break, therefore no empty page.

For example, this is how to add a break after each cost centre:

${Quote:Section:Start}

${Section:CostCenter:Start}

${CostCenter:Name}

${CostCenter:Description}

< line, section, or page break >

${Section:CostCenter:End}

${Quote:Section:End}

You could also add the break before the cost centre name.

Beware of Rich Text

Form builder has a large range of text formatting options, including font, styling, alignment, spacing and so on. In most cases, the formatting you apply to the template will be applied to the information displayed on the final form.

For example, let's say you want to display the part number in bold, but the part name in regular text. All you need to do is apply the formatting to those fields and the content will be displayed accordingly. E.g.:

Form Template:

${Part:No} - ${Part:Name}

Actual Form:

404602-EA - B-PRESS WATER STR CONNECTOR 25MM

That works because part number and description fields are not rich text fields. That means that the data you enter in simPRO is stored without any formatting. It's just a string of letters or numbers. But some fields in simPRO are rich text fields, and they have their own formatting contained within them. Some examples are:

• Job, quote and cost centre descriptions

• Prebuild descriptions

• Work completed notes

• Customer notes

• Asset test notes

• Scripts

Whenever you see a simPRO field with the ability to make text bold, italic etc, it is a rich text field. When you display these in Form Builder forms, any formatting from simPRO will be retained. The formatting you apply to the template will not override the formatting in the simPRO data.

Why is this important? Because the default font in simPRO is 10pt Arial. If you have a lot of other text in the template in your favourite font that is not 10pt Arial, it may clash with your rich text fields.

For example, if you make all the body text on your form, say, 12pt Raleway, your cost centre descriptions will still be in 10pt Arial, unless you happened to reformat them on the job, quote or cost centre, which most people don't do.

For that reason, I recommend only using unique text formatting on thing like headings, headers and footers. For the sake of consistency, stick to 10pt Arial for the body text.

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Have fun! I'm interested to hear how you go and if you have any other tricks that you use to make your forms look great. If you're ready to start building some, head over to our Template Mate page, or drop me a line for a custom quote.