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Table of Contents

SuperForms User Documentation

DocVersion: 3.0 (8/28/2015)

Overview ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 Creating a SuperForm..................................................................................................................................... 4

Copy Superform ......................................................................................................................................... 5 NOTE FOR COMMERCE ENGINE USERS: ........................................................................................... 5 Editing Your SuperForm ............................................................................................................................ 5

Element Types ................................................................................................................................................ 6 Text Fields .................................................................................................................................................. 6

Labels ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 Fields ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 Text Box Type ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Is This Field Required? .......................................................................................................................... 6 Field Type (“Single Line” text boxes only) ............................................................................................ 6 Field Width ............................................................................................................................................. 7 Rows (“Multi Line” text boxes only) ..................................................................................................... 7 Default Value ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Radio Buttons ............................................................................................................................................. 8 Radio Button Label and Settings ............................................................................................................ 8 Add/edit options: Adding ....................................................................................................................... 9 Add/edit options: Editing........................................................................................................................ 9 Example: Picnic Site Reservation (Radio Buttons) ................................................................................ 9

Checkboxes ...............................................................................................................................................10 Checkbox Label and Settings ................................................................................................................10 Add/edit options: Adding ......................................................................................................................11 Add/edit options: Editing.......................................................................................................................11 Example: Scholarship Application Pick List (Checkboxes) ..................................................................12

Pull-down Lists ..........................................................................................................................................13 Pull-down List Label and Settings .........................................................................................................13 Add/edit options: Adding ......................................................................................................................14 Add/edit options: Editing.......................................................................................................................14 Example: Type of Pet (Pull-down list) ..................................................................................................15 Hierarchical Pull-down Lists .................................................................................................................15

Multiple-choice Lists .................................................................................................................................16 Multiple-choice list Label and Settings .................................................................................................17 Add/edit options: Adding ......................................................................................................................18 Add/edit options: Editing.......................................................................................................................18

Common Fields .........................................................................................................................................18 Common Field Label and Settings ........................................................................................................19 Common Field Types ............................................................................................................................19

Blocks of Text ...........................................................................................................................................19 Block of Text Title and Settings ............................................................................................................20 Example: Instructions for a multiple-choice list ....................................................................................20

Lines and Images (formerly called “Page Separators”) .............................................................................20 Title (formerly “Label”) and Alignment ................................................................................................20 Separator Type: Line .............................................................................................................................20 Separator Type: Image Separator ..........................................................................................................21

Page Breaks ...............................................................................................................................................21 Title .......................................................................................................................................................21 Sorting Page Breaks ..............................................................................................................................21

Calculated Fields .......................................................................................................................................21 Choosing the Best Option List.......................................................................................................................22

Radio Buttons: “Yes” and “Yes” ...............................................................................................................22 Checkboxes: “No” and “Yes” ....................................................................................................................22 Pull-down Lists: “Yes” and “No” ..............................................................................................................22

Table of Contents

Multiple-choice Lists: “No” and “No” ......................................................................................................22 Re-order Form Elements ...............................................................................................................................23 Form Properties .............................................................................................................................................24

Label Placement ........................................................................................................................................24 Displaying section introduction on all pages of multi-page forms ............................................................24 Showing an “Update Totals” Button .........................................................................................................24 Email address notifications ........................................................................................................................24 Changing the text on your buttons .............................................................................................................24

Thanks You’s and Confirmations ..................................................................................................................25 Online Thank You .....................................................................................................................................25 Email Thank You ......................................................................................................................................25 Validation Email ........................................................................................................................................25 Message Construction ...............................................................................................................................26

Managing your Data ......................................................................................................................................27 Reviewing Data Online .............................................................................................................................27 Exporting Data...........................................................................................................................................27 Filter Your Records ...................................................................................................................................27

Calculated Fields Part 1 .................................................................................................................................30 Label ......................................................................................................................................................31 First Calculation Values ........................................................................................................................31 Operator .................................................................................................................................................31 Second Calculation Value .....................................................................................................................31 Value collected will be displayed as ......................................................................................................31 The value will be displayed once calculated .........................................................................................31

Calculated Fields Part 2 .................................................................................................................................32 Using Option Lists in Calculations ............................................................................................................32 Chaining Calculated Fields ........................................................................................................................33

Appendix A: SSL SuperForms ......................................................................................................................34 Overview ...................................................................................................................................................34 Setting a SuperForm to “SSL” ...................................................................................................................34 Visitor’s Experience ..................................................................................................................................34 Accessing SSL-Gathered Responses .........................................................................................................35

Appendix: SSL SuperForms .......................................................................................................... Appendix A

SuperForms Documentation of 35

Overview Avenet SuperForms is an add-on module which greatly extends the flexibility and power of our

“Online Forms” features. Virtually any sort of form, questionnaire, survey or application can be

created using SuperForms and our integrated content management system.

Like all our features, SuperForms will automatically appear on your site, surrounded by your site’s

design elements and navigation links. A SuperForm may be turned “on” or “off” at any time, and

organized into any section or subsection of your existing content.

Plus, Avenet introduces the ability to “clone” a SuperForm section within your own site, allowing

you to create similar forms quickly and easily.

Once created, your SuperForm will automatically collect data from respondents, and can export

your results in a variety of powerful ways.

As with all our tools, Avenet is proud of our commitment to build systems to better serve our

customers. If you have feedback, ideas for new features, or other comments on SuperForms,

please share them with our Customer Service Center.


Creating a SuperForm In many ways, a SuperForm is quite similar to other “datatypes” in your site. It can contain a

“Section Introduction”, it can be turned “On” or “Off”, and moved to any section or subsection of

your site. SuperForms can also be “promoted” to parent pages of your site, even into a sidebar.

Starting a SuperForm is no different from adding any other kind of section to your site:

1. Login to your administration, and view the “Content Tools” for your site.

2. Click to select the section or subsection that will contain your new SuperForm. If you’d

like your SuperForm to be linked from your primary navigation menu, then click to select

the “Home” section.

3. Click “Add Subsection”. Supply a “Title” for your SuperForm, select “Internal” for your

Section Type, and then just the Data Type, “Super Forms*” (the asterisk indicates that

your have purchased this Premium Datatype from Avenet) and click “Finished”.

Notice that the SuperForm administration screen is nearly identical to other data types. If

you’d like, you can click “Section Introduction” (or the associated “edit” button); like all

Section Introductions, you can enter and format a block of text (it will appear above your

interactive form), apply a “sidebar” to this section, attach links to documents or other sites,

and other standard features. When you’re finished entering a Section Introduction, click

“Finished” to return to the primary “SuperForms” screen.

Notice that there are two additional links for your “Section Tools” (if necessary, click “Show

Advanced Tools” to display your Section Tools). Download Data will be used to review and

export your visitor’s entries (see Page 27 for more details), while Copy Superform can be

used to duplicate your entire SuperForm section within your website.


Copy Superform Clicking “Copy Superform” will first display a confirmation message: “Are you sure you want to

create a copy of this SuperForm?”. Clicking “Cancel” will cancel the operation.

Clicking “Ok” will create a new, identical section on your website, titled “SuperFormName

(Copy)”. This duplicate will NOT contain any of the data collected by the original form; it will

only contain the actual SuperForm, as well as any Section Introduction content.

NOTE FOR COMMERCE ENGINE USERS: If “Delete This Section” is not available, this indicates that your form is linked to a “Product List”

somewhere on your site. Before attempting to delete the SuperForm, you must first locate and

delete the corresponding “Item” in the associated Product List.

Editing Your SuperForm To being creating your SuperForm, or to edit your existing SuperForm, click the “edit” button next

to the text, “Configure your SuperForm”.

Once editing your SuperForm, you’ll notice that the blue “wizard” menu on the left is significantly

different, and longer, than normal. Specifically, you’ll notice that there is not a single, general-

purpose “Add Item” button. Instead, each type of SuperForm “element” has it’s own “Add…” link

(“Add a text field”, “Add radio buttons”, etc.).

Most importantly: pay extra attention to the “Finish” button at the bottom of this screen. Many of

the configuration options for a SuperForm require multiple steps, so you should frequently click

“Finished” to save your progress as often as possible. Clicking “Cancel”, or clicking to another tab

or section of the tool could risk losing hours of SuperForms configuration.

The remainder of this document will focus on specific Form Elements, and how to use them to create

powerful, interactive online forms.


Element Types Text Fields

Text fields are the most common “building block” for your online form. The can collect any kind

of “free form” entry information: names, addresses, phone numbers, comments, and more. If

you’d like, you can apply “validation types” to force specific kinds of entries (such as “numbers

only”, or properly-formatted email addresses or zip codes).

A Text field on your form has two pieces: A “Label”, and the “Field”.

Labels A text field label can be up to 255 characters in length (including spaces and punctuation). Labels

appear on your live form, and will be placed above or to left of it’s paired “Field” (see “Form

Properties”, Page 24, for changing this placement). Use a label to ask a simple question, or to

direct visitors how to complete an entry. Some examples:

Please enter your name (last name, first name):

What date will be staying overnight in the park:

NOTE: If you’d like to ask a longer question, or provide extended instructions for completing a

field, consider using a “Block of Text” (see Page 19) above or below your label & text field pair.

Fields The actual entry field is an interactive “box” on your form, allowing visitors to click their mouse

into the box and begin typing.

Text Box Type There are two kinds text boxes: single line and multiple line. A single line text box should be used

to collect short answers (one or two words, a number, a date, etc.). Use a multiple-line box to

collect longer responses (comments, suggestions, questions, etc).

It should be noted that “Field Types” (see below) can only be applied to single line text boxes; the

system cannot validate or “screen” entries in a multiple line box.

Is This Field Required? Assigning a text field as “Required” will force visitors to make an entry before submitting their

responses (or, for multiple page forms, before continuing to a next or previous page).

To make a field “Required”, check this box. Doing so will display an additional option, “Error

Message”. This let’s you supply a custom message that visitors will see if they skip your required

field. If you check “Required”, but don’t enter your own “Error Message”, the system will

automatically enter a default message (“An entry for [YourFieldName] is required.”).

Field Type (“Single Line” text boxes only) By default, your single line text box will collect “Text”. This means that visitors can enter any

combination of numbers, alphabet characters, and punctuation. To limit those entries, you can

apply a more specific “Field Type” to your fields. If visitors attempt to “violate” that type, they

will see an error message directing them fix their entry to match your selected “Field Type”.

Field types include:

Text. No extra validation. Allows numbers, alphabet characters and punctuation.


Email Address (Bulk Email System). Visitors must enter a valid email address. The entry must

contain one “@” and at lease one “.” Additionally, visitors will receive a Validation Email, asking

them to confirm that their email address is correct and that they do, indeed, wish to receive bulk

mail messages from your site.

Date. Forces visitors to enter a valid date. The field will accept “January 23, 2004”, “01/23/2004”

or “01-23-2004”.

Email Address. Visitors must enter a valid email address. The entry must contain one “@” and at

lease one “.”

Hidden. A Hidden field will not appear on your visitor’s form. Hidden fields should be combined

with “Default Values” to force constant field entries into all responses. For instance, if you plan to

export your form responses, and merge them with data from other sources, you might consider

creating a hidden field with the label “Source”, and then assign a Default Value of “website”. That

way, each response collected with this form will contain the “Source” entry of “website”.

Numeric. A “Numeric” field will force visitors to type only numbers and decimal points.

Attempting to type alphabet characters or other punctuation will produce a polite error, asking

visitors to enter a number. NUMERIC FIELD ARE REQUIRED for using “Calculation Fields”;

refer to that section (page 27) for more information.

Phone. Similar to the “Date” Field Type, the “Phone” type will force visitors to enter a valid

phone number. The field will accept “123-234-1234” or “(234) 234-1234”. It will NOT accept

extensions (x234) or other additional entries, so consider adding a second text box to gather this

information from visitors.

Zip Code. Also similar to “Date” and “Phone”, this field type forces your visitors to supply a

valid postal code. The field accepts both five and nine digit zip codes.

Field Width The “Field Width” is a visual measurement of how wide your text field will be. It is roughly

(VERY roughly) equivalent to a the number of letters that can be viewed within the field, however

this measurement can vary widely between browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) and

platforms (Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.). This value does NOT limit the amount of text that

visitors may enter into your field; all single-line text fields can accept 255 characters, regardless of

the Field Width’s setting.

Rows (“Multi Line” text boxes only) Use this setting to control how tall your multi-line text box appears on your form (measured in

number of lines of text). It’s important to remember that this value does NOT limit the amount of

text that visitors may type; instead, it controls how many lines of text can appear at one time. If

visitors type more text, their browser will add a “scroll bar” to the right of the text box, allowing

the scroll up and down to view their text.

Default Value If you’d like to suggest an entry to your visitors for a particular field , enter your suggestion as a

“Default Value”. Your text will “pre-populate” the field for visitors; however they will be free to

change, delete, or add to your “Default Value”.


Radio Buttons Radio buttons look like small “bullet” points, or circles, that can be clicked to select an option

from a list. An individual radio button cannot be “unclicked”; however, picking a different option

from the same list will de-select the previous the option. In other words: visitors can only choose

one at a time; they are “mutually exclusive”. Because of this, radio buttons are always used in

groups of two or more.

In SuperForms, the items in your group of radio buttons are called an “Options”; the group of

Option is called an “Option List”. So, the “Add Radio Buttons” feature will actually add a group

of radio buttons as a single Option List.

Adding radio buttons to your SuperForm is a two step process. First, you will label and configure

settings for the Option List as a whole. Second, you will build the actual list of options within your

group of radio buttons.

Radio Button Label and Settings After clicking “Add Radio Buttons” on your SuperForm, you will first configure the settings for

your Radio Button Option List.

Label: This text will appear on your form above or next to your list of radio buttons. You may

enter up to 255 characters (including spaces) for your label.

Is this field required?: Checking this box will force visitors to select one of the radio buttons in

your list before submitting their response.

Error Message: If the field is “required”, you may supply a custom error message that visitors

will see if they fail to select a radio button. If you don’t supply a custom error message, the system

will create one for you (“An entry for FieldName is required.”)

Is this field numeric?: Checking this option will allow you to gather numeric data with your radio

buttons. If you plan to use these radio buttons as part of a calculation, you MUST select this

option. Once this box is checked, you will be able to enter numeric equivalents for each item in

your list (see below for details on Editing Items in an Option List).

Export each item in its own column?: This option affects how your data is exported, using Tab

or Comma-delimited text formats (see page 27 for details exporting your data). If this box is

checked, your exported file will contain each item in your radio button option list, with a

corresponding flag to indicate “Yes” (1) or “No” (0) for each item. If this box is NOT checked,

your exported file will only contain the option that was selected. For example:

If your radio button

option list looks like

this:

…checking this option will export: …while NOT checking

this option will export:

Favorite Vegetable:

Carrots

Artichoke

Peas

Favorite Vegetable-Carrot = 0

Favorite Vegetable-Artichoke = 0

Favorite Vegetable-Peas = 1

Favorite Vegetable

= Peas

Export the numeric values for these options?: This option also affects your exported data;

selecting it will include numeric values within your export. This option is only available if “Is this

field numeric?” is selected..


Add/edit options: Adding IMPORTANT NOTE: As you add or edit option in your radio button list, be sure to pay close

attention to your use of “Apply”, “Edit”, “Return…” and “Finish” buttons. Remember that your

work is not saved until you click a “Finish” button. So, be sure to “Finish” (or save) your work

often.

Click the link, “Add/edit Radio Button options” to build your option list. Option lists can hold as

many items as necessary, limited only by how long your form’s page should be.

Enter your first option into the field, and click “Add Option” (or press the “Enter” key on your

keyboard). This will create your first radio button. You can then begin typing your second, third

and other options. Notice that you can add new options to either the “top” or “bottom” of you list.

This will help you enter your items in the correct order.

Additionally, you can click “Reorder Option Values” to sort your radio buttons into a different

order.

As you build your list, you’ll notice each option has buttons for “On/Off”, “Edit” and “Delete”

On/Off: Click this button to toggle the item from “On” to “Off” and back again. If “On”, the

option will appear as a radio button on your form. If “Off”, the option will be hidden and will not

appear on your form; the system will retain “Off” items, though, in case you’d like to use them at

a later time.

Edit: See below for details on “Editing” the items in your list.

Delete: Click this button to remove the item from your option list.

Add/edit options: Editing As you create items in your radio buttons’ option list, you supply a “label” for each one. However,

behind the scenes, each of your items actually has two (and sometimes three!) attributes. To see

these attributes, click the “Edit” button for one of the items in your list.

Label: The first attribute is the “label” that you supplied when you first created the item. The label

is the text that appears to visitors who use your form and choose one of your radio buttons.

Value: The system will automatically suggest using your “label” as your “value”, but you can

change this. Why would you want to? If you plan to export your data to a text file (comma- or tab-

delimited; see page 27), you may want to use shorter or more meaningful text. This allows you to

supply meaningful “labels” for your radio buttons, but only export the requisite “value” for your

own internal use.

Numeric Value: Similar to “Value”, your item may also be associated with a number, allowing it

to be used in calculations. By default, the numeric value for all items will be “0”. However, you

may enter any number you’d like. For more details on using radio buttons in calculation fields,

refer to page 27.

Example: Picnic Site Reservation (Radio Buttons) Let’s say your form will allow visitors to select a picnic site. Your park has three sizes of picnic

sites: small, medium, and large. Each picnic site size has a cost associated with it.

First, you would “Add radio buttons” to your form, and supply a label like, “Please select a Picnic

Site Reservation”.


Next, you would click the box next to “Is this field numeric”, since we’ll be associating costs with

each selection.

Then, you would click “Add/edit options” to build your three radio buttons. After adding the three

labels, you could “Edit” each option, and make the following entries:

Item Label Value Numeric Value

Small Picnic Area($2.00/hour) small 2.00

Medium Picnic Area ($3.00/hour) medium 3.00

Large Picnic Area ($5.00/hour) large 5.00

Checkboxes Although many people confuse “checkboxes” with “radio buttons”, they are in fact quite different,

both in appearance and functionality. Visually, a checkbox resembles a small square or box;

clicking the box places an “X” or “checkmark” inside it. Unlike radio buttons, a checkbox can be

“unclicked” at any time. Plus, if you have multiple checkboxes in your Option List, visitors can

check all of them, none of them, or any combination in between. Sometimes, only a single

checkbox will be used (such as “Click here to agree to the terms of this form”). Or, you can create

a list of related checkboxes (such as “Choose all options that apply:”).

In SuperForms, the items in your group of check boxes are called an “Options”; the group of

Option is called an “Option List”. As such, the “Add Checkboxes” feature will actually add a

group of checkboxes as a single Option List.

Adding checkboxes to your SuperForm is a two step process. First, you will label and configure

settings for the Option List as a whole. Second, you will build the actual list of options within your

group of checkboxes.

Checkbox Label and Settings After clicking “Add checkboxes” on your SuperForm, you will first configure the settings for your

Checkbox Option List.

Label: This text will appear on your form above or next to your list of checkboxes. You may enter

up to 255 characters (including spaces) for your label.

Is this field required?: Checking this box will force visitors to select one of the checkboxes in

your list before submitting their response. If you wish to “require” visitors to check one of you

boxes, consider adding a “None of the Above” or “Not Applicable” selection to your option list.


will see if they fail to choose one of your checkboxes. If you don’t supply a custom error message,

the system will create one for you (“An entry for FieldName is required.”)

Is this field numeric?: Selecting this option will allow you to gather numeric data with your

checkboxes. If you plan to use these checkboxes as part of a calculation, you MUST select this

option. Once this option is selected, you will be able to enter numeric equivalents for each of your

checkboxes (see below for details on Editing Items in an Option List).




checked, your exported file will contain each item in your checkbox list, with a corresponding flag

to indicate “Yes” (1) or “No” (0) for each item. If this box is NOT checked, your exported file will

only contain the options that were selected. For example:

If your checkbox

option list looks like

this:

…and you select “Export each item in its own

column”, your data will export like this:

…while NOT

selecting this option

will export your data

like this::

Favorite Vegetables:

Carrots

Artichoke

Peas

Favorite Vegetables-Carrot = 0

Favorite Vegetables-Artichoke = 1

Favorite Vegetables-Peas = 1

Favorite

Vegetables =

Artichokes, Peas


selecting it will include numeric values within your exported data. This option is only available if

“Is this field numeric?” is selected.

Add/edit options: Adding IMPORTANT NOTE: As you add or edit option in your checkbox list, be sure to pay close



often.

Click the link, “Add/edit checkbox options” to build your option list. Option lists can hold as

many items as necessary, limited only by how long your form’s page should be.





Additionally, you can click “Reorder Option Values” to sort your checkboxes into a different

order.



option will appear as a checkbox on your form. If “Off”, the option will be hidden from your form

and will not appear; the system will retain “Off” items, though, in case you’d like to use them at a

later time.



Add/edit options: Editing As you create items in your checkbox option list, you supply a “label” for each one. However,









supply meaningful “labels” next to your checkboxes for visitors to see, but only export the

requisite “value” for your own internal use.



may enter any number you’d like.

Example: Scholarship Application Pick List (Checkboxes) Let’s say your form will allow visitors to choose from a list of scholarships to which they are

applying. They may choose one, some, or all of the scholarships in your list, however each

scholarship has an associated “application fee”. Additionally, each scholarship has a unique serial

number; visitors don’t need to see this serial number, but your internal database will use this

number for internal tracking. So, when you export your online applications, you’ll need the serial

number instead of the “visitor-friendly” label. Checkboxes would be an excellent choice to offer

this functionality.

First, you would “Add checkboxes” to your form, and supply a label like, “Please select any

scholarship below:”


each selection.

Then, you would click “Add/edit options” to build your checkboxes. The full name of each

scholarship will be entered as the “Label”.

After adding the labels, you would “Edit” each option and make the following entries, using each

scholarship’s serial number as the “Value”, and the associated cost as the “numeric value”.


Erik E Anderson Foundation

Award

S435EEA 5.00

2004 Kiwanis Scholarship S887KIS 7.50

D.A.R. Scholarship S982DAR 5.00


Pull-down Lists Pull-down lists are common items to find on web sites and computer software. Also called

“combo-boxes” or “drop down menu”, a pull-down list can display a long list of selectable options

in a small amount of space on your form. Before clicking it, your pull-down list will only show

one item, with a small arrow/triangle to its right. Clicking the triangle will show the complete list

of options, allowing a visitor to choose one. Once chosen, the pull-down list collapses again, and

displays the chosen item.

In addition, our SuperForms system allows you to “nest” pull-down lists within each other,

creating a linked collection of hierarchically-organized menus to drive people to a more specific

option. This powerful ability makes pull-down lists the best choice if your form must offer an

extremely long list of items, from which visitors can only choose one.

Similar to Radio Buttons, Checkboxes and Multiple-choice lists, your Pull-down list will contain

“Options”, while the group of options is called your “Option List”.

Pull-down List Label and Settings After clicking “Add a pull-down list” on your SuperForm, you will first configure the settings for

your Pull-down list Option List.

Label: This text will appear on your form above or next to your pull-down list. You may enter up

to 255 characters (including spaces) for your label.

Is this field required?: Selecting this feature will force visitors to choose one of the options in

your pull-down list before submitting their response. If you wish to “require” visitors to choose an

option, consider adding a “None of the Above” or “Not Applicable” selection to your pull-down

list.


will see if they fail to choose an option from your pull-down list. If you don’t supply a custom

error message, the system will create one for you (“An entry for FieldName is required.”)

Is this field numeric?: Selecting this option allows you to gather numeric data with your pull-

down list. If you plan to use this pull-down list as part of a calculation, you MUST select this

option. Once this option is selected, you will be able to enter numeric equivalents for each of the

options in your pull-down list (see below for details on Editing Items in an Option List).


or Comma-delimited text formats (see page 27 for details exporting your data). If this feature is

selected, your exported file will contain each item in your pull-down list, with a corresponding

flag to indicate “Yes” (1) or “No” (0) for each item. If this feature is NOT selected, your exported

file will only contain the option that was selected. For example:

If your pull down

list looks like this:

…and you select “Export each item in its

own column”, your data would export

like this:

…while NOT selecting this

option would export your data

like this::

Favorite Vegetable:

Favorite Vegetable-Carrot = 0

Favorite Vegetable-Artichoke =

1

Favorite Vegetable-Peas = 0

Favorite Vegetable =

Artichokes



selecting it will include numeric values within your exported text file. This option is only available

if “Is this field numeric?” is selected.

Add/edit options: Adding IMPORTANT NOTE: As you add or edit options in your pull-down list, be sure to pay close



often.

Click the link, “Add/edit pull-down list options” to build your option list. Option lists can hold as

many items as necessary, limited only by how long you believe your pull-down list should be.


keyboard). This will create the first item in your pull-down list. You can then begin typing your

second, third and other options. Notice that you can add new options to either the “top” or

“bottom” of you list; this will help you enter your items in the correct order.

Additionally, you can click “Reorder Option Values” to sort your pull-down list’s options into a

different order.

As you build your list, you’ll notice each option has buttons for “On/Off”, “Edit” and “Delete”:


option will appear as an item within your pull-down list. If “Off”, the option will be hidden from

your list and will not appear; the system will retain “Off” items, though, in case you’d like to use

them at a later time.


Delete: Click this button to remove the item from your pull-down list.

Add/edit options: Editing As you create items in your pull-down list, you supply a “label” for each item. However, behind

the scenes, each of your items actually has two (and sometimes three!) attributes. To see these

attributes, click the “Edit” button for one of the items in your list.


is the text that appears to visitors who use your form and choose one of the items in you pull-down

list.








may enter any number you’d like.

Add/edit children options: Use “children” options to create a sub-menu of items beneath this

pull-down list. Refer to the section below on “Hierarchical Pull-down Lists” (page 15)


Example: Type of Pet (Pull-down list) Let’s say your form will allow visitors to select their type of pet to license. Each type of pet

requires a specific license fee.

First, you would “Add a pull-down list” to your form, and supply a label like, “Please select your

pet”


each selection.

Then, you would click “Add/edit options” to build your pull down list options. After adding the

three labels, you could “Edit” each option, and make the following entries:


Dog, Large (30lbs and over) LGDog 9.00

Dog, Small (less than 30lbs) SMDog 7.00

Cat (any size) Cat 5.00

Hierarchical Pull-down Lists If your list of options is extremely long, you may find it easier for your visitors to group items

together using a hierarchy of options. For example, the following list is too long for one menu, and

would be more logical if it were grouped using a hierarchy:

Without Hierarchy: With Hierarchy:

Collie

Dachsund

Golden retriever

Keeshond

Labrador retriever

Manx

Persian

Poodle, standard

Poodle, toy

Siamese

Tabby

Vizla

Unknown/mix cat

Unknown/mix dog

Cats:

Manx

Persian

Siamese

Tabby

Unknown/mix cat

Dogs:

Collie

Dachsund

Golden retriever

Keeshond

Labrador retriever

Poodle, standard

Poodle, toy

Vizla

Unknown/mix dog

In this example, visitors would initially see a menu showing the first level of your hierarchy:


After selecting an option, a second menu will appear containing the next level of options:

Creating this hierarchy of pull-down lists requires some planning. Before starting to build your

menus, take a few moments to plan out your hierarchy. Decide which items will be in your first, or

top-most menu, and work down from there.

1. When ready, “Add a Pull-down list” to your SuperForm to begin.

2. Describe your pull-down list with the appropriate fields. For this example, we’ll simply

designate a label: “Please select the type and breed of pet you are licensing”.

3. Click “Add/edit options” to add the first level of menu items.

4. Type “Cats”, and press Enter. Then type “Dogs”, and press Enter.

5. Next to your “Cats” entry, click the “edit” button

6. Leave the “Label” and “Value” for this field, but click “Add/edit children options”

7. Notice that you may now build an option list for the “Cats” submenu. Begin typing your

breeds of cats, pressing “Enter” (or clicking “Add Option”) after each item. When finished,

click the link, “Return to admin of parent option”

8. You may now preview your submenu for “Cats”; after doing so, click the Apply button to

“back out” to your first menu.

9. Notice that “Cats” is now marked with “Has Children”, meaning that this selection contains a

sub-list.

10. Repeat steps 5-8 for the “Dogs” item.

11. Click “Return to admin of form element” to “back out” to your original pull down menu

screen, and click “Apply” once more to “back out” to your list of form elements. Finally, you

MUST CLICK FINISH to save your changes.

There is no limit to the number of sub menus you can create. However, keep in mind that the

system will only gather the bottom-most selected item. In this example, the system will only

gather “Siamese”, and not “Cats”. Be sure to label your items appropriately, or supply alternate

values to help you when exporting your data.

Multiple-choice Lists A multiple-choice list combines the visual benefits of a pull-down list (presenting long lists in a

small area) with multiple-selection ability of a list of checkboxes. Multi-choice lists are typically a

scrollable list of options. Clicking an option will highlight it, and thus select it. In addition, visitors

may hold their “CTRL” key (or Apple/Command key for MacOS) and select additional options

from the list. It should be noted, however, that Multiple-choice list boxes are not as common to

visitors as checkboxes or pull-down lists, and many visitors may not realize that they can selected


more than one item. Consider adding a “Block of Text” (see page 19) immediately after your

multiple-choice list, explaining the use of the CTRL key.

Similar to radio buttons, checkboxes, and pull-down lists, the items in your multiple-choice list are

called “Options”; the group of Options is called an “Option List”.

Adding a multiple-choice list to your SuperForm is a two step process. First, you will label and

configure settings for the list as a whole. Second, you will build the actual list of options within

your multiple-choice list.

Multiple-choice list Label and Settings After clicking “Add multiple-choice list” on your SuperForm, you will first configure the settings

for your Multiple-choice list.

Label: This text will appear on your form above or next to your multiple-choice list. You may


Is this field required?: Selecting this option will force visitors to select an item in your multiple-

choice list before submitting their response. If you wish to “require” visitors to select an item,

consider adding a “None of the above” or “Not applicable” selection to your list.


will see if they fail to choose an item in your multiple-choice list. If you don’t supply a custom

error message, the system will create one for you (“An entry for FieldName is required.”)

Is this field numeric?: Selecting this option will allow you to gather numeric data with your

multiple-choice list. If you plan to use this list as part of a calculation, you MUST select this

option. Once this option is selected, you will be able to enter numeric equivalents for each of the

items in your multiple-choice list (see below for details on Editing Items in an Option List).



selected, your exported file will contain each item in your multiple-choice list, with a

corresponding flag to indicate “Yes” (1) or “No” (0) for each item. If this box is NOT checked,

your exported file will only contain the options that were selected. For example:

If your multiple choice

list looks like this:

…and you select “Export each

item in its own column”, your

data will export like this:

…while NOT selecting this

option will export your data like

this::

Favorite Vegetables:

Favorite Vegetables-

Carrot = 0

Favorite Vegetables-

Artichoke = 1

Favorite Vegetables-Peas

= 1

Favorite Vegetables =

Artichokes, Peas


selecting it will include numeric values within your exported data. This option is only available if

“Is this field numeric?” is selected.

Items to display at once: Multiple-choice lists are unique in that you can control exactly how tall

they should be. Choose a number from this menu to display that many options from your list at

one time. If your list contains more items than you have chosen to display, the system will


automatically add a scroll bar to your multiple-choice list. This allows visitors to review your

entire list while still saving space on your form.

Add/edit options: Adding IMPORTANT NOTE: As you add or edit options in your multiple-choice list, be sure to pay close



often.

Click the link, “Add/edit multiple-choice list options” to build your option list. Option lists can

hold as many items as necessary, limited only by how long you believe your multiple-choice list

should be.





Additionally, you can click “Reorder Option Values” to sort your checkboxes into a different

order.



option will appear as a checkbox on your form. If “Off”, the option will be hidden from your form

and will not appear; the system will retain “Off” items, though, in case you’d like to use them at a

later time.



Add/edit options: Editing As you create items in your checkbox option list, you supply a “label” for each one. However,












may enter any number you’d like. This option will only be available if you have selected the

option, “Is this field numeric?”.

Common Fields Common Fields are time-savers, to help you build your form a little quicker. At Avenet, we’ve

provided three common types of fields that many forms could use:


A “First Name + Middle Initial + Last Name” field group

A “City + State + Zip” field group (with all 50 states pre-entered in a pull-down list)

A stand-alone “State” pull-down list (also pre-entered with all 50 states).

Plus, we’re anxious to get ideas from our customers about other kinds of Common Fields they’d

like to see. Feel free to contact our Customer Support Center with ideas and suggestions.

To add a common field, simply click “Add common fields”.

Common Field Label and Settings After clicking “Add common fields” on your SuperForm, you will notice that there isn’t much

configuration needed for a Common Field. Simply enter a label for your common field, select the

type of field or field group to add, and choose if visitors should be required to complete the

field(s). At this time, you cannot set a default entry for Common Fields.

When using common fields, consider including an example within your Label. For instance,

instead of simply labeling it “Enter Your Name Here”, consider using, “Enter your name below

(First Name, M.I., Last Name)”. This will prompt users to separate their entries into the three

individual fields.

Label: This text will appear on your form above or next to your multiple-choice list. You may


Common Field Type: Choose which common field you’d like to add to your form. See below for

details on each type.

Is this field required?: Selecting this option will force visitors to select an item in your multiple-

choice list before submitting their response. Note that you cannot supply a custom error message

for a Common Field; the error message will be provided by the system, and will read, “An entry

for FieldLabel is required.” However, also note that within a common field, Avenet has applied

some additional logic to avoid issues with requiring entry. For example, if the “Name” common

field is set to “Required”, only the first and last name fields will actually be required; the “Middle

Initial” field will remain optional.

Common Field Types City, State, Zip: Adds three fields, in one horizontal row. The City field can show about 16

characters at one time, but hold up to 255 characters total. The State menu is pre-entered with all

50 states. The zip code field can show up to 9 characters at one time, but hold up to 255

characters.

Name: Adds three fields, in one horizontal row. The First Name field can show about 22

characters at one time, but holds up to 255. The Middle Initial field shows 2 characters, but holds

up to 255. The Last Name field shows 22 characters, but holds up to 255.

States: Adds a single pull-down list, pre-entered with all 50 states.

Blocks of Text A SuperForm, like all other Avenet datatypes, can have a “Section Introduction”, which can

appear at the top of your SuperForm. A Section Introduction can hold explanatory text, images,

file attachments, and more. But frequently, your form will need to include extra instructions or

descriptions INSIDE your form, or between your entry fields. Add this extra text using a “Block

of Text”


Blocks of Text are added just like any other element on your form: click “Add a block of text”.

A block of text has two attributes: a “Title”, which does NOT appear on your actual form, and the

actual “Text Block”.

Block of Text Title and Settings Title: The title of a text block is never seen on your actual form. Instead, use the “Title” field to

describe or summarize your text for your own convenience. The “Title” will only appear within

the administration tool while building, editing, or sorting the elements of your superform.

Text Block: The “text block” uses the same formatting and HTML technology as the rest of

Avenet’s content management tool. Type any amount of text in the large area, and use the

formatting buttons to style your content any way you choose. Or, click “Switch to HTML Mode”

and enter raw HTML tags manually. As mentioned previously, a Block of Text can be especially

useful for providing extra descriptions for your entry fields.

Example: Instructions for a multiple-choice list After adding a multiple choice list, consider entering the following text:

“To select multiple items, press and hold the CTRL key (Apple/Command key for MacOS) while

clicking your mouse button.”

Then, select your text, click the “F” (Font formatting) button in the toolbar, and set the font size 8

or 10. The end result would look like this:

Lines and Images (formerly called “Page Separators”) Similar to a “Block of Text”, you can insert horizontal lines and images anywhere on your

SuperForm. Use these visual elements to “break up” your form into different sections, to display a

logo, or to include a diagram for one of your questions.

Lines and Images are added just like any other element on your form: click “Add a Line or Image”

(or “Add a Page Separator”).

Title (formerly “Label”) and Alignment Title: Similar to a Block of Text, the “Title” (formerly “label”) for a line or separator will not

appear on your actual form. It is only used while building and maintaining your form, helping you

to identify your form elements while adding, editing and sorting. Use the Title to describe your

line or image, for your own convenience.

Alignment: Your line or image may be aligned on the left or right edges of your SuperForm, or

centered in the middle of the form. Keep in mind that your site’s design (left navigation, search

box, etc) and any sidebars you’re using (for extra content, or for your “Printer Friendly Version”

link) may affect this alignment setting.

Separator Type: Line A “Line” is just that: a thin (2-4 pixel, depending on your site’s design) stripe across your

SuperForm.


Separator Width: The width of your line is designated as a percentage. “100%” will extend your

line across the maximum available width, while “1%” will be little more than a speck. Similar to

alignment: your site’s design (left navigation, search box, etc) and any sidebars you’re using (for

extra content, or for your “Printer Friendly Version” link) may affect the maximum available

width for your line.

Separator Type: Image Separator Selecting an “Image Separator” will display a link: “Click here to upload an image”. Clicking this

link will lead to our standard “Image Upload” tools. You may upload any image, as long as it is

saved in a JPEG (filename *.JPG), GIF, (filename *.GIF) or PNG (filename *.PNG) format. Once

uploaded, the system will suggest possible sizes that are suitable for your site’s design.

Page Breaks Any SuperForm you create can be divided into multiple “pages”. Similar to Microsoft Word, the

SuperForms system includes an “Add a page break” feature. These page breaks can be arranged

anywhere on your form, and there is no limit to the number of page breaks you can add.

On an interactive form, a page break must do more than simply divide your content. Your form’s

first page break must show a “Next page” button, to lead visitors to the second page of your form.

All subsequent pages must have a “Previous page”, as well as the “Next page” button, and must

allow visitors to flip back and forth between the pages of your form without loosing any data

they’ve entered. And finally, on the last page of your form, the “Next page” button should be

replaced with a “Finished” button, allowing visitors to submit their responses. Avenet’s

SuperForm will manage all of this, and more, automatically.

Title Title: Similar to a Block of Text, the “Title” is only used while building and maintaining your

form, helping you to identify your page breaks while adding, editing and sorting form elements.

The Page Break’s title will never be seen by your site’s visitors. Try using descriptive text for your

page breaks, or extra punctuation to help them stand out in the admin tool, such as “>>>END OF

PAGE 1”.

Sorting Page Breaks Once added to your site, you will most likely need to arrange your Page Breaks within your

SuperForm; use the “Re-order form elements” link to do this.

Calculated Fields Refer to the sections, “Calculated Fields 1 & 2” for more information on this form element.


Choosing the Best Option List With four different kinds of option lists (radio buttons, checkboxes, pull-down and multiple-

choice lists), it may seem a little daunting to choose the best one. Many administrators also fall

into a pattern, and “always use checkboxes” for all of their lists. However, each of the option lists

are useful for particular situations.

In fact, by asking yourself two simple questions, you can usually choose the best type:

1. Should items in my list be “mutually exclusive”? Should visitors be prevented from choosing

multiple items?

2. Do I need to show ALL of my items on the screen at once, without requiring any extra clicks

Based on your answers, you can choose the correct type of list:

Radio Buttons: “Yes” and “Yes” Radio buttons are ideal for forcing visitors to pick ONLY one option. Any attempt to choose a

second option will deselect the first selection. Also: radio buttons will show ALL available options

on screen, right away. This makes them ideal for questions that are multiple choice, yes or no, true

or false, etc. However, radio buttons are NOT good for lists that are longer that five or six

options, since longer lists of radio buttons take up considerable space on your form.

Checkboxes: “No” and “Yes” Checkboxes are quite different from radio buttons; the options in a list of checkboxes are not

“mutually exclusive”; visitors are free to choose one, some, or all of the items in your list.

Additionally, checkboxes can be checked and unchecked, and thus can function effectively with

only one item in the list (for example, a single item with the label, “check this box to agree to

these terms”). However, checkboxes do share space requirements of radio buttons: all checkboxes

in your list will appear, and thus take up space, on your form, without requiring users to click a

menu or scroll a list.

Pull-down Lists: “Yes” and “No” Pull down lists are ideal for longer item lists, since your list is initially “hidden” in a menu. These

lists usually take up only one row of space, making them ideal for longer forms or for lists that

contain six or more items. Items in your pull down list are also “mutually exclusive”, like radio

buttons: visitors can only choose one item at a time. Finally, pull-downs have the added ability to

contain a “hierarchy” of options, offering users two, three, or more linked menus to “drill down”

to a specific selection (see page 15 for details on creating hierarchical pull-down lists).

Multiple-choice Lists: “No” and “No” Multiple-choice lists offer the space-saving benefits of a pull-down list, with the “choose many

items” power of checkboxes. Longer lists can be collapsed into three or four “rows” of space, and

the items in the multiple-choice list are not “mutually exclusive”. However, it should be noted that

many visitors may not be aware that they can use their CTRL key (Apple/Command key for

MacOS) to select multiple items, so consider adding a block of text immediately after your

multiple-choice lists to explain this capability.

Mutually Exclusive?: Yes Mutually Exclusive?: No

Show all items? Yes Radio Buttons Checkboxes

Show all items? No Pull-down lists Multiple-choice lists


Re-order Form Elements As you build your form, you’ll most likely need to change the order of your form’s elements. To

do so, click “Re-order form elements”.

A list box will appear, containing all elements (field, radio buttons, checkboxes, images, text

blocks, and page breaks). Click to select one of your elements, and then proceed to click the “Up”

or “Down” buttons to move the selected element. You may re-arrange as many elements as you

like.

When finished, you may click “Edit your form”, or any other link in the blue sidebar to continue

make changes to your SuperForm. However, we strongly suggest clicking “Finished” to save your

progress.


Form Properties Clicking “Form Properties” will offer a variety of controls and settings that will affect your entire

form.

Label Placement Top: When selected, text labels will be arranged above their corresponding element or entry field.

Side: When selected, text labels will be arranged to the left of their corresponding element or entry

field.

Displaying section introduction on all pages of multi-page forms This setting applies if you have

Entered content for this form’s “Section Introduction”

AND have turned the Section Introduction “On”

AND have used Page Breaks to separate your form into multiple pages

Selecting “yes” to this setting will force your Section Introduction to appear on all pages of your

form. This can be useful as a recurring “header” at the top of your form’s pages. Setting the option

to “no” will only show the Section Introduction on the FIRST page of the form.

Showing an “Update Totals” Button If your form contains a Calculated Field, the system can automatically display an “Update Totals”

button. Visitors can use the “Update…” button to preview their numeric entries and selections

before submitting and finishing their form. However, if you’d like to hide this button (and not

allow visitors to preview their calculated totals), you may set this option “Off”. NOTE: If set to

“off”, you should consider setting all of your calculated fields to not “…display their values once

calculated”. Showing these subtotals without allowing visitors to update them is both confusing

and inaccurate.

Email address notifications As visitors complete your form, the system can automatically email a notification to you. The

notification includes the following content:

The name of the SuperForm that the user visited

The site URL that hosts the SuperForm

Each of the fields on your form, along with the answers/responses the visitor supplied

If you like notifications to be sent to multiple email addresses, simply separate the addresses using

a semicolon (;). For instance:

[email protected];[email protected]

Changing the text on your buttons When using Page Breaks or Calculation Fields, the system will automatically display buttons at

the bottom of each page. However, you may supply the text for these buttons. For instance, you

may change the “Previous” button to simple “<<<”. Avoid using any button text that is specific to

a page; for example, you should not change the “Next Page” button text to “Continue to Page 2”,

since this exact text will be re-used on pages 2, 3 and 4.


Thanks You’s and Confirmations Online Thank You

The “Online Thank You” message appears when a visitor completes your form. You should

always enter at least a bare minimum, “Thank You” note; otherwise, visitors will only see a blank

page when finishing their form.

Your Online Thank You message can contain any amount of formatting and HTML you’d like,

using the same formatting tools available in the rest of the Avenet Content Management System.

Email Thank You If your form asks for visitors’ email addresses, you can also send them a “Thank You” via email.

Attempting to set the “Email Thank You” without having an “email” field on your form will

display the following error:

This form does not currently collect an email address.

If necessary, “Edit your form”, and add a text field. Set the text box type to “single line”, and

select a Field Type of either “Email Address” or “Email Address (Bulk Email System)”.

If your form contains an email address field, you will be able to select “Yes”, to “… send an email

thank you”. Once you select “Yes”, you will be able to make additional settings for you Email

Thank You

What collected email addresses would you like to receive thank you messages? All of the

fields on your form which gather email address will be listed here, with checkboxes next to each

one. You must select at least one of the fields, although you may select as many as you’d like.

Who would you like to send the response from? Before our system can send messages to your

visitors, you must first register at least one of your email addresses with our Customer Service

Center. This email address will be used as the “From” and “Reply to” addresses for your

messages. Contact the CSC to register one, or more, email addresses for this purpose. Once

registered, you may select the appropriate address for this form’s “Email Thank You”

Subject: Enter an appropriate subject for “Thank You” message. Although you may enter a

subject up to 255 characters (include spaces) in length, most people appreciate shorter, meaningful

subjects on their email.

Include Form contents with ‘Thank You’: Checking this option will include all of the visitor’s

responses at the bottom of your Thank You message. This may be helpful for the visitor’s own

records. The Form contents will appear AFTER the “Message Text”

Message Text: Similar to the “Subject”, you may enter any amount of text to appear in the body

of your message. If appropriate, you may want to include your “signature” at the bottom (name,

contact information, etc).

Validation Email Avenet’s “Bulk Email Tool” can send content to all email addresses that you have collected with

this, and other, forms on your site. However, before visitors can receive bulk emails, they must

first “validate” their addresses.

Validation is performed by sending the visitor an email, using the address they supplied, The validation

email contains a brief explanation of the email’s purpose, along with a hyperlink. The visitor is directed to

click the hyperlink, with then validates their email for use by your site’s bulk email tool.


Normally, the validation content and hyperlink are included with the “Thank You” email. However, if

you’d like, you can have visitors receive two separate emails after completing your form: The first will be

the “Thank You” message, and the second will be the shorter “Validation Email”.

To send a separate validation email, select “yes” to the question, “Would you like to send the validation

email separate from the thank you email?”. Then, select one of your own registered email addresses to use

as the “From” and “Reply to” addresses (or leave the default “DoNotReply” address, if you prefer).

Message Construction Based on your selections, the Thank You message will be constructed as follows:

Subject line (separate from email body)

Message text

Validation text (if separate validation message is NOT being sent)

Validation hyperlink (see above)

Form contents/responses (if selected)


Managing your Data Once you have created your SuperForm, and switched it “On”, it can begin collecting responses.

Those responses may be emailed to you individually (see page 24, Email Address Notifications),

however they will also be gathered and retained by the system. To review your responses, use the

“Download Data” link. NOTE: the Download Data link appears on your SuperForms section’s

main page; if necessary, click “Finished” while editing your SuperForm, or click “Content Tools”

(doing so will cancel any changes you’ve made since your last “Finish”…),and select your

SuperForm from the site map. Then, click “Download Data”.

Reviewing Data Online For most users, the “Download Data” screen display a list of all responses to your superform. The

list will include:

The “Download Data” screen lists your responses in the order they were received, newest to

oldest. Click the numeric identifier to the left of each response to see the full content that was

gathered.

The first three fields of your SuperForm, summarizing the answers received. Next, the system lists

the date when the SuperForm was submitted. Finally, each entry includes a “Delete” link, to

remove the response from the system (there is no “undo” for this operation; be sure you wish to

completely remove the entry from your online records)

If you have more than 20 responses, the responses will be broken into multiple pages. Use the

page numbers in the top left to navigate to other pages of responses.

NOTE: Users with large volumes of data (a large number of responses, an extremely large

SuperForm, or a combination of both) will instead proceed directly to the “Filter” screen. See

below for details.

Exporting Data To export your collected responses to a text file, click “Download Data”. But first, you should

consider which format is best for your data. Although “Comma Separated Values” (or CSV) is a

common format, it may be problematic if your field names or responses also use commas

(although the system will automatically “trap” commas used in most fields by surrounding the

response in “quotation marks”).

Using a “Tab” delimited format avoids these issues, but may not be supported by the tool you plan

to bring your data to. Oddly, Microsoft Excel and Access have difficulty opening tab-delimited

files, while CSV files open directly by double clicking them (Windows versions only). In either

case, check with the owner or administrator of the system you’re integrating your results with, and

select the most appropriate format.

NOTE: It may also be helpful at this point to review the settings for your option lists (radio

buttons, checkboxes, pull-down and multiple-choice lists). The option, “Export each item” can

have a powerful impact on your exported results, so be sure to review this option as well when

integrating your data with other systems.

Filter Your Records Instead of reviewing and downloading ALL of your records at once, administrators can “filter”

their site’s responses to analyze subsets of their data. Your responses can be filtered by records

(aka “rows”, returning only some of your responses), by fields (aka “Columns”, returning only

selected questions or fields from your form) , or both.


Most users will access the “Filters” by first clicking “Download Data” (or “Login and Download

Secured Data” for SSL customers), and then clicking “filter your collection”.

NOTE: Users with large volumes of data (a large number of responses, an extremely large

SuperForm, or a combination of both) will proceed directly to the “Filter” screen.

Filter: Step 1 of 2 (or 3)

The first “Filter” steps offers to download all of your records, or to filter them before

downloading. By selecting “Filter…”, the system will offer record-specific filters:

By submission date: Allows you to supply two dates. Any records that were submitted to your

site between these two dates will be included, while records submitted before or after your date

range will be filtered out.

By download status: The system automatically tracks which of your records have been

downloaded before. You can choose to only download “new” records that have never been

downloaded, or to download “old” records that HAVE been downloaded previously.

By visitor responses: Perhaps the most powerful record-specific filter, you can choose to

download records that responded in specific ways to your checkboxes, radio buttons, pull-down

menus or multiple-choice lists. By selecting “Yes”, the system will list all of your form’s option

lists. Checking an answer from your form will include those responses which selected that answer.

Checking multiple answers for this filter will use the “OR” logical operation: the more answers

you select, the more response you will include in your final results.

As you turn various filters “On” and “Off”, be sure to click the “update this count” link at the top

of the window. Doing so will provide an updated number of records that you are about to view

and/or download.

Filter: Step 2 of 2 (or 3)

Click “Next” to proceed to Step 2 of the filtering features. This second collection of filters affects

which fields from your SuperForm will be included in your review or exported text file. By

choosing to “Select the fields you would like to include in your download”, you can select or

deselect the fields from your SuperForm.

Keep in mind that ALL exported files will include three additional fields: the Date the response

was submitted, the IP Address of the workstation submitting the form, and a unique identifier

(labeled “RecordID”) which will never be repeated for any other responses.

Some administrators have created large forms which should be filtered by “field”. Specifically,

Microsoft Excel only supports 255 columns of data; if your SuperForm has too many questions,

Excel will not be able to import your form’s data. As such, you can use this screen to only export

selected fields of your form.

NOTE: This option does NOT affect the question-specific feature, “Export each item”, which will

still export all possible answers of one field into their own columns.

If your SuperForm is too large for a single Excel worksheet, you can export portions of fields in

two or more separate exports. Since each export will include the “RecordID” field, you can use

that field as a unique key to “join” your worksheets (these terms refer to intermediate spreadsheet

and database techniques).

Click “Next” to retun to the “View and Download” screen, with your filters applied.


Filter: Step 3 of 3 (Optional; used for large downloads)

There is, unfortunately, a limit to the amount of data that can be viewed and/or exported at once.

However, that limit is different for each SuperForm created. A form with hundreds of question

may reach this “limit” after a 90-100 responses, while a shorter form will reach it after 200 or 300

records.

This “limit”, though, does not affect your visitors; there is virtually no limit to the size or number

of responses your forms can gather. Instead, this “limit”, when reached, will alter the functionality

of the download features.

When the “Download Data” link is clicked on a form that has exceeded this “limit”, you will

instead be routed directly to the first step of the filter. The steps are identical to the ones described

above. However, after the second step, clicking “Next” will lead to “Step 3”.

Since there is too much data to view or download at one time, the system will automatically divide

your responses into “Groups”. This step will offer two links for each “Group”: one to to “View…”

the group, and another to “Download” it. Clicking “View…” will display the traditional record

view page (as described above in “Reviewing Data Online”), where you can page through the

group’s responses.

Meanwhile, the “Download” link will export that group as a text file. BE SURE TO SELECT

YOUR DESIRED FORMAT before clicking the “download” link for a group; there is a single

selector (Comma or Tab) above the list of groups which applies to all of the “download” links.


Calculated Fields Part 1 Calculated Fields are a powerful new addition to SuperForms. If your form collects numbers, you

can use your visitor’s entries in mathematical formulae to calculate subtotals and totals, perform

unit conversions, or any other type of operation. Plus, Calculated Fields can be chained together to

create complex equations.

SuperForms will automatically provide an “Update” button at the bottom of any page of your form

that contains a calculated field (see page 24 for information on showing or hiding this “Update…”

button)

Adding a Calculated Field requires that you first create one or more “Numeric” text fields, or that

you identify one of your radio button, checkbox, pull-down, or multiple-choice lists as being

“Numeric”.

For single-line text fields, select the “Field Type” of “Numeric”, and “Finish” to save your form.

Then edit your form once again, and add/edit your Calculation Field.

For Option Lists (radio buttons, checkboxes, pull-down and multiple-choice lists), select the

option, “Is this field Numeric”. THEN, edit your individual options/items with your list, and

assign “Numeric Values” for each. If you do NOT supply “Numeric Values” for the options in

your list, the system will default to a value of zero (0). NOTE: For option lists that allow multiple

selections (checkboxes and multiple-choice lists), the system will automatically “Sum” (add) all

selected options before using the value in a Calculation field.

Once you’ve done this, you can use Calculated Fields to create powerful arithmetic operations,

allowing you to figure sub-totals and totals for virtually any process or procedure.

If you have already added at least one “Numeric” text field, then you’re ready to create a

calculation field. While editing the elements of you SuperForm, click “Add a calculated field”.

Calculated fields have five basic groups of options:

1. The label, which appears on your

actual form and within your

administration tool.

2. The First Calculation Value and its

applicable settings and options

3. The “Operator”, representing the kind

of arithmetic operation you’re

performing: Adding, Subtracting,

Multiplying, or Dividing

4. The Second Calculation Value and its

applicable settings and options

5. Display options for your Calculated

Field, like “should the figured

number be shown on the site” and

“should the system add dollar signs

and decimals when the number shows

up?”


Label The label you supply for your calculated field COULD be seen by your visitors, if you’d like it to

be (based on the selected option, “The value will be displayed once calculated”).

First Calculation Values The First and Second calculation values can either be “pulled” from a numeric field on your form,

or you can supply a “constant” which will always be used for this calculation.

For a field to appear in this list, you must naturally have first created the field. See above for notes

on how to create an appropriate field or option list.

If “Field” is selected, a pull -down menu appears. This menu contains all numeric fields, numeric

option lists, and other calculation that are ABOVE the current calculation field (based on the

sorted order of your field’s elements).The “label” for each available field is listed.

In addition, if “Field” is selected, you can inform the system on how to handle an empty field. If

the chosen field has no values, the system can use either “0” or “1” for this calculation. In most

cases, choose “0” if you are adding or subtracting, and choose “1” if you are multiplying. NOTE:

the system will not allow you to divide by zero).

If “Constant” is selected, the options are much simpler: enter a number into the field. This number

will then be used each time the calculation is performed.

EXAMPLE: Constants can be especially useful for performing unit conversions. For instance, to

convert a field from centimeters to inches, you could multiple one field’s numeric entry by the

constant “2.54”.

Operator Choose the desired arithmetic operation from this list: Add, Subtract, Multiply or Divide.

Second Calculation Value Options for your second value are identical to the first: either select one of your form’s numeric

fields, or enter a constant.

Value collected will be displayed as SuperForms can display your calculation’s result in one of three ways: “Dollar ($xx.xx)”, “Integer

– no decimals (xx)” or “Decimal – two decimals (xx.xx)”. This setting has two effects.

First, if you choose to display this calculation’s result, the system will apply the select format: it

will automatically add a dollar sign character ($) in front of the result, and display the correct

number of decimal places.

Second, this setting affects how the system will round your numbers. For example, If you would

like the system to ignore any decimal places, select “integer” from this menu. NOTE: This setting

can impact your calculation results, especially if multiple Calculated Fields are “chained” together.

The value will be displayed once calculated Select “No” to hide this field’s result, and its label, from view. Select “Yes” to show the label and

the calculated result.


Calculated Fields Part 2 Using Option Lists in Calculations

Calculation Fields can use your form’s Option Lists (radio buttons, checkboxes, pull-down or

multiple-choice lists) to gather numeric data. To do so, add numeric values for each of the items in

your option list.

For example, let’s continue the “Pet License” example from the “Pull-down list” illustration. This

time, there is a base cost for all pet licenses of $10. In addition, the type of pet adds an extra cost:

large dogs add $4, small dogs add $2, while cats have no extra charge.

The example begins the same as before: First, you would “Add a pull-down list” to your form, and

supply a label like, “Please select your pet”


each selection.

Then, you would click “Add/edit options” to build your pull down list options. After adding the

three labels, you could “Edit” each option, and make the following entries:


Dog, Large (30lbs and over) LGDog 4

Dog, Small (less than 30lbs) SMDog 2

Cat (any size) Cat 0

When finished, click the “Apply” and “Return…” links, and “Finish” your form, and perhaps even

test your new pull-down menu on your live site.

Next, “Add a calculated field” to your form. Make the following selections:

Label: perhaps use, “Total Pet License

Cost”

First Calculation Value: select “Field”,

then choose the label of your pull-down list,

“Please select your pet”; for “If field is

empty…”, select “0” since we will be

adding.

Operator: select “+ (add)”

Second Calculation Value: select

“Constant”, and enter “10” for the

constant’s value

Choose the “Dollar” format for displaying

your collected value, and select “Yes” to

show this total on your actual form.

The result form will allow people to select their type of pet (large dog, small dog, or cat), and

immediately see the impact their selection has by clicking the “Update” button at the bottom

of the form.


Chaining Calculated Fields Possibly the most powerful feature of Calculated Fields is the ability to “chain” multiple fields

together, creating virtually any sort of equation that your form might require.

Building any sort of equation requires an understanding of the system’s “Order of Operation”.

Traditionally, equations and formulae use a combination of parenthesis and a fixed arithmetic

order (multiply, then divide, then add, then subtract) to control the order of operation. For

example:

2 x 3 + 4 = 10

2 + 3 x 4 = 14 (multiplication occurs before addition)

(2 + 3) x 4 = 20 (parenthesis force the addition to occur first)

etc.

However, SuperForms has no such Order of Operations. Instead, will simply occur in the order

they are arranged on your SuperForm, based on your form’s sort order (see page 23 for details on

re-ordering the elements of your form). For instance, the third equation would be created in

SuperForms using two Calculated Fields, named “CalcField A” and “CalcField B”:

CalcField A = 2 + 3 (results in “5”)

CalcField B = CalcFieldA x 4 (results in 20)

There is no limit to the number of calculation fields you can chain together.

Suggestions:

Use the “Value will be displayed when calculated” option to show or hide the various

totals and subtotals of your equations. In many cases, you might only show the last

calculation in your chain of fields.

Pay close attention to the order of the forms as they appear on your SuperForm!

Calculations are always performed “top to bottom”; use this to control exactly how your

equation behaves.

Be sure to review your “Form Properties”; you have direct control of the text that appears

on the “Update…” button, as well the ability to turn this button off. NOTE: if you hide

the “Update” button, consider hiding all of your calculated fields as well. Calculated

fields do not update automatically; users must click the “update” button. If the button is

hidden, the calculated field will not be updated until the form is completed and submitted.

SuperForms Documentation: SSL SuperForms Appendix A

Appendix A: SSL SuperForms Overview

If your form gathers sensitive customer data, such as birthdays, social security numbers, medical

history, etc, you should consider enabling “SSL” for your SuperForm.

“SSL” (Secure Sockets Layer) is a web-based encryption standard which provides additional

protection from hackers and internet “spies” who may be monitoring visitors’ online actions and

submissions.

While a user is completing an SSL-enabled form, their web browser will provide a visual

indication that the session is “locked” (usually via a small padlock icon on the Status Bar or Tool

Bar), as well as using the “https://” prefix (instead of the standard “http://”) in the web

address/URL.

In addition, to completely protect your visitor’s data, your administration tool will enter a

“Secured” mode while viewing and downloading your visitor’s results.

SSL SuperForms is an added module, working with the core SuperForms module to offer

encrypted forms on your site. Contact the Avenet Customer Service Center for more information

on purchasing SuperForms, or the additional SSL module.

Setting a SuperForm to “SSL” Any SuperForm may be made “SSL Encrypted”. To do so:

1. If necessary, login to your site’s administrative tools, and browse the “Content Tools” to

locate your SuperForm

2. Click “Edit” to Configure your SuperForm

3. Click “Form Properties”

4. Click “Yes” for the second option, “This form uses SSL”

5. Click “Finished” at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.

Your form is now SSL Encrypted.

NOTE: If your SSL SuperForm’s “Section Introduction”, “Side Bar” or “Thank You” message

includes hyperlinks to other sections of your site, be sure to use complete web addresses for those

addresses/URL’s; be sure that the addresses include “http://www.mysite.com/...”. Otherwise, your

links will not function correctly when visitors enter their secured sessions.

Visitor’s Experience When a visitor uses your SSL form, a few things will happen:

Their browser will indicate the secure session by displaying a “lock” or “secured” icon in

their status bar or tool bar.

The web address/URL will begin with “https://” instead of “http://”.

The web address will temporarily change to “ssl.govoffice.com” or

“ssl.nonprofitoffice.com” (or similar server name). The address will remain at this

specialized location for the duration of the secured session, including the “Thank You”

SuperForms Documentation: SSL SuperForms Appendix A

message. All of your site’s navigation links are still accessible and functional, and will

return your visitors to your normal address/URL once they click another hyperlink

NOTE: Macintosh visitors who are completing a purchase-enabled SuperForm may see

up to three additional security warnings after their “Thank You” message is viewed.

Avenet is aware of this issue, and will address it in a future release. However, regardless

of the security warning’s content, all visitors data is fully protected and secure.

Accessing SSL-Gathered Responses To access data gathered from your SSL SuperForm, follow the same method as described in

“Managing Your Data” (page 27). However, the link will now read, “Login and Download Your

Data” (instead of simply “Download Your Data”). As such, you will first be asked to login; enter

your username and password to proceed.

Notice that you, too, will enter a Secured session (different web address/URL, lock icon, etc)

while viewing and downloading your visitor’s data.

To return to your administration tool, click the link at the bottom of the page.

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