PlatoForms User Guide
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  • Form Builder

    Creating an Online Form for an Existing PDF

  • Custom Domain

    With Builder you can build three types of forms: online web forms, online PDF forms, and master forms.

  • Master Form Builder

    you will arrive at the Form Builder. On the form Builder, there are three main sections:

Use variables in Email Body

Dynamic variables in Email Body elevate form notifications. They add dynamic elements like form text, links, and attachment options for PDF or CSV data. With variables, you can customize notifications based on form responses.

Search variables box

In Advanced mode, add variables in {{ }} format, such as {{attach_pdf_file}}.

Search variables box

Form information

Variables Description
form_name The name you set for your online form.
Form name variable
form_id A unique set of numbers and letters that identifies the form.
Form id

Form submission info and data

Variables Description
submission_id A code generated when someone submits a response to your form.
Variables for Email Notifications
data.fidXX To include specific submission data, like “Full Name” with a field ID of “3”, simply add {{data.fid3}} to your email body.
Switch to advanced mode
Warning

Shared links are accessible to anyone online without requiring a sign-in. If your content must remain confidential, use shared links variables cautiously.

Variables Description
shared_editor_link This link lets both you and respondents open and edit a submitted form. Respondents can use it to make changes and resubmit, and you’ll receive an updated PDF automatically.
shared_attachment_link Use this link to download file attachments uploaded from the File Upload field.
shared_pdf_link For the PDF link of the submitted data, include this custom field in your email body.
Variables for Email Notifications

Attachments and fields

Note

  • Notification emails can contain created PDF files, but not files uploaded through forms.
  • PlatoForms can send emails with a maximum size of 10MB.
  • If a user uploads a file that exceeds this size limit, email sending may fail.

Variables Description
attach_pdf_file Include this variable to attach a PDF file with all the collected data to your email notification.
attach_csv_data Add this variable to attach the CSV data file, containing all the submitted data from a specific form, to your email notifications.
Variables for Email Notifications

By default, variables like shared_attachment_link, shared_pdf_link and attach_pdf_file include all files. However, you can also be specific about which files you want to share or attach in the email.

  • shared_attachment_link: If your form has multiple fields for file uploads, you can add the field ID to the link to only include files uploaded through that specific field. For example, shared_attachment_link.fid4 gives you the link(s) to file(s) uploaded via field #4.

  • shared_pdf_link and attach_pdf_file: With a Master form, there can be several PDF files. If you only want to share or attach certain PDF files, you can specify a PDF ID like shared_pdf_link.frums9j3bya or attach_pdf_file.frums9j3bya. You’ll find this PDF ID in the “Name” section by clicking on the form menu on the PDF cover of that particular linked PDF.

Find PDF ID
How to find the PDF ID

Tracking and revisions

Variables Description
tracking_code A numeric identifier for searching respondents’ submission details on the Submission page.
Variables for Email Notifications
revision This variable indicates the revision number, starting at 1 and increasing with each edit. It helps you track the number of times the online form has been revised.
revision logic block To access the submission number after it has been re-edited with a revision greater than 1, use this variable.

  • Using it in Email Body:
  • Variables for Email Notifications

  • Using it in Email Subject or Body in Advance mode:
  • Variables for Email Notifications
Note

If you only want to show revision when a submission has been re-edited and the revision number is greater than 1, you can use this logic: {% if %}...{% endif %}.

Here’s how:

{%if revision > 1 %} Revision {{revision}} {% endif %}

Certificate and Checksum

Variables Description
attach_sign_cert_pdf This variable allows you to attach a Signature Certificate PDF to your email notifications. It helps verify if the signature has been altered. To receive the Signature Certificate, you must enable it in the Invitation settings.
Variables for Email Notifications
sign_cert_checksum When using signature certificate feature, it includes the SHA256 checksum of the generated signature certificate PDF. This checksum helps confirm the authenticity of both the certificate and the document.
checksum logic block If you use signature certificate and want to include the logical operation of the Signature Certificate in your email notification, you can use this custom field.
Variables for Email Notifications

Workflow

If this form is part of a larger workflow, you can use these variables:

Variables Description
is_workflow A signal that tells you if this submission is a step within a workflow.
workflow_name The name of the workflow.
step_ordinal_index The sequence number of the workflow step.
next_step_link A link to the next step in the workflow, if one exists; otherwise, it’s empty.

For instance, you can apply {% if %}...{% else %}...{% endif %} to display specific information depending on whether the submission is part of the workflow or not.

{% if is_workflow %}
    This submission is the {{step_ordinal_index}} step of the workflow {{workflow_name}}.
    {% if next_step_link %}
        You can continue the next step of this workflow by clicking this link: {{next_step_link}}
    {% else %}
        This is the final step in this workflow. No further action is required.
    {% endif %}
{% endif %}

Reference previous workflow steps

When composing emails, you can refer to variables from previous steps using “stepN.” format. Here, “N” represents the step number, starting from 1. For example, in a 3-step workflow, during the third step, you can use step1.data.fid3 to access the value from the field fid3 in the first step.

It’s not just form values that can use this format like stepN.data.fidXX, any variable can follow this “stepN.” pattern. For instance, step2.shared_attachment_link points to files uploaded in step 2, and step2.next_step_link leads to the link for opening the blank form in step 3.

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