Designing forms and checklists

Purpose: every company checks different things. The form editor lets a Safety Manager build the company’s own forms and checklists without a developer, publish them to the people who fill them in, and change them later without losing what was filled in before.

Who: Safety Managers and Org Admins. Others see “Only Safety Managers and Org Admins design forms and checklists.”

1. Open the editor

On a computer open Forms, then Design forms and checklists. The list shows each template with its title, type (Form or Checklist), its latest published version, and whether it has Unpublished changes or is Not published yet. Search by title or description, and filter by type and status.

2. Make a template

1. Select New form or New checklist. A checklist is made of pass/fail items; a form takes any question.
2. Give it a title (and a description), then Make the template. Its type never changes afterwards.
3. Add the questions.

3. Add questions

Under Questions, choose a kind of question to add and select Add. The kinds are short text, long text, number, date, yes / no / N/A, one choice, several choices, pass / fail item and text block. For each question:

Setting	Meaning
Question	What is asked
Help for whoever fills it in	A hint shown with the question
An answer is required	Cannot submit without it
Longest answer	For text
Lowest / Highest / Unit	For numbers
Choices	For one or several choices; Add a choice, remove one
How serious a failure is	For a pass/fail item: Low, Medium, High or Critical. A serious failure proposes a corrective action

Use Up and Down to reorder, Remove to delete. A form holds a limited number of questions; the page says when it is full.

4. Preview

Preview shows the form as it reads when filled in. Try answers: nothing is kept. Back to editing returns.

5. Save and publish

• Save draft saves your work. Only what is saved is published. The page marks Unsaved changes.
• Publish makes a version: what people fill in from now on. The page says “Version n is published.” Before publishing, “Not published yet: nobody can fill it in.”
• A published version never changes. What people filled in with it stays as it was. To change a question, edit the draft and publish a new version; the list of Published versions shows each one.
• If someone else changed the template while you worked, Open the latest shows theirs; the page asks before discarding your changes.

6. Archive and restore

Archive takes a template out of use: nobody can fill it in, but what was filled in stays. Restore brings it back. An archived template cannot be changed until restored.

7. Advice

• Keep checklists short: a long one is skipped or ticked without looking.
• Mark an item High or Critical only if a failure needs fixing at once, as that proposes an action.
• Use the help text for how to judge a pass or a fail.
• Publish a first version, try it yourself on a phone, then tell the team.

Not built yet: conditional questions, scoring, a library of ready-made templates, dragging to reorder and the company’s logo on the PDF of a submitted form. To ask people to fill a published form in, once or on a schedule, see Giving forms out.