Form Manager is one of the core parts of Wufoo with which you interact every day. When you logged into your Wufoo account today, you may have noticed a few significant changes in the Form Manager. Trust us–that’s intentional!
We chose to give a long overdue refresh (or makeover if you will) to the Form Manager. Doing this also set the stage for a series of additional changes and new features in the Form Manager still to come. Keep us honest with that and keep an eye on your Form Manager or here on the blog in the next few months for update tidbits.
So you may be saying to yourself–if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t worry, we’re a fan of that motto too. You’ve let us serve you with fantastic form service for the past 10 (eep!) years so as a big fat Thank You–we’re helping you get to your most favorite form functions even faster. Faster is better.
Now let’s dive into all this change, shall we? Hit it.
1. Bigger everything
Over the last 10 years, the dinosaurs at Wufoo have grown bigger and so have the size of your monitors. However, Form Manager has always remained small leaving plenty of prime real estate un-used. That changes now. We chose to expand the size of the Form Manager. Along the way, we also made the fonts bigger so that you don’t have to go searching for a magnifying glass when looking at our Form Manager.
2. Reminders on form status
You have a business to run, customers to focus on and other important things to take care of. We get it. So, to help you be more productive without remembering the little details, we added noticeable reminders to forms that have not been shared yet. These reminders will help get your forms in front of your customers and start collecting data on your end even sooner.
3. Visual indicators
As you’re scanning through the list of forms, in the past, it was hard to differentiate between public and private forms. Hello to today! Now you have two visual indicators to scan and pick out private forms much faster.
1. The form icon will be grayed out for private forms.
2. The share option will be grayed out and will not be clickable for private forms.
Fast and furious indeed!
4. No more “hover over”
Some of you have said that it’s distracting to have the form options pop-up even when you casually hover over form name. Additionally, the need to hover over to view form options made the experience cumbersome in tablets. We got rid of the requirement to hover over and instead display the menu options right next to the form name. Boom–faster navigation when on desktop and using tablets.
5. All your favorites grouped under “Edit”
Edit, view, rules, notifications and integrations are the options most accessed by our users. Grouping them together under Edit menu would help you get to these most-used options much more quickly.
6. “More” really does give you more value
In the past, you had to get to the share page in order to access API information. In other words, the access to API was tricky. Come on, this is not a treasure hunt. The API information and other important features like duplicate, delete, make a form private or public and add password (only for public forms) now live under the More menu.
7. Get to your entries faster
You do all the hard work creating, designing and deploying your forms to collect data. Shouldn’t you be able to get to this data quickly? The Entries menu is here to serve all your data and analytics needs. With the options in this menu, you should be able to get to form analytics and view all the form entries.
We also display the total number of entries and number of entries today right next to the form name. Yep, one less click to get to stats on entries.
8. Future changes
These changes are just the beginning, form fans. They’re meant to be stepping stones towards adding important features like organizing forms into folders, taking bulk actions on forms and more. Again, keep an eye out.
Our goal is to make creation and deployment of form with Wufoo fast, fun and easy. We believe these changes and the updates planned in the near future will help accomplish this objective. We definitely like to hear your thoughts on these changes. Please share your thoughts, comments and suggestions with us!
Comments
Nice work. Love the new layout. One question, where is the active/inactive form toggle?
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Jason Berry.It was much more important to me for the green notification to be highlighting the “new entries today” than the new “Start Sharing” on form’s I’m not even planning to share yet. I’m sure this will make me miss the important things — of when I get entries to deal with, rather than highlighting the moment when there is not yet any on entry in a particular form (never mind if it just had one test entry and then no one ever came back…)
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Jake Noel-Storr.@Jason Thanks, glad you like it! You can make a form active/inactive within the More menu by selecting the Make Private/Make Public option. When the form’s Share menu is greyed out, that means it’s private (inactive).
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.@Jake Thank you for letting us know about this. I can totally understand this preference and I’m happy to bring this up with our design team. For the time-being, you can see all the forms in your account that have collected entries today, by sorting by Entries Today. Forms that have received the most entries will appear at the top. This is how the data that was in that green notification is displayed in the new design.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.What a nice change! I love the new look. It would be great to also have the ability to group and organize forms using custom orders and color-code them. That would be really awesome!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Nithicha.Great. When you can get me folders to organize the hundreds of forms we have you will be my most favorite people ever! 🙂
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Brigid Eshbaugh.Looks great! I agree with the two posters above: It would be so helpful to have folders to organize forms, or at least one archive folder to put away forms that aren’t used anymore.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Greg Tiffany.The constant popping out used to make me sick. No more “hover over” is the best update! And I agree that folders would be the next best update.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Kate.Thank you. We have hundreds of forms in the manager, it would be great if we were able to organize them in folders!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Adam.Great work. Thanks.
I am looking forward to the new feature that organizes the forms into folders.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Jason.These are fantastic!!! Looking forward to the folders as my 100’s of forms are getting overwhelming!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Elizabeth Hamilton.Looks great! Excited for folders for sure! Would love to sort forms Alphabetically as well!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Sheena OhUiginn.Thanks for all the updates. I managed multiple companies forms and would like a way to copy one form I’ve created in one account to another account without starting from scratch.
Is that possible?
Love the changes you have already made.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Mary Jo Brandt.It would be nice to be able to hide the green event indicator that says “Start sharing” after we’ve seen it (with an X to remove it perhaps?) — we have draft forms that we keep in the system until ready to use. It’s not helpful to be shown this alert whenever our forms have no entries yet. It was more helpful to have the “New entries” visual indicator. Will all forms that have no entries show the start sharing indicator indefinitely? I do really like some of the other improvements!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Stephanie.Thanks for the changes especially stopping the pops up bar in the past style. Also, I liked the reminder of unshared reminder button.
Some change that I hope to see in the future:
1) the possibility to create fields that do not need answers, so we become able to write more sub-titles and descriptions as we do by”section breaks”. In more simple words, I am looking for adding to wufoo “subsection breaks”.
2) more importantly, I wish I could be able to create tables on wufoo forms.
Best of All
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Ezze.I agree with the option to create folders. It would be nice to organize forms that way.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Leigh.Add the ability to hide forms.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by S N.I agree with some of the other suggestions:
Bring back the green notifications for New Entries. With the updates, it’s difficult to notice if you got new entries.
Add the ability to create folders to manage all of my forms. We’re approaching 50 forms and would be nice to organize & manage them via folders/labels/tags.
ISSUES:
1. It is now taking hours before it’ll say I have a new entry for a particular form. Prior to the update, it would be instant.
- For some of the forms that have the green “Start Sharing” next to it, I already have them embedded into my website but it’s saying “Start Sharing” next to them. Other forms that are embedded the same way don’t have the green “Start Sharing”
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Ken.@Ken One thing you can do is sort your forms using the “New Entries Today” option in the top-right corner of the builder, this will get the forms that received recent entries up at the top. If you’re still having trouble, please let us know over at support@wufoo.com, we’re happy to help out.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.I agree with the folders for organizing forms. That would be AMAZING!!!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Coby Smith.+1 vote for Archive
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Mark Cracknell.I’m confused. I have shared my forms using the html embed and they work . So why do all my forms say “start sharing” on them with the new layout. This is annoying.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Graham Avent.I’ll start by saying I love almost everything about the new design. The few minor things listed below are by no means deal-breakers and I will continue to use and recommend wufoo until the end of time. 🙂
That being said, here are a few notes:
Thanks for working to make an already great product even better!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Ben.It would be nice also to have better seperation of duties such as those with entry edit function not being able to edit the form as that is more of a developer role. When we provide our entry agents with the ability to edit forms which is a developer role that opens ourselves up to a lot of risk.
Since the developer role and the order entry role are separate roles.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Ahmed.Great change. Love it.
+1 for the Folders pleeeeeease
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Darren.Hey there, when are you going to add more than 50 rules to the rule builder? Is there any particular reason as to why it’s limiting? I would love to be able to have one form with 60-70 rules so I can manage multiple functions with one form.
Please let me know!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Michael Burak.When using calendar icon, when editing entries, is it possible to view and click on dates that are not just within the month we’re viewing but within the same week (just like you can when first completing the form … So, if I wanted to edit/change the initial entry date from Thursday 26 may to Tuesday 26 April I wouldn’t have to select April before changing the Date because the 26 April would already be visible/accessible…?
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Tiger.Also, please don’t confine ‘finding’ a form to FOLDERS because as much as folders would be REALLY helpful it would mean searching through each folder to find a form that you’ve forgotten the name of and still have to search all folders to find it…
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Tiger.And, yes! More than 50 rules would be ace! But also opportunity to add more FIELDS in the building section of a form too. I understand that it can make building form complicated but a simple warning telling the BUILDER that it will make it more complicated surely is suffice?!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Tiger.And finally,,,, sometimes I only want 50% of a form duplicated to make a similar form. I then want to add some different fields. PROBLEM is I then have to tediously DELETE each field to enable me to add new fields. Is it possible to make deleting fields less arduous when doing it in bulk because, via course, when building a new form there is no issue with erasing stored data because there won’t be any!!!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Tiger.Thank you for the update. I presented the wufoo survey for First Time Church Visitors to my leaders today, they love it and we will be creating others.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Pastor Robert Burton.Some time ago I made a suggestion to be able to rename attached files as they were sent to Dropbox using data from the form. So instead of getting ‘entry-1234-expenses.xls’ or ‘entry-999-image1.jpg’ it would be possible to convert it into a relevant name like ‘Paul Smith November expenses.xls’ or ‘Mandy Brown fuel receipt 22/05/2016.jpg’ via the API information, in a similar way that Twitter data can be generated or the notification email customised, making it simpler to collate those files without having to constantly either open them or refer back to the list of entries.
Is there any news on that idea please? It was favourably received by your support people and I am sure that it would be well received by those who use that aspect of the automation interfaces
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Chris Higginbottom.Everyone needs a hug
I have been happy with your service.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Alain Vegiard.Thanks for the update. It’s great to see progress, new features. I agree with much of what has been written above.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by JHB.* Love the sort feature, but ‘sort by name’ should have been an option.
* Folders – we need them…desperately. Users have been asking for this for years.
*I hope, hope, hope all this has been tested for accessibility/ADA compliance.
*Wish form index included author name and timestamp for last edit.
*I like the new format, summary numbers on front screen.
Updates look great! I do really miss the green box showing me where new entries have come in, though, and the new “Start Sharing” green box has no utility for me. Any possibility of toggling it back?
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Micah Sewell.@Micah I definitely here you on this one, and we do have some eyes focused on how to make these notifications more efficient and useful for future releases. Currently, the Start Sharing button will disappear about an hour after the first entry is received. From that point on, you’ll see the Total Entry Count and Entries Today updated immediately next to the Form Name.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.@Graham That notice will disappear about one hour after you receive your first Entry on that form! Sorry for the bother here.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.@Chris It’s a good idea, and definitely something that a good number of users would find useful. For the time-being, we don’t have this feature on the short-term roadmap. One option here is to create individual folders for each wufoo form in Dropbox. While you’re working through each Entry in wufoo, you can quickly view the Entry ID in the name of the uploaded file in Dropbox. This process is relatively snappy to identify exactly which file is associated with which Entry in wufoo.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.I’m already doing that Cody – but it’s an extra step or two and if I want to put the attachments somewhere else and with a meaningful name then I have to look at the form contents and rename the file, especially if I want to clear down the form entries periodically at which point I lose that reference
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Chris Higginbottom.Further thought Cody – is there any way that the EntryID could be included in the body of the notification email? I know it’s possible to add it to the title but that makes it difficult to post-process in something like VBA, but if it was in the body then I have a way that I can do this myself
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Chris Higginbottom.10 years and still no way to actually organise the forms. Folders are the most requested feature from your customers and this isn’t the first thread to mention it….. shame
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by not that impressed.@Chris You can definitely include the EntryId in the Notification Subject, however we don’t have a built-in way to include it in the body of the notification itself. Another possibility would be to use a Webhook. Webhooks can be used to send entry data to a custom endpoint on your server, and would allow you filter and process all information on your form on the back-end. Entry data sent using a webhook will include the EntryId. We suggest setting up a requestb.in, then adding a webhook to your form to see what it looks like. If you have any questions, let us know at support@wufoo.com. You can check out Webhooks here: http://help.wufoo.com/articles/en_US/SurveyMonkeyArticleType/Webhooks
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.First time I’ve seen them reference form folders, so my hopes are buoyed
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Tom Mayers.Things I love:
1) not having to hover!
2) having the API information easy to access
3) having the analytics right by the form
Things I wish were different:
1) I find the green “start sharing” and “start adding entries” totally annoying, especially since they are mostly on private forms that I may not use for quite some time. Is there a way to get rid of them or are they there indefinitely?
2) I much prefer having the green button be for a “new entry” that is easily visible. I find currently it is very hard to “see” the new entries. I know you can sort by new entries but then if you are working on several forms you have lost the ability to have your current edits at the top. It seems to be wasted time sorting and resorting.
3) It would be nice to be able to make an occasional form over 100 fields. I have one that I am constantly tried to keep under that minimum which is quite annoying. I realize its long but to make all the exceptions I need to have a few extra fields.
4) I also would like to be able to duplicate a form and be able to delete several fields at once instead of tediously deleting them one by one. It seems you could check which fields you want to delete and then only have to type DELETE to confirm once.
5) I wish there was a way to “archive” forms we are currently not using.
Thanks for the improvements thus far and hoping for a few more!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cheryl.@Cheryl re 4) – and to be able to duplicate/move more than one field at once. I often need forms that require two identical sections (in all but field names) and it’s a proper pain having to duplicate them one by one and then drag them to the correct place.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Chris Higginbottom.Please fast track the ability to put forms in folders!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Eric.+1 … or +96 … on the need for folders. Waaayyyyyyyy too many forms now with no ability to organize them. Thanks guys, love the updates!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Travis Maclay.@Travis We hear you Travis, this is definitely something we want to add in the future. Thank you for the kind words, and keep an eye out here for updates!
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Cody Curry.Ditto on folders.
Posted May 23rd, 2016 by Robin.