Designing a Form with a Subform

The following section describes how to design a Form with a Subform which allows you to add more flexibility to your Form. Subforms are included in a parent Form so in order to design a Form with a Subform you follow the steps of designing a Form.

For users to be able to import Records to a Subform, the Form must have a Serial Number or a Key field. Users will use that to define to which Parent Record they are adding (Subform) Records when importing to the Subform.

You can have a maximum Subform depth (Subform within Subform) of 5 and up to 30 Subforms within a Form.

If you want to collect data on a repetitive basis, you can add a Subform field and define the frequency using a Date, Month or Week field. You can make that field a Key field for the Subform so as to alert users for duplicate entries for that specific time period for example.

By making that field a Key field you can also add a Lock to the Subform.

How to design a Form with a Subform

  • To start designing you Form you first need to add a Database.
  • Click on "Add Form" to open the Form Design page.
  • In the Form Design page give a name to your Form and click on "Add a field" to view the Field palette.

Read more about Designing a Form, adding fields and defining Field's properties.

  • Click on "Add field" and click on "Subform" to add a Subform to the Form.

Fill in the Properties of the Subform field by providing:

  • Label: type the name for the Subform
  • Description: optionally provide a description
  • Code: optionally provide a code

In the Settings check the boxes you want to apply for the field. Learn more about the Properties you can use.

  • Click on "Done" to add the Subform.
  • The Subform has been added. Click on it to open the Properties tab and click on "Open Subform" to start adding fields to the Subform.

If you make a Subform Required by checking that property, please note the following:

  • When importing records to a Form that has a Required Subform, the system will not prevent new records from being imported to the Form if there are no Records for the Subform. Records to the Subform need to be imported in a second step. 
  • The system does not prevent records of a required Subform from being deleted. So even if a Subform is Required, its records can be deleted.

Make sure that the fields added to a Required Subform can be filled in during data entry. For example, a Subform that consists only of Fields with Relevance rules or the 'Hide from entry' property checked might prevent a user from saving a record altogether.

  • You can design the Subform in the same way you would design a Form. Click on "Add a field" to start adding fields define the fields properties to make the Subform even more flexible.
  • Click on "Save" on the Form Design page to save the changes.

If you want to collect data on a repetitive basis, you can add a Subform field and define the frequency using a Date, Week, Fortnight, or Month field as a Key in the Subform. You can make that field a Key field for the Subform so as to alert users of duplicate entries for that specific time period or to be able to add a Lock to the Subform.