Forms Designer

What is it?

The Forms Designer is an extremely capable tool for building web based forms for use in AgriData Inc.’s Surety® Mapping products. This unique design software uses a simple interface to graphically add data entry objects by dragging & dropping them on an 8 ½” x 11” “canvas”. Place and modify free form text boxes and text areas, multiple map images, check boxes, radio buttons, drop downs, and much more to create customized maps and e-forms to almost any specification desired.

The Forms Designer software is paired with AgriData Inc.’s Surety® Pro mapping subscription and is able to be used on all major browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari, there are no downloads required to start your design. It is under active development in order to continually expand its capabilities. The Forms Designer is also used by the Surety® Mapping Support Team to provide a design service to any Surety® or Surety® Pro account.

Why should I create Customized Forms within my account?

A customized form created within the Forms Designer opens up a wealth of potential to a business. All aspects of the form can be customized and unique. The visual design, the type of data stored, even the way values are entered and are calculated with simple to complex formula capabilities are all avenues for customizing the forms to fit your company’s needs.

Company Awareness & Customer Retention

Embrace the potential of a custom form by incorporating your company brand within the design. A brand includes company colors, logos, taglines, contact information, and more. Get ready to WOW your customers with a personalized professional look for each of your forms and maps! Once your beautiful company form is in their hands, there will be no question who supplied it and where that customer can come back to for more business.

Information Accuracy & Consistency

Take advantage of an opportunity to transition from illegible methods of record keeping, into concise, organized, clear information that is easily read and understood. Include only the necessary information integral to the job and rid information that is only serving as a distraction to your work flow. Completely customizable pick lists are just one of the superb benefits that are available in a custom form that help to ensure uniformity between jobs and employees. The increased accuracy gained from using a custom form has a ripple effect that spills over into higher productivity, increased safety, and greater customer satisfaction.

Organization & Productivity with Surety® Pro

Within Surety® Pro’s data saving capabilities, the advantages of a custom form ascend to a whole new level. When saving these forms, Surety® Pro is instantly organizing the saved data in your account. With organized information that is available anywhere with an internet connection, it takes no time at all to bring up work orders, sales data, or other information that you may be using a custom form to save. Open consistent custom form records across each company account or setup different options for each company location to utilize. Use the information within a custom form to provide visual indicators on the map itself. Color code and label all of the important information directly to the mapped borders and open up a ton of customization possibilities for the look of or scheme of the map itself. These indicators help expedite the decision making process, increases the amount of work that can be accomplished and in turn raises your bottom line.

How do I use these Customized Forms within Surety® or Surety® Pro?

Simply select or draw your boundary, click on the form name and your custom form generates just like the standard forms AgriData, Inc. already offers within Surety® and Surety® Pro. The forms created are able to be saved as PDF copies to a local storage drive, easily printed, or emailed directly from the Surety® interface. With Surety® Pro, a record of that form can then be stored in your account and integrated within the Forms Manager complete with sort, filter, modify, print, and delete functionality. Link your custom form with other Surety® accounts to create an online submission process for your order taking needs.

Inspiration
Here is just a small list of examples of what can be created with the Forms Designer
  • Chemical Load Sheets
  • Pick Tickets
  • Unique Scouting Sheets
  • Custom Fertilizer Application Forms
  • Customer Invoices
  • Lab-Specific Soil Sampling Forms
  • Perennial Planting Contracts
  • Maintenance Contracts
  • Planting Plan
  • Custom Crop layers for color coding and labeling fields
  • Unique obstruction documentation
  • Land Sales Sheets
  • Comparable Sales Sheet
  • Fence Usage Form
  • Many more...

Whether coordinating custom work orders, documenting sales for comparison, storing contract information, or some other form of documentation, the Forms Designer can accomplish it all. Consult with the Forms Designer gurus at AgriData, Inc. to learn more about how to integrate your form idea and get suggestions on what could be a great opportunity for your company.

Let’s get Technical

We have learned how the Forms Designer can benefit your company; now let’s take a more in-depth bulleted look at the toolset available for use within the Forms Designer itself.

Layout Options

  • Graphically add and move data entry objects on the canvas by using the drag & drop interface
    • Text boxes
    • Large text areas
    • Check boxes
    • Radio button
    • Drop Down /Drop Down Combo lists
    • One or more of the maps
  • Control the properties of the objects on the form
    • Size
    • Color
    • Background Color
    • Font Size
    • Bold /Italic/Underline
    • Basic html language to change properties such emboldening variables
  • Align the form objects with defined alignment shortcuts
  • Change Text justification (left/ center/ right)
  • Set a tab index across the whole form in order to perform rapid data entry
  • Variables will pull and display information from the mapped area, client profile, and more
  • 8x11 work space for the visible display and optimized printing of the form
  • Create a brand new form from a blank canvas or modify an existing form layout
  • Insert a company logo
  • Upload and display .jpeg, .png, and .gif images

Define the Fields

  • The object’s content type can be numeric, alpha (string), alpha numeric, or decimal
  • Create unique pick lists and grid layouts and/or use existing ones
  • Specify what type of geometry form the visual representation of the data takes by setting it as a polygon, point or line
  • Reference data fields from previously generated forms within the same map boundary. For Example: Automatically pull in the previous year’s crop type to a new form.

Specialized Data Objects

  • Apply a static barcode or request the Surety development team to have the barcode produced dynamically. For example: A unique barcode can appear upon a successful submission of an online work order or job request form.
  • Latitude/Longitude from the map
  • Date picker and/or automatically display current date
  • Legends are available for certain data uses at this time
  • Soils information table
  • Hail History List
  • Applied Logs dynamic selection to show as applied data on the map and fill in log information on the form

Form Rules

The EPIC (Equation Processing and Interface Customization Engine)™ dialect Surety® v.8.2013 is the unique scripting language used within the Forms Designer. While this scripting language was influenced by some of the main stream programming languages, it was specifically built to be able to create rules for the forms including:

  • Make certain field entries required before they can be printed or saved with form validation
  • Set “read only” statuses
  • Conditional scripting functionality to hide/show or enable/disable control objects based on a cross field validation or cascading list boxes (lists that appear based on another list selection),
  • Dynamically fill entry fields based on a selection of another entry field
  • Automatically perform simple to complex formulas that can also be conditional as well as arithmetic
  • Automatically send an email copy or summary of the form upon a save

Ask us a Question

The Forms Designer is a deep program with many features and functions. If you want to know more about the Forms Designer or are wondering if it is able to bring your form ideas to fruition, then please Contact Us. Our support team has experience in many different situations and will work hard to help fulfill your needs.