Omit flagged fields on form copy
It would be really helpful if we could flag certain fields to remain null when a form is copied. This would avoid the common problem of folks copying records and forgetting to update information or hidden fields that retain data when they should be cleared out.
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Official comment
Hi Rebekah, Emma, seems like having reference ID "PAGETYPE_NEWFROMLASTRECORD" in the element level (as opposed to page level) would be really helpful. Will forward this to the product team and see what we can do!
Penny
Comment actions -
Penny, as suggested, I think that this is what we need. I have used PAGETYPE_NEWFROMLASTRECORD to pre-fill the next record but really I only want this to apply to certain fields. Things that apply to each record but the user doesn't want to have to type out each time, location IDs, names, dates, that sort of thing. I don't want the rest of the form pre-filled as it will lead to the problem Rebekah outlines of users forgetting to update fields.
Emma
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It varies. We find that have to tell people to not use the copy feature because it causes problems when we have complex logic in the forms or required fields that should be different for every record.
When there is complex logic such as fields that trigger other fields, it is really challenging to clear the legacy data out if the user selects a different answer.
When there are fields that should be different for each record such as a point id or depth ranges, occasionally users forget to update those fields and there isn't any way to catch it within the form. We find those problems after folks have submitted the records.
If we could flag certain fields to be null on copy, it would save a lot of time for us.
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Not really. The copy feature is quite useful and saves folks a lot of time. We may have specific use cases where I could see disabling copying at a certain level but being able to disable specific fields would be more useful to my team.
And now that you've got me thinking, another feature of the disable copy that could be really useful would be to be able to disable certain subforms from copying when a parent record was copied. The subform would still need to be able to be copied individually.
Here are the different use cases:
* Disable copy of a form (still can copy the subform records individually)
* Disable copy of a subform when a parent form is copied
* Disable copy of a subform record
* Disable copy of specific fields when a form is copied
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We were reviewing previous requests and felt this was an item we would revisit. Periodically staff will copy records maintaining certain values such as depth. This needs to me unique when working with other systems.
Having a way to easily set the element in a record to copy or not copy would be a great enhancement. If this was a setting like the required checkbox it would be great.
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