What's new in OpenForms

20 FEBRUARY, 2025

Insights Dashboard Revamp

 

Data alone can be just a number or a piece of text, but grouped together becomes information and insights that can help us make better decisions.

Previously our Insights page had two basic lists of information and a small handful statistics showing the number of responses received and the amount of payments transacted in the forms.

We've refreshed the layout to make these reports easier to view, navigate and search. Giving more purpose and focus for each report. We've also introduced two new reports to help you more easily manage your forms at a birds eye view and give your finance team a central location to see all paid transactions.

New Insights reports (payments and form governance) only available on non-legacy Enterprise subscriptions. Existing reports with refreshed interfaces available to everyone.

Enhancements throughout OpenForms

1. New organization-level settings for file upload fields: configure the settings for this type of field so that when authors use it on their forms it will already have the right max file size and number of files. One less thing for your authors to remember when creating a form, making the process more efficient
2. Old API keys from deprecated version 1, 2 & 3 will be removed from the system, cleaning up your keys listing
3. Performance improvements for the CSV export of form responses
4. Refactoring and performance improvements across the administration site. Navigating between pages should feel faster and more responsive

An update on our Google Maps Connector

We've received notification from Google Maps that certain API services we use in our connector will be transitioned to Legacy status on 1 March 2025. They will still work for a year to give us and customers time to migrate to newer versions.

Do not update your Google Maps account to use the latest versions of these APIs as they will not work with our current connector in OpenForms. We will be in touch again once we have updated our connector and you can then update your configuration through your Google Console.

If your usage of the Google Maps connector in OpenForms exhausts your free quota from your Google Maps Console you may be charged at a different rate to what Google has charged you in the past. We will be working as quickly as possible to upgrade our connector to reduce any disruptions and costs of this service.

12 NOVEMBER, 2024

Workflow & Azure AD partner up

To bring efficiencies to your forms' workflow management we've expanded our Microsoft Azure AD connector to now work inside your forms' Workflow settings. You can select an Azure AD Group as a reviewer in addition to, or instead of, selecting individual staff members. Now when staff move positions or leave the organization you can simply update their assignment in Azure AD and the changes will flow through to OpenForms without you needing to update forms individually.

Don't have the Azure AD Connector and/or Workflow available on your subscription? Chat with us about upgrading. This update will be available on non-legacy Enterprise subscriptions with the Azure AD add-on.

Enhancements throughout OpenForms

1. Introduction of a search feature on many pages throughout the Admin and Integrations sections of OpenForms. Many of our customers have a large number of Lists, Themes, Snippets, Data Connections, etc, which can be hard to scroll through and find the one you're looking for. Now you can simply search by name to filter the list.
2. Writing content for emails to staff and respondents in form settings has always been a HTML editor, now we've introduced the ability to swap it over to the "visual editor" so you can write and format the content of your emails without needing to write any code.
   
   When updating existing forms make sure to check the content to see if it is still formatted the way you want as we convert your HTML. Some HTML is not supported in the visual editor, e.g. tables; so if you use those you will need to keep your content in HTML mode.
   
   This editor is also available when writing content for the message that appears to respondents after successfully submitting their form.
3. Location fields in forms are now more configurable with the introduction of the option to show/hide the "Use my current location" button. This gives you more control if you also use Data Connections or an ESRI connector with a Location field.
4. Squashed bugs of note:
   • In certain scenarios the default pdf for responses would download an incorrect version from the Responses page in a form. This has been rectified and will now download the latest version.
   • If one of the files attached to an email was invalid, e.g. was missing an file extension; the email was not being sent at all. This has been fixed so that the email still sends.
   • ESRI field settings were not showing all options correctly in certain scenarios. This has been fixed so that the settings show correctly now.

 

Upcoming decommissions

The POLi payment gateway uses cookies and will therefore stop working once the Google Chrome web browser stops accepting 3rd party cookies. We're getting ahead of this and advising customers to retire this payment gateway and move onto another gateway of their choice so that payments can continue to be collected through OpenForms successfully.

The PayNow payment gateway will also be decommissioned.

If you are using either of these gateways we will be in contact soon to help you move forward with an alternative gateway.

 

17 SEPTEMBER, 2024

This release introduces govDelivery integration for subscriber capture, multi-factor authentication for user login, and many feature improvements and bug fixes that will provide you with the best experience possible in OpenForms.

govDelivery integration

Available on current (non-legacy) subscriptions. Not sure what subscription you're on? Reach out today.

OpenForms can now integrate with govDelivery, the Granicus' communications product. If you already have govDelivery and OpenForms, you'll be able to collect new subscribers to your mailing lists directly in your forms. Get in touch if you're interested in learning more about govDelivery.

How it works

Before you begin, ensure your govDelivery administrator has the relevant account, topics and categories configured in your organization's govDelivery environment ready to receive subscribers.

Your OpenForms administrator can then proceed to set up the govDelivery connector. Once the connector is ready, form authors can insert the Subscriber Capture field to any form they like, and select the preferred govDelivery connection and topics to display in the field settings. They will also provide a link to your organization's privacy policy, which respondents can consent to when they subscribe. 

As your respondents fill in the form, they will see the Subscriber Capture field as part of the form (example above). To subscribe, they simply select Yes, enter their email address and topic(s) they are interested in. This email address will automatically pre-populate if they have already entered one in a previous part of the form, further saving them time.

Once respondent submits the form, their subscription preferences will be automatically sent to govDelivery. Depending on how your govDelivery administrator has set this up, every new subscriber will receive an email confirmation from govDelivery, including a link to manage their subscription preferences moving forward.

Multi-factor authentication for your login

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the most effective ways to protect your valuable information and accounts against unauthorised access. As an OpenForms user, you can choose to enable MFA when you login. All you need to do is navigate to your Profile page in OpenForms and enable 2-step verification. You will be prompted to scan a QR code into your preferred authenticator app and follow the steps to complete the process.

Once enabled, you will be asked for your username and password, plus a verification code each time you login to OpenForms. You can disable this 2-step verification anytime, and if you are unable to - reach out to your Account Owner to disable this on your behalf.

Please note that this MFA feature will not apply if you currently use Azure AD or OpenCities account to login to OpenForms.

Convenience fee for Paymentus payment gateway

In our last release, we launched Paymentus payment gateway connector for use in OpenForms across the US. This connector now supports convenience fee based on payment type, so the amount you configure in your Paymentus account can flow through to the payment field automatically in OpenForms. On the form we display a confirmation popup to respondents prior to form submission to inform them of the fee amount and total charge. 

If you are interested in using the Paymentus connector - we recommend reaching out early to Paymentus Support to setup your test/live environments, whitelist our IP addresses and configure other settings such as convenience fee before you add the connector. More details are available on the Paymentus connector page in OpenForms.

Continuous improvements and bug fixes

Form authoring and usage

• Form template library: Added duplicate form name check when user creates a form based on template, fixed up feedback form URL on template library page. 

• Workspaces: Moving form from one workspace to another refreshes the UI straightaway, update workspace permissions to handle AD user belonging to more than one AD group.

• Saving form: No more issues saving imported forms with specific references to fieldset and smart logic.

• Date field: Operator against today's date now saves correctly if author clicks Save and preview straightaway, user no longer gets prompted unnecessarily if Date field is required and has a default date set. 

Form workflow and review

• Workflow transition with 2 email notifications (one with response pdf attachment and one without) now works as expected.

• The "Add notification" button is no longer disabled when a notification to respondent is present for final workflow step.

• Improved error handling when publishing form from Workflow tab.

User Profile 

• Resending of verification email allowed if user changes their email address.

• Status now displays as Awaiting Verification when user updates their email which is pending verification.

Administrator function 

• Updated AD user sync to handle organization's AD properties unsupported by OpenForms.

• Added scroll bar to left navigation menu in Admin so all links are visible when Organization Default is expanded.

• ArcGIS ESRI connector: Increased API key field length in ESRI connector to support ESRI's latest API keys.

• Sharepoint connector: Files with same filename are renamed (instead of replaced) during Sharepoint export, fixed issue with export when not all repeated fields are answered.

 

2 JULY, 2024

This release introduces a new Form template library for authors to easily preview a selection of prebuilt templates and use them to create new forms. Another key deliverable is a new Paymentus payment gateway connector – available to our United States (US) customers. 

As previously communicated, OpenForms will no longer support legacy versions v1, v2 and v3 of Data Connections and Web APIs after end of June 2024. Impacted customers should update their integrations to the latest version v4 as soon as possible.  

Form template library inside OpenForms

Available on current and legacy subscriptions.
  

To make it easier to get your forms up and running, OpenForms now comes with a new Form template library filled with prebuilt templates. Your authors can now preview and select a template to create their new form if they do not wish to build one from scratch.  

The library will initially contain five form templates (moved across from the Help Center) including the Bin request, Contact us, Decision tree, Job application, and Repeatable group templates. All templates are managed by the Product team, and we welcome you to submit suggestions for new templates. A future enhancement will look at allowing you to upload and manage templates specific to your organization.    

Discontinued legacy versions of Data Connections and Web API

With this release, versions 1, 2 and 3 of data connections and Web API will be completely discontinued. This allows OpenForms to keep our system free of old code that is no longer used, and in turn improves performance, security and code cleanliness. 

If you still use these legacy versions, please update your middleware and in-app configurations to use version 4 to avoid any interruptions. We have communicated this change since June 2023, and our Customer Support representatives got in touch via our support ticket system back in February 2024 to let you know which of your data connections need attention, and if you have API keys still accessing old versions of the API. If you have further questions, please reach out to Granicus Support.

New US payment gateway - Paymentus

This new gateway will be available for you to use in your forms across the US. If you already have a Paymentus account you can easily get set up to start asking payments on your forms. Check out the articles on how to set up a payment gateway and take payments through a form. 

Please note this gateway does not yet support convenience fees you configure for specific payment type in Paymentus - this is an enhancement we will look to incorporate in a future release.

Continuous improvements and fixes

Microsoft Sharepoint connector

• Implemented predictive search for users to locate specific Sharepoint sites, document libraries and lists.
• Make new field Form ID available for mapping to a "single-line text" or "number" column type in Sharepoint.
• Support mapping of Date fields and Submission date/time fields to "multiple lines of text" column type in Sharepoint.

Administration

• The date range selector for filtering form analytics has been restricted to last 12 months, to improve performance and response time.
• Workspace with restricted permissions no longer have permissions reset when its Admin/Author/Reporter is promoted to a higher role.

• Pagination issue on Account > Track account storage page now resolved.

Form authoring and usage

• Accessibility improvements for keyboard and screen reader users. 
• Able to save the fieldset after a field with display logic is duplicated.
• Page displays correctly when editing a link inside Content field after saving form.
• ESRI predictive list populates when map display is disabled for Location field.
• Issue duplicating a Calculation field with smart logic and variables now fixed.
• Drag-and-drop a section using 'Insert below section' now works as expected.

 

30 APRIL, 2024

This release contains several long-awaited upgrades to OpenForms, providing better user experience and security for our customers. Included are upgrades to form builder capability and email size limit, a new payment integration for Stripe as well as multiple bug fixes and feature improvements.

Easily build calculation formula, smart logic rules and date field based on today's date

Form authors can now reference "today" in Form Builder when:

• Using date functions within Calculation fields e.g. dateDiff ('31 Dec 2024', today)
• Showing or hiding fields with Smart Logic by comparing today with other dates using the "is before", "is after" or "=" operator
• Setting a date or date range for a Date field

This new capability will both simplify and expand a form author's ability to build forms that require today's date to be captured dynamically when a respondent loads the form, which is then used to drive logic and behavior within the form.

For consistency, OpenForms recognizes today's date based on the organization's time zone, instead of the respondent's browser/device time zone.

Increased email sending size

The size limit for email notifications sent from OpenForms (to respondents or staff) has been upgraded from 10MB to 40MB. This limit applies to the email content plus any attached files.

The new 40MB limit will benefit customers who use OpenForms to send email notifications with larger attachments, making it easier for recipients to access attachments directly within the email instead of needing to click a link to another page to view the attachment.

New Stripe payment gateway connector

A new Stripe payment gateway connector is now available for use within OpenForms, and is recommended for all customers who process payments on their forms using Stripe.

This replaces the legacy Stripe connector that used older version of Stripe APIs and required customers to adjust their Stripe account settings to enable encrypted card numbers to pass through OpenForms.

The new Stripe connector now redirects users to a Stripe-hosted page that securely collects payment information, ensuring that sensitive card numbers do not pass through OpenForms server. This brings OpenForms in line with Stripe's latest APIs, providing improved security and fraud protection for our customers.

To upgrade the Stripe payment connector on your form, see how you can set up a new Stripe connector and update the connector on your existing forms.

Continuous improvements and fixes 

Form builder

• When there is a hidden repeatable group in form, respondent can now submit (or progress to next section) without any issue.
• Support form accessibility by ensuring fields are highlighted and focused correctly when respondent tabs through using keyboard.
• Picking a form's deactivation date using calendar widget in Form General settings now populates the Date field correctly.
• Custom CSS class added to Standard Group or Repeatable Group fields are now placed in the form's HTML.
• Email notification when respondent saves a response now shows the verified sender details as configured in the Form Response settings.
• Save Progress link now works for forms containing Content field that displays piping from a group.
• Timeout issue when deleting some forms is now resolved.

Workflow

• When adding email notification for the final transition, additional emails must not be blank (since there are no further reviewers to notify).

Connector

• Sharepoint Connector settings: Dropdown list for Sharepoint sites, lists and document libraries are now sorted in alphabetical order.

Admin function

• Some customers had trouble updating their organization timezone setting in OpenForms, this is now working.
• When Admin saves a User account without any changes, success message no longer indicates email was sent to the User.
• Improved error message when Admin tries to update or deactivate OpenForms user synched from OpenCities.

 

27 FEBRUARY, 2024

We couldn't wait any longer to get yet another feature release into OpenForms, even though we had one just go out in January. This time we turned our attention to a solution that gives administrators the ability to guide the governance of content and configuration of any new forms that are created in their organization. That's not all though, we've also squashed some more bugs and implemented further enhancements to existing features. Read on to learn more about all the inclusions in this release.

Introducing Organization Defaults

Available on current (non-legacy) Enterprise subscriptions. Not sure what subscription you're on? Reach out today.

If you could create a central mind for your authors so that each and every form created by any one of them uses a consistent theme, tone of voice, and content for emails and messages, we're sure you would have done that already...

However, a hive mind is something us humans haven't quite got the hang of yet. Not to worry, we've created the next best thing with our new Organization Defaults feature.

 

How it works

Use these settings to define many of the form settings so that your authors don't have to. Remove the repetitive tasks from authors while gaining consistency across your forms. Admin staff can configure many of the fields that you typically find in the form Settings tab, such as the written language selection, theme selection, staff email notification and respondent email notification, just to name a few.

When an author goes to create a new form from scratch it will use whatever the latest settings are.

While we were creating this new area of the Admin settings we moved the "Buttons, text & messages" page in here as well. This page works a little differently to the rest of the Organization Defaults. Any changes to the buttons, text and messages will filter down to all forms, while the rest of the default settings will only affect newly created forms.

Continuous improvements and fixes

Workflow

• Previously, smart logic transitions that link to final steps and triggered email notifications were limited to being sent to Respondents plus additional email addresses. Now you will be able to write emails that only go to Respondents and/or only go to additional email addresses. The radio button option for sending to reviewers has been enabled so that you can select it when required.
• The above change has also been updated for standard transitions.
• We've refined the performance of the Workflow builder when loading, saving and publishing from the Workflow tab.

Connectors

• A new v4 API endpoint has been introduced that allows the developer to choose the file type from a set list of options when retrieving the image file of a signature field. Originally this was limited to the SVG file type.
• The Microsoft SharePoint Connector was previously not loading all sites from the linked SharePoint instance. This has been updated to load the file list now. Customers with a large number of sites may need to wait longer for the list to load as we are limited by the speed at which the Microsoft API gives us the list each time.

Miscellaneous

• The architecture of the Admin area has been split into two categories for ease of readability and navigation. All the pages are still there, just reorganised into a more logical order.
• The email address used to send saved response reminders will always use the latest configured email address from the form. Previously it was not using the latest address if the response was saved prior to the address being changed by an author.
• The performance of saving changes to a List that has an extremely large number of items has been improved.
• When viewing the list of user accounts in the Admin area, the last login date of each user is now visible on the listing. This will make it easier to know if there are old user accounts that can be deactivated if no longer being used by staff.
• The date range filter on form analytics, form responses and organization insights pages was previously limited to going back only 5 years. This has been updated to now go back to the year 2014 instead.

 

16 JANUARY, 2024

We've packed a lot into this release so read on to learn all about these fantastic new additions and improvements

• New Connector: Microsoft SharePoint Lists
• New Connector: Certified Payments payment gateway (US region only)
• Workflow: Request Changes from the Respondent - now more configurable
• Security enhancements: PCI-DSS & Microsoft Azure AD
• Choose which credit card logos display in your Payment field based on the chosen payment gateway
• Plus lots more bug fixes and enhancements across both the admin and resident experiences

Get response data to the teams that need it with our new Microsoft SharePoint Connector

Available on current (non-legacy) Enterprise subscriptions. Not sure what subscription you're on? Reach out today.

We know your response data doesn’t end its journey in OpenForms. Pothole reports go to maintenance teams, survey results are viewed by managers outside OpenForms, and permits are filed in document storage.

If your organization is one of many that use the Microsoft cloud, OpenForms’ new SharePoint Connector makes it easy to automatically distribute response data to these people and systems.

This means your staff spend more time doing meaningful work, and less time copying, pasting and forwarding data.

How it works

Forms using the SharePoint connector automatically push response data - including file uploads and custom documents - to designated SharePoint lists and document libraries in your organization’s Microsoft cloud. This article will step you through the setup process for configuring the lists, document libraries and your forms.

Once configured, each of your chosen forms sends response data to a SharePoint list as soon as a submission is received or finalized at the end of a workflow.

Leverage Microsoft's tools

SharePoint lists feed data to Microsoft’s extensive library of integrations. Using low-code tools like PowerAutomate, your IT team can automate the distribution of that data throughout your organization.

It's not just about access. Using Microsoft's automation tools, OpenForms responses can do these and so much more:

• Trigger Teams notifications
• Generate Salesforce tickets
• Update management-facing graphs

Recent Workflow release now more configurable

In early October 2023 we released a new feature as part of Workflow for our non-legacy Enterprise subscriptions that allows you to request changes from a respondent after they've submitted their form, keeping all their original data and new changes all together in the one form response.

Now that you've had a chance to start using this ability, we've made it more flexible and configurable so that it can fit even better into your business processes. You'll be able to:

• Enable/Disable this feature per form that is using Workflow
• Edit the templates for emails that are sent to the Respondent for their initial notification and information about recalling their response
• Create new reminder emails for the Respondent to make sure they don't forget to open their form and make the changes you've requested of them.
• Get updated response data via the API and Data Connections
• Pipe office-use-only fields into the form display in case you want to show information to the Respondent that was filled in during the Workflow steps their response already moved through before being sent back for changes.

New US Payment Gateway - Certified Payments

This new gateway will be available for you to use in your forms across the US. If you already have a Certified Payments account you can easily get set up to start taking payments on your forms. Check out the articles for taking payments on your forms and setting up gateways or look for the logos in the Integrations > Connectors Library in OpenForms.

We are supporting the use of the Convenience Fee feature from Certified Payments so that any fees you configure in your account will flow through to the payment field automatically in OpenForms. On the form we will display a confirmation popup to Respondents prior to form submission to inform them of the fee amount and total charge.

Continuous improvements

In addition to general maintenance of our code to keep OpenForms running smoothly and efficiently, we've included these notable fixes for bugs you've found and improvements for existing features and functionality. Here's some you may be interested in:

Security & PCI-DSS compliance updates

• Following recommendations from Microsoft, we've updated the logout process for staff who use their Azure AD account to access OpenForms. Now you can select which AD account you're logging out of when logging out of OpenForms.
• When a respondent goes to submit a form we will check if any of the regular fields in the form have collected data that is formatted like a credit/debit card number. If we find any we will stop the submission from happening to reduce the chance that card data is stored in OpenForms. An appropriate message is displayed to the respondent informing them of this and that they should contact the City about this form.

General improvements

• Esri GIS connector now supports more coordinate systems. If you were having trouble with the Location field always showing a red error when dropping a pin inside a visual boundary instead of showing a successful address entry, this should now be fixed. The supported coordinate systems have the following IDs: 4326, 6576, 26717, 28356.
• The content of the error message that is displayed to Respondents when we are not able to access their GPS coordinates for our Location field are easier to comprehend and fall more in line with messages they may already see when using websites such as Google Maps.
• The API key listing page now shows the date that a key was last used to access the API, allowing you to regularly check on which keys are being used and which can safely be deactivated to keep you data secure.
• Admin staff can now choose which card logos are displayed in the payment field of your form based on the credit card payment gateway being used. By default we'll turn on VISA and MasterCard to be consistent with the existing form display, however now you can choose any of the following simply by updating the settings of your gateway: VISA, MasterCard, Amex, Diners Club, Discover, and JCB.

Bug fixes

• The list of Reminder emails configured in a Workflow step are now sorted in the correct order in the step builder popup.
• Editing a form using the Duplicate Section functionality multiple times on sections that have fields which have "daisy-chained" smart logic to control their display was sometimes causing errors when trying to save your changes. This will now save correctly.
• Using a Data Connection to send data to a field within a Repeatable Group will no longer clear out values from all other fields within that same group.

4 DECEMBER, 2023

An end of year gift from us to you, full of enhancements and fixes throughout OpenForms

In this release will be fixes for bugs you've found and improvements for existing features and functionality. Here's a list of what's included:

Security updates

• If a staff member has not logged into OpenForms in over 12 months and they are not synced from Azure AD or OpenCities we will send them an email reminding them to set a new password as theirs has been deemed out of date.
• Javascript entered into text fields by the Respondent that is subsequently piped into the post-submission success message will no longer run. We will continue to run any javascript entered into the success message by the author. However, care should always be taken when doing so.

General improvements

• Editing variables in Calculation formulas now opens in a pop-up modal instead of an accordion, making it easier to view and edit each variable individually.
• Admin users can now re-send verification emails to new staff who haven't set up their password yet.

Bug fixes

• Logo images uploaded in Themes now display with the correct height when the image is larger than 80px tall. No need for additional CSS in your theme to fix this issue.
• Forms no longer auto-scroll to the top of the form when a website visitor loads a page that has the form embedded.
• Staff who have their user account swapped from syncing from a connected OpenCities installation to an Azure AD SSO connection should now be able to log in smoothly with their Azure AD account directly in OpenForms. No need to get in touch with the support team to have their user accounts updated by us.

11 OCTOBER, 2023

Get it right the second time with returnable forms

We know that many of you would love to return submitted forms back to respondents so they can clarify or update answers.

But asking your residents to fill out a whole form again to fix a minor error is tiresome for them and you. Meanwhile, the workaround you've told us about shift the burden onto your staff, who need to keep track of updates they've made via phone or email.

OpenForms can save both your residents and staff that time, and help you keep all your response data in one place.

How it all works

If your organization uses Workflows in a current (non-legacy) OpenForms Enterprise subscription, while Reviewers are working through their list in the Review Center they'll be able to ask Respondents to resubmit any responses that need clarification or additional detail, including file upload fields.

Those respondents will be able to re-open their completed form just like a saved response, make the necessary changes and then re-submit the form, all without needing to start from scratch.

If a Reviewer has requested changes from the Respondent but finds that changes are no longer needed, they can recall the response before the Respondent re-submits the form. The response will return straight back to the step in Workflow it was sent from instead of starting from the beginning of the workflow process. We'll also notify the Respondent that their form has been recalled.

We'll be following up before the end of the year with another Workflow update to further enhance this feature, bringing authors the ability to edit the templates for the emails that are sent to the Respondent in each form using Workflow.

If you use Data Connections, we've now introduced a property that will tell you if it is being triggered from a resubmitted form response rather than an original submission.

If you use a Payment field on your forms, a new total may be calculated but transactions will not be performed on resubmission by the Respondent. Any additional charges or refunds will need to be finalised and transacted outside of OpenForms. Reviewers can add internal notes to help log this information with the form response in the Review Center once completed before transitioning the response to a final step.

Not sure what subscription you're on? Reach out today.

That's not all folks

As always we don't just bring you new features in our updates, there's lots of great improvements and bug fixing happening as well. Here's our top picks that have been improved:

• Filtering the list of responses in your form has been tidied up for Reporters so that searching for responses is a bit easier for text, submission date and receipt number filters. We've also introduced a new filter for Workflow step which will show on forms that have a published Workflow.

• Version 4 of the WebAPI was missing the buttons, text and messages content from the form details.

• When creating email snapshots there would occasionally be a javascript error triggered, not any more.

• When using a wide logo in your form theme it was having some display issues on smaller screen sizes. We've tidied this up to be more readable.
• Using hidden calculation fields within a repeatable group would sometimes not result in a correct calculation answer. The workaround was to change the calculation field to be visible rather than hidden. This has now been fixed so hidden calculations work correctly again in repeatable groups.
• Office-use-only groups couldn't be moved up/down the form after they were published. We've updated this so you can move these groups of fields up or down when editing your form again.
• When using our new Esri ArcGIS connector on a form that was using an old theme version the map would continuously grow in height on the form display. We've stopped this from happening now for those older themes.

6 JUNE, 2023

Validate location answers with Esri ArcGIS

We've improve the experience of location-specific forms with the new Esri ArcGIS connector.

Choose your location data

The Esri ArcGIS connector adds new functionality to the location field, by checking location answers against data in your organisation's Esri ArcGIS account. 

This data can include:

• Council or city boundaries
• Service areas
• Smaller, bespoke lists like recreation areas

How residents benefit

Form authors using the Esri ArcGIS connector can opt to restrict answers to locations in their Esri datasets only.

This means residents from outside your city don't waste their time - and yours - requesting services you can't provide (like bin collection). 

Local residents, meanwhile, can quickly find specific places - like camp sites - by seeing only validated locations when they search.

The connector can even pull visual data like boundaries and points of interest from your Esri ArcGIS account, to help guide respondents. 

What you need to know

As the Esri ArcGIS connector leverages the location field, using it doesn't require extensive changes to existing forms. Once an admin has configured the connector, form authors can select it in their location field to start validating answers.

Admins can configure as many Esri ArcGIS connectors as form authors need, so your forms can cater to a variety of location specific scenarios.

This connector is a powerful enhancement to location-specific forms, available to all organisations on current (non-legacy) OpenForms Enterprise and Teams subscriptions. 

Not sure what subscription you're on? Reach out today.

That's not all

We haven't neglected continuous improvement while working on our headline feature. In addition to building the Esri ArcGIS connector, we've also improved the session timeout experience for all OpenForms users. 

Previously anyone using OpenForms was automatically logged out after 90 minutes of inactivity, without warning. Now, after 75 minutes, users are presented with a warning that they'll be logged out soon and an opportunity to extend their session. If they don't extend, they'll be logged out after 90 minutes as usual. 

As always, we've also been squashing all manner of bugs. Here's a few that some of you previously reached out about:

• Previously, exported emails (such as .msg files) submitted using the file upload field could not be read by reviewers or reporters. This has been fixed now.

• Previously, if respondents removed every instance of a repeatable group in a form, that form would crash. This has been fixed.

• Previously, bulk exports of responses to forms containing snippets were prone to failure. They export successfully now. 

• Answers to email fields piped into notifications, reminders, and other automated emails could previously contain random, unexplained spaces. No longer. Phew! 

Sunsetting older version of do it yourself integrations

One final update of note, regarding older versions of do-it-yourself integrations:

From December 2023, we will only support version 4 (or later) data connections and OpenForms API keys. 

As of this release, your developers are no longer be able to create version 1, 2, or 3 data connections or OpenForms API keys. 

Existing data connections and API keys using these older versions will keep working for now, but we'll be ending support for them in December 2023.

We anticipate fully phasing those integration versions out in June 2024, at which point they'll stop working entirely. 

If you're using older versions now, you'll need to update your data connections, API keys, and middleware by June 2024 to avoid interruptions.

We will reach out multiple times before then, but if you want to talk further now, get in touch with our support staff.