Conference Form Questions

Questions are the core of Conference Forms.   Questions minimally consist of Question Text, Report Text and an Answer Type.  However they can contain a good deal of additional functionality:

• Whether to store the user's response directly into a Staff Record field and if so, which one.
• Whether to set User Flags or User Text field depending on criteria within the question itself.
• How to print out the information
• Possible default (i.e. starting) value.

This section describes the piece parts - the anatomy - of a Conference Form Question.  Conference Form Answer Types and how to create and configure them are described here.

Anatomy of a Question

While answer types are different from question to question, question structure remains the same and provides a great deal of standalone functionality:

Divided into functional groups of question parameters:

Question "Demographics"

• Number - This is the question number.  It is NOT the display sequence - see below for that.  It is used internally as an identifier for this question.
• Question Code - This is a Code that can be used to refer to this question from outside the Conference Form itself.  Most specifically, it can be used in PDF Forms to get the content of a specific question.
• Required - If checked the question must be answered.  This only applies to questions which can be "required" - Checkboxes for example cannot be required.

Question Text for Input and Output

• Question - This is the question text that will be displayed to the user who must respond to the question.  
• Report Header - This is the "header" for this question in a printed report (e.g. PDF Form).  This is the 'section header' for the question in the PDF generated from this Conference Form.
• PDF Form Question - This is the form the question will take when a PDF is generated from the Conference Form.

Question Answer Type and Answer Parameters

These are details about the way the question will be answered, how to display the answer and part of what to do with the answer.

• Store Result when form is completed in this Staff field - When the Form is completed by the user and submitted, the answer to this question will be saved in the selected field in the staff record.  This field is only populated for certain Answer Types.  That is, answers can only be stored directly into Staff Records for certain types of questions.  Answer Types that do not have a 'natural Staff Record field' cause this drop down to be empty.
• Answer Type - This selects how the question will be answered.  Answer Types are detailed here.   The Answer Type of a question specifies the options given to the user to answer.
• Align Question Text - This simply specifies whether the answer itself should be left, right or center justified.  This controls essentially the "niceness" of the appearance of the responses.  For example, "No Answer" Questions can have text aligned to the Center of the page.
• Default Value - If a default value is to be supplied, it can be entered here.  The value can be simple - or it can be an entire, complex Expression Language Expression.

Display Controls

• Padding Top - The number of points to leave between this question and the previous question.  A good starting point is 10 (10 points).
• Bold - Check to have the answer appear in bold font.
• Italic - Check to have the answer appear in italic text.

Display Sequence

The display sequence is the numeric order in which the question will be displayed.  Change this number and you change the position of this question in the list of questions.  The list of questions is always sorted by the "Display Sequence" numbers.

User Flag Decisions and Controls

Every question can be used to set:

• A user flag to set if the "User Flag Expression" results in a "true" value.
• A user flag to set if the "User Flag Expression" results in a "false" value.
• A User Text field to set.

The "User Flag Expression" must be an Expression Language Expression that results in either a 'true' or a 'false' Boolean value.  More on User Flag Expressions here.