Form responses workflows
You are able to set up forms with Edit, Approval, Release or Download steps within the form settings.
Once a form has been submitted, you can decide what you would like to happen afterwards. Who can edit the form? Does it need to be approved? Should the response not be shown until a "release"?
Completing forms follow a set path as displayed below.
You are able to opt in to either the approval or release steps but approval will always come after release.
You are able
By adding a "approval" step to your form workflow, you can empower managers or manager's managers to "sign off" on information before it is released.
How to setup form approvals:
- In Form > Settings > After Submission > Approval — Enable the approval step by clicking the checkbox for: ✅ Require approval
- Select an option for: "Who is responsible for approving this form response?"
- Manager
- Manager's Manager
The release of a person's performance review or other forms often involves specific individualized timing. By adding a "release" step to your form workflow, you can empower managers and other leaders to release the information when they are ready.
How to setup form releasing:
- In Form > Settings > After Submission > Release — Enable the release step by clicking the checkbox for: ✅ Require release
- Select an option for: "Who is allowed to release form responses?" — These are the people who will be able to press the “Release response" button on the profile tab
- Submitter — The person who submitted the form. For example, a manager in a downward review.
- Admin — In this context:
- An owner or editor of the Review associated with the form response.
- Anyone in the org with the formResponse:update permission.
- The only built in roles with this is Owner
Depending on the form-based process your are configuring you may want different people to be edit a form response until certain dates or actions are performed.
By default, a form response cannot be edited after it is submitted other than by an admin. You are able to optionally allow either the respondent or the approver to edit the form submission.
How to setup form editing options:
- In Form > Settings > After Submission > Editing — select who you would like to be able to edit by clicking the ✅ for either:
- Allow respondent to edit
- Allow approver to edit
- Select an option for: "How long can responses be edited?"
- Indefinitely
- Default - Recommended for forms where it will not matter if the responses change over time.
- Until it's approved
- Only availible if approvals are part of this form's workflow.
- Recommended for forms where the info may be changed until a "Approval" finalizes it such as a Goal Setting process with a manager and their direct report. You can use this to make the approval step as "sign off" that finalizes the form.
- Until the Review or Survey is closed
- Used if the form is associated with a Review or Survey to allow responses until the administrator manually closes a review or closes a survey.
- Recommended for forms where the results need to be finalized and remain unchanged (other than by admins) at the close of the review or survey.
- For a period of time
- Set a number of days after submission that the person can edit the response.
- Recommended for forms where historical information doesn't need to and shouldn't change.
- About: Another Person
- Submitted by: Their Manager
- Approval: Manager's Manager
- Release: Submitter (The Manager) or Admins
- Allow respondents to edit: Until it's approved
- Allow approvers to edit: Until the Review is closed
If you need form responses to be downloaded and stored as a PDF, you can allow anyone with access to the form responses. This will then display a download button on the form response so that it can be downloaded by the person.
How to setup a form response export for:
- In Form > Settings > After Submission > Export — Enable the release step by clicking the checkbox for: ✅ Allow viewer to export as a PDF
- After you select this, anyone who can view the response will now see a "download" button in the top right corner.
- Click "Download PDF" will generate a PDF of the form response and all relevant details.
Access restrictions will always be applied and text blocks will not be included in the export.
If you are looking to do a bulk export of form responses, see Exporting form responses.
Anyone in the org with the formResponse:update permission can edit forms at any time. The only built in roles with this is capability is Owner. Using Custom Access Roles this permission can be given to any custom access role.
As the form response is submitted, here is how it will appear flowing through the various stages.
As an approver, you will receive a notification and a task that you need to approve a form response. Clicking the task, will take you the profile tab where you can review and then Approve or Request Changes using the buttons at the bottom of the form.
When requesting changes, the approver must leave a comment with details of what should be changed. Once they have added a comment, they can click request changes.
After the changes are requested, the submitter will receive a notification and a task that they need to make changes to the submitted form response. Clicking on that notification will take them to the form response, where they can click make changes and edit the contents of the form and click Resumbit to restart the approval process. This may continue until the form response is approved.
As the person responsible for releasing the form, you will not receive a notification or a task that you need to release the form response. You will just need to go to the profile tab where you can review and then release the form by clicking the Release response to button.
After you press the button, you will be asked to confirm. The person the form is about will receive a notification as soon as the form is released.
Approving all form responses will move them from Awaiting Approval --> Approved/Awaiting Release.
To bulk approve forms:
- Go to the form that you want to approve within the Review
- Click the overflow menu and select Approve all form responses
- A confirmation modal will appear stating that all responses will be approved. Click Confirm to approve the responses.
- A notification will be sent to the person who submitted the form notifying them of the approval. An approval ✔️ with the name of the person who approved the forms and the time that they approved them will appear on the form response card.
Releasing all form responses will move all responses from Awaiting Release --> Released.
To bulk approve forms:
- Go to the form that you want to approve within the Review
- Click the overflow menu and select Release all form responses
- A confirmation modal will then appear stating that exactly what will happen next. Here you can opt out of release notifications or select the format of the notification: Slack or Email.
- Click Confirm to release the responses.
- If selected, a notification will then be sent to the person who submitted the form notifying them of the approval. A release ✔️ with the name of the person who released the forms and the time that they released them will appear on the form response card.
Depending on the form settings, if you have permission to edit a form response you will see a pencil icon in the top right corner of the form response. If you do not see the pencil icon, then you do have permission to edit the form response or editing is no longer allowed.
Click the pencil to edit the form.
When a form response has been edited, the time stamp from the latest edit and editor will be indicated in the header of the form response. This is helpful context for understanding the information in the header.
Notifications are sent to either email or slack depending on your org’s notification setting at the following times:
Event | Notification |
|---|---|
Upon Submission | 📨 [If Approvals are used] To the Approver, notifying them to review and approve the form 📨 To anyone else who is set to be notified based on the form settings |
Upon Request for changes | 📨 To the submitter of the form, notifying them they should make changes to the submission. |
Upon Approval | 📨 To the submitter of the form, notifying them the form has been approved. |
Upon Release | 📨 To the person who the form is about, notifying them that they can now view the form. 📨 To the submitter of the form if the submitter is not the person who released the form. |
As people submit their reviews, as an admin, you can monitor them within the review.
From the Forms tab within the review, you can see a graph that displays the responses.
To view the status of Individual responses, you can go to the Responses tab, then the Sheet or Individual View.
From the Sheet view, you can see the Approval Status and the Release Status.
From the Individual View, you can even take actions as an admin and Approve, Reject or Release forms.
The approver has left the organization, how do we approve the form?
The Owner of the ChartHop org will have the ability to approve the form.
The submitter has left the organization, how do we release the form?
The owner of the Review associated with the form response or the Owner of the ChartHop org will still have the ability to release the form.
What if a form is part of multiple reviews, can the owners/editors of all of the reviews release the form?
No. Only the owners/editors of the review associated with that form response. You can see the for response in the Review area of the app.
