Published
2022-08-10 07:12
Form Builder is a promising new cross-platform tool for making forms that sync with CiviCRM data. It's more powerful flexible than Profiles, and more compatible than proprietary plugins like Caldera. The only downside is that it's not finished. It is currently included with CiviCRM as a beta extension, but we can change that.
Let's make 2022 the year that Form Builder gets out of beta and into mainstream use! Here are some encouraging recent developments and exciting plans for the near future (and how you can help):
Big Picture/Planning
- Regularly-scheduled planning calls are open to anyone. Join us the 2nd Thursday of each month at 12pm EST (join the FormBuilder Chat Channel and I'll post a link to the meeting a day or so in advance each month).
- Michael and Kurund from 3rd Sector Design are on board as Form Builder developers and have already made some progress.
- We've put together a roadmap to plan out the next big features we'd like to see in Form Builder. It's a fluid document and will be updated periodically.
Recent Improvements
- Form Builder now supports creating relationships between contacts.
- Thanks to WMF for sponsoring a Layout Designer feature which allows Form Builder to compose dashboard-like pages comprising multiple "panes" of search displays or forms.
- Added an easy way to add forms to the navigation menu.
- Added undo/redo buttons to Form Builder, making it easier to fix mistakes!
In-progress Enhancements
- Thanks to sponsorship from Jon Goldberg we now have the ability to select Existing records.
- Required field validation on both client and server-side is nearly complete.
- Jon is improving submission data to include all submitted values.
- Kurund is working on support for hidden and display-only fields.
- Greenleaf Advancement has sponsored work to integrate Form Builder with CiviCase.
Get Involved!
Join the conversation in the FormBuilder Chat Channel and make a financial contribution toward the effort. Every bit helps!
Coleman Watts is a lead developer of CiviCRM, and the host of infocomedy web series Think This Through.
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Comments
this sounds really exciting! thanks all for the great job.
This is great work by the core team and all the contributors Coleman. We are proud to be sponsoring the work that we can, and we encourage others to do the same. This and Search Kit are game changers for CiviCRM, greatly improving the capacity for the building of custom workflows and applications. We are excited about the work so far, and can't wait to see continued improvements. Keep it coming! - Guy Iaccarino, Greenleaf Advancement
I agree with Guy! Search Kit is a game changer for CiviCRM, reporting was always a challenge but now it can be done relatively easily. Also looking forward to Form Builder and being able to increase the capabilities of WordPress and a Stand Alone CiviCRM.
However are we all just going to brush over Colemans latest project? Think This Through! Wow. Both funny, informative and slightly worrying at the same time. Perhaps SearchKit has sent him slightly mad....
Bari
Well done, exciting times - we have started to making good use of Search Kit. I now have to check out Think this Through after reading the comments :-)