What forms look like
The electronic forms you use in Workplace may look like paper forms, but they can have a variety of automated features. For example, when you select an item from a list of products, a description of the item and its unit cost can be filled in for you. Or forms such as invoices and purchase orders can be automatically assigned a unique number for identification purposes. These features are configured for you by the form's author.
In some cases, when you open a form, information is already filled out for you. For example, your company's website could contain a button that links to a form. When the form opens, personal information such as your employee number, name, and address could appear on the form.
Form appearance
The following graphic shows some of the automated features you may see on your forms.
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Forms may also appear with some of the following features:
- Hyperlink button: A link or a button on the form that opens a website or another form.
- Message Banner : A
small banner with a yellow background that is displayed at the top of the
form to indicate the form's status or an important message about a form. The
following graphic shows the message that is displayed when you open a template
that is not associated with a form policy. For
more information, see Open
Forms.
- Regions: In your browser window, frames or areas that are not part of the form may appear to the left, right, top, or bottom of the form. These areas could contain a notice about the form (the Notice region), your company's logo (the Banner region), a link to a company website, or other information.
- Router region: This region can appear immediately below or above your form and can include instructions, a deadline, or a place to add comments or a reponse.
The following graphic shows a form at a step in a workflow that has been configured to display with regions.
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Form Toolbar
Forms display with a button toolbar. Because form authors can customize this toolbar, you may see the toolbar at the top or bottom of the form, or in both locations. Form authors can also control which buttons display on the toolbar. You may see some or all of the following buttons on the toolbar.
- Submit Submits the data on your completed form to an external data source. The Submit button is visible only if the form author has configured the form with a submit action.
- PDF Generates a PDF version of the entire form. You can print the PDF file from Acrobat Reader.
- Help Displays a help message that the form author has configured for the form.
- Save Saves the filled out form as form data to an object store in Workplace.
- Exit Cancels the checkout, discards any changes to the form, and closes it. A
NOTE If a form displays with the PDF and Exit buttons only, it has opened in a read-only state. This occurs if you click a form template that has no document policy or workflow policy associated with it. See Open forms for more information.
Forms that are assigned to steps of a workflow appear with additional buttons on the toolbar. For more information, see Workflow based form operations.
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