Building forms: your own work orders and checklists in stipt

What is a form in stipt?

A form in stipt is a fill‑in template you build once and reuse over and over. Think of a work order, an installation checklist, an intake questionnaire or an inspection report.

Every completed form is called a submission. A submission always belongs to a record: the record of a customer or job in stipt. That way a completed work order sits right on the job it belongs to, including photos and signature.

A submission has a status: draft, submitted, accepted or rejected. That tells the office what has come in and what still needs review. Forms is a module that is on by default in the Module center. An admin builds the forms under Settings > Forms, in the Modules group; no coding knowledge is needed.

Which field types are there?

You click a field type in the library to add it; inside the form you drag fields to change the order. There are fields for text (short and long), numbers, dates, times, email and phone. For choices there are a dropdown, multi‑select, radio buttons, a checkbox, a star rating and the product picker, which lets the person filling in tick products from your catalog with a quantity. For media there are photo, file upload, signature and a scanner for QR codes and barcodes, handy for serial numbers.

Any field can be required. You can also add validation, such as a minimum or maximum for numbers and a minimum or maximum length for text. On photo and file fields you can limit the number of files and the maximum file size.

On a phone, the photo field opens the camera directly, so a technician puts photos on the form right on site. The customer signs with a finger on the screen.

How do I keep a form clear and organized?

Besides input fields there are structure blocks. They ask nothing, but they make the form clear.

A title splits the form into recognizable parts, for example Details, Work performed and Handover. An info text is a piece of text between the fields, useful for instructions such as “photograph the meter cupboard with the door open”. An image block shows an example photo inside the form, so the person filling it in can see what the result should look like.

Want to split up a long form? Add the Next page block. The person filling it in then sees one step at a time, which works well on a phone.

How do conditional fields and pages work?

A field can appear based on an earlier answer. You set a condition per field: show this field when another field equals a certain value, differs from it, contains certain text or simply has been filled in.

Example: the question “describe the fault” only appears when the answer to “fault found?” is yes. Whoever answers no doesn't see the follow‑up questions and finishes sooner.

The same works for entire pages. The Next page block can carry a condition; if it doesn't match, the form skips the whole page. This way you build one form that adapts to the situation, without separate templates for every case.

Can stipt fill in fields automatically?

Yes. For fields of the type text, text area, email, phone, date and time you pick a source under Auto‑fill in the field settings. Think of the customer's name, email address or phone number, the street, house number, postal code or city of the location, the employee's name, the appointment date or time, and the record name.

When the form opens, stipt fills those fields from the linked record, in the app, in the portal and through the public link alike. Only empty answers are filled: anything the person already typed stays, and an auto‑filled value remains editable. If a source has nothing to offer, because there is no appointment for example, the field simply stays empty.

The Product list block also shows the record's products automatically, with quantity and name: exactly what the Products module on the record shows. It can't be edited and the table appears in the PDF as well. Useful for a handover form that shows what was delivered.

How do I link a form to a record type or appointment type?

A form only appears on a record once you link it to a record type. You do that in the form builder on the Form tab under Linked pages, or in the settings of that record type at the Forms block. If you have the types Lead and Job, for example, you link the work order to Job only. Every job then shows a Forms block with the linked templates.

You can also attach a form to an appointment type, on that type's Automation tab. When such an appointment is booked, stipt automatically prepares the form for the team member on that appointment. Move the appointment to someone else and the form moves along.

A template you no longer use can be set to inactive. Existing submissions are kept.

Who fills in the form: your team, field service or the customer?

There are three ways to get a form filled in.

Internally: a team member opens the record in stipt, picks the form in the Forms block and starts a new submission.

Field service: technicians and other field workers use the portal, a mobile‑friendly web app. Forms assigned to them appear under Tasks, and for an appointment with a form they tap Start form on site. Progress is also saved on the server, so a half‑filled form doesn't get lost and can be continued on another device.

Customer or third party: with Share link you create a public link to send by email or chat. The recipient fills in the form without logging in. The link belongs to one submission: after submitting, nothing can be changed unless the team rejects the submission. The link expires after 7 days.

How do I review a submitted form?

A submitted form goes to the team for review. You accept the submission or reject it. When rejecting, stipt asks for an explanation, so the person filling it in knows what is missing or needs to change. Reviewing needs the Review forms right: someone who only fills in does not see the Accept and Reject buttons.

The person filling it in updates the submission and submits again. Every submission gets a version number: v1 is the first submission, v2 the first one after a rejection, and so on. During review you can tell exactly which version you are looking at.

A form can also move the record forward automatically. Under CRM status per form status you link a record status to opened, submitted, accepted and rejected. When a work order is accepted, the job can move to Completed, for example. For accepted you can add a second choice, such as Handed over or Snag item; the reviewer then picks which one applies when accepting.

Want help with reviewing? Switch on the Form check loop in Studio. dot then checks every submitted form right away, photos included, and gives a verdict (In order, Points to check or Needs completing) with its points next to the question they concern. By default only the reviewer sees that verdict, and a person makes the decision.

How does the automatic PDF work?

As soon as a form is submitted, stipt automatically turns it into a PDF. It contains all answers, the photos and the signature. The PDF can be downloaded from the record and appears there as a file.

The PDF shows exactly what the person filling it in saw. Fields and pages that stayed hidden because of a condition are left out. A form with many conditional questions therefore produces a short, readable document.

Want the PDF to look like your own paper? Set your letterhead, for example with logo and footer, under PDF background in the form builder. Without extra work you end up with a neat document for the customer, your own records or a client who wants to see a signed work order.