We are thrilled to announce a long-awaited update to our most popular tool - a beta release of the new Form tool to take your surveys to the next level.

The Form tool is not only the most utilised tool in The HiVE's expansive toolkit, but is also the foundational tool of digital engagement. A well-designed survey can be a powerful tool for community research, but presenting questions and content in a digestible and engaging way is one of the biggest challenges community engagement practitioners face.

The new version of the Form tool will make it easier to build forms and surveys, allow for the creation of more complex surveys and present content in more engaging and dynamic ways.

You can see examples of the new Form tool in action on our demo site, and a great live example from the City of Melbourne.

Here’s the highlights of the new Form:

New User Interface

We have introduced a new full-screen user interface (UI) to make it easier to build forms and survey. Drag and drop questions can be easily added and rearranged making it much simpler to manage long or complex forms.

From elements like question types, preset questions, and content are clearer to see, and can now be added to form sections to group similar questions and content. This should vastly improve the form building experience when compared to the old Form interface.

Form Templates

A selection of new Form templates gives you the ability to change the look and feel of your forms and surveys and provides new options to communicate content.

In addition to the existing template that shows all questions in the same view (which is called Standard in the new version), two new template options are also available.

The Paginated template allows the display of one form section at a time, allowing you to present a group of questions and content together. After a participant completes a section, they advance to the next section to see the subsequent set of questions. This template makes it easier for participants to navigate long forms and surveys, by breaking up content into more digestible ‘chunks’.

The Flow template provides a full-screen experience that displays one question at a time, providing a more simplified experience for the participant. This template can be used to provide a more ‘experiential’ journey for users that can offer more context and promote more informed feedback.

When using the Paginated or Flow template, a new ‘review’ screen will now be displayed at the end of the survey. This will give participants the chance to review their responses before submitting.

Form Logic

Conditional logic is a huge new feature that gives you the ability to create more complex and nuanced forms and surveys. This feature allows you to ‘show’, ‘disable’ or ‘require’ any question in the survey based on how users respond to previous questions.

Logical operators such as ‘equals’, ‘does not equal’, ‘contains’, ‘is answered’ (to name a few) unlock new potential to create branching surveys, provide more ‘conversational’ experiences, and explore new creative ways to engage (like creating an interactive ‘quiz’).

Beta Release

After a successful release to selected customers earlier in the year, the new version of the Form is being released in ‘beta’. This means it is still undergoing a period of testing to ensure stability and that any bugs that may occur can be ironed out. We expect that the tool will be taken out of ‘beta’ in the next couple of months.

While in ‘beta’, our advice is to avoid using the new tool in high risk or sensitive engagements, unless you have adequately assessed the risks. While the tool has had months or extensive testing and we do not anticipate any major issues, there are still unknowns we cannot uncover until the tool is utlised fully in production.

During the ‘beta’ period, the original Form tool will remain available for customers to use. This means there will be two Form tools available for use marked a follows:

• Form (Legacy) - This the original form tool and operates the same way as you know and expect.
• Form (Beta) - This is the new version of the Form tool, which will operate in accordance with the new documentation. In the coming weeks, we will explore ways to provide tool-specific training to customers.

The release of the new Form tool is the result of 18 months of dedicated development, which has resulted in the rebuilding of the tool from the ground up. This has been a mammoth undertaking for the Harvest team and a hugely significant upgrade to the platform, opening the door for a range of new uses for the tool. These updates are only the beginning, and you can expect to see a host of new features that will continue to expand the versatility and usefulness of the tool in the near future.

We’re excited to see how our customers will use the new tool, and hear ideas for future improvements.