To be able to use Custom forms you need to build your form using our form builder feature which can be accessed from the company menu for Admin users or the HR menu for HR users.

Administration -> Company/HR -> Form Builder

Note: We have a monthly review form recipe which can be found here.

Once inside the Form builder, you need to add a form and enter some basic information about the form such as the name and description. You also should choose the form type from the drop-down (Performance review in this case). Additionally, you can have different forms for different job roles so you could have one form for your executive staff and a different form for other staff - to choose the roles which this form applies to then tick the role(s) in the list. If you tick All job roles or leave this section blank then the form will be used for all job roles.

You should ensure you only have one active form of each type (Performance review in this instance) for each job role - you can set old forms inactive but if you have multiple forms active for the same job roles you may encounter scenarios where users see forms other than the intended one.

Once you have added the form you now need to build the structure of the form including adding and defining the fields.

Once you have submitted in the initial form information, the system will take you through to the Form Builder tool where you can proceed to build the form fields.

The first field you will need to add is an "Assigned Employee" field, as depicted by the amber banner at the top of the page: the system will require this field in order to assign this form to an employee. 

By copying the settings in the screenshot below and selecting "Add" once the fields are complete, you will be able to add this field into your form. 

On this screen, for each field you want to appear in your form, you need to add a number of pieces of information:

Field display label - this is the text you wish to show on the screen on your form.

Mandatory field - if you choose yes the form will not be able to be submitted unless there is a value in the field.

Field type - there are 48 options which you can choose for the field type, divided into 9 categories. These are:

Common Fields

1. Date Field - A date picker field 
2. Text area - multiple line - A multi-line text box (like Field description)
3. Text box  - single line - A standard single line text box (like Field display label)
4. File upload - This allows the user to upload a file.
5. Electronic signature - This allows the user to sign a document by typing their name or drawing a signature. 

Custom Value Fields

1. Checkboxes - A multiple choice question which can be used to select more than one answer. 
2. Checkboxes - one per line - Orders the checkboxes vertically which each option on a different line
3. Radioboxes - A list of custom choices where only one can be chosen
4. Radioboxes - one per line - Orders the Radioboxes vertically which each option on a different line
5. Select dropdown - A dropdown list populated with custom values (like Field type)
6. Multi select dropdown -  As above, but allows multiple values to be selected instead of a single value.

Pre Populated Fields

1. 1 to 5 - A dropdown list pre-populated with numbers 1 to 5
2. 1 to 10 - A dropdown list pre-populated with numbers 1 to 10
3. Score 1 to 10 - A dropdown list populated with numbers 1 to 10, used specifically for scoring purposes
4. Score 1 to 5 - A dropdown list populated with numbers 1 to 5 used specifically for scoring purposes.
5. Happiness Scale - Displays a series of 5 icons which the user can use to indicate their happiness.
6. Yes and No - A dropdown list pre-populated with Yes and No

Assigned Employee

1. Assigned Employee - This field must be included in every performance review form and stores the employee the form is assigned to. This should be used once only per form

Lists

1. Other employees list - A dynamic dropdown list of all of your current, active employees
2. Managers list - A dynamic dropdown list of all of your current, active mangers
3. Job roles list - A list populated from the Job roles page within the HR menu
4. Job status list - A list populated from the Job status page within the HR menu
5. Employee type list - A list populated from the  employee status page within the HR menu
6. Headcount classifications list - A list populated from the Headcount classifications page within the HR menu.
7. Departments list - A list populated from the Departments page within the HR menu
8. Divisions list - A list populated from the Divisions page within the HR menu
9. Companies list - A list populated form the Companies page within the HR menu
10. Sites list - A list populated from the Sites page within the HR menu
11. Regions list - A list populated from the Regions page within the HR menu
12. Cost centres list - A list populated from the Cost centres page within the HR menu
13. Business units list - A list populated from the Business units page within the HR menu
14. Job grades list - A list populated from the Job grades page within the HR menu

Formatting

1. Heading - Text which can be used as a heading for your forms
2. Horizontal Spacer - A horizontal dividing line which can be used to separate different sections of a form
3. HTML - Allows you to enter formatted text or HTML code to format your form.
4. Accordion - Allows you to enter formatted text in a section which can be expanded or collapsed to show or hide the text.
5. Image - Allows you to upload an image to be displayed on the form. 

Layout

1. Page - start - Separate your form into pages (defines the start of the page)
2. Page - end - Separate your form into pages (defines the end of the page)
3. Section - start - Separate your form into sections (defines the start of the section)
4. Section - end - Separate your form into sections (defines the end of the section)
5. Clone - start - Defines the start of a clone section.  A clone section allows a set of fields to be repeated in the form.
6. Clone - end - Defines the end of a clone section. 

Grid

1. 9 box grid - Performance (Standard) - A dropdown list populated with Low, Moderate and High which is used to populate the performance element of the  9 box grid 
2. 9 box grid - Potential (Standard) - A dropdown list populated with Low, Moderate and High which is used to populate the potential element of the  9 box grid 
3. 9 box grid - Performance (Custom) - A dropdown list which allows the user to choose from a list of values.  The input is used to populate the performance element of the 9 box grid.
4. 9 box grid - Potential (Custom) - A dropdown list which allows the user to choose from a list of values.  The input is used to populate the potential element of the 9 box grid.

Completed

1. Completed - A yes or no field which marks whether or not the form has been completed overall. Selecting yes in this field will lock down the form and mark it as complete indefinitely. 
2. Employee Completed - A yes or no field which marks whether or not an employee has completed this specific form. 
3. Manager Completed - A yes or no field which marks whether or not a Manager has completed this specific form. 
4. Workflow Step Completed - A yes or no field which marks whether or not an employee has completed the workflow.
5. Workflow Step Completed (2-5) - Additional workflow step completed fields which marks whether or not an employee has completed the workflow.

In the case of "Text", select dropdowns, radio boxes and checkboxes you are able to choose which information you want to display - this is useful if, for example, you wish to score your employees from 1 to 4 and not 1 to 5 or if you want to use other metrics like Gold, Silver and Bronze for example.

Once you choose any of these fields an additional box will appear labelled values which will allow you to enter your custom values - for select dropdown and radio boxes you should enter the values exactly as you wish them to appear with commas between them. For example to enter 1 to 4 you should enter 1,2,3,4 and to enter Gold, Silver and Bronze you should enter Gold, Silver, Bronze.

For HTML you can type the text you want displayed directly into the values box.

Once you have added the fields you want to the form you can also move them around and change the order by dragging and dropping them within the form. To move a field hover over the label in the form and left-click.  This will cause the cursor to change to a cross-hair which will then allow the field to be moved in the form.  When moving the field a green box will appear at each location where you can drop the field. You do not need to click anything to confirm the new location - as soon as you drop it the location is updated

Field access - This field determines who can view and update the field and has 4 options:

• Employee cannot view or update
• Employee can update field
• Employee can update field, manager cannot update field
• Employee can view only
• HR only
  

Advanced Options

Database field name - This is the name for the field in the database. A name will be generated automatically based on the field display label you enter. This value must be unique and can only contain letters, numbers and underscore. Spaces are not permitted. For example, employee_name is a valid name but employee name is not. This field must also start with a letter.  If your Database field name begins with a number (because there is a number at the start of your label) simply edit it to add a letter at the start.  If you enter an invalid value it will show an error when you add the field. Once the field is added this value cannot be changed.

Clone field - More details on setting these up can be found in this article Cloned Fields

Field description - This is text you can display as a tooltip icon on the form to help people understand how to fill in the field (the question mark in the green square).

Uneditable once completed - Prevents the field from being adjusted once the form has been submitted

Field order - This defines the order of the fields within the form. So, for example, a field with order 1 will appear above a field with order 2. 

Field weighting (%) - Sets the value weighting of the field and should only contain a numeric value

At any point, you can edit a field already on the form by clicking the edit icon next to the field or delete it by clicking the delete icon. If you edit the field the left section of the screen will be populated with the information originally entered but please note the Database field name will be greyed out and cannot be changed:

Now your form is created you need to tell Natural HR that you want to use the new forms rather than the current default form.

To do this you need to go to:

Administration -> Company -> Settings -> Company Settings 

Under the 'Performance Management' heading, change the 'Performance management module' setting to 'Custom form' rather than 'Standard form'.

Then, go to: 

Performance -> Review forms

In the below instance there are a number of forms - as they are clearly labelled this should not cause an issue but be careful of having multiple forms for the same job roles as this can be confusing.

To use a form, there are a couple of options open to you. Using the plus icon, you can complete an entry of the form as an HR user, Administrator or Manager. To view completed responses, click the View icon next to the form you wish to use. Finally, you can download the form data into a CSV file by selecting the download icon. If you only have one Performance form then this screen will not appear as it is not necessary to choose the form in that instance.

Below is the actual form just created as the manager etc. will see it - note the tooltip, which gives additional instructions to the manager and also the employee dropdown which is dynamically populated with current employees.

Also, the dropdown contains the custom values entered earlier - in this instance Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Once the form is completed and submitted, the review screen will then show the data from the form in tabular format as usual. Alternatively, you can use the magnifying glass icon to view the responses in the larger view fields.