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ATLAS FormBuilder - Text merge fields
This tutorial explores the options available in customizing your form using text merge fields.
Text merge fields are useful for integrating customized data from individual form responses into the text of your form, intended to aid in reviewing information as well as simplifying the form response process.
Found all over the form-building process, text merge fields are used in situations from naming the user responding to the form to inserting information from a form response into an email.
The Text Merge tool includes the following sections:
- Response Submitter
Response submitter information can be useful for sections where you want to confirm the identity of the form responder, such as a review page.
- Username:
- Email Address: responder's University email address
- Display Name: users of University system can request display to be different from their registered full name (e.g. Daniel's display name would be Dan)
- First Name: registered first name
- Last Name: registered last name
- Middle Name: registered middle name
- UIN: University Identification Number
- Student Expected Graduation Date: month and date a student intends to graduate
- Last Modifying User
The last modifying user is the person who last alters the form and is useful if multiple people are editing a form. These buttons provide information about this person, making fixing mistakes easer with more direct communication.
- Username:
- Email Address: responder's University email address
- Display Name: users of University system can request display to be different from their registered full name (e.g. Daniel's display name would be Dan, so in a greeting message you could use this instead of First Name)
- First Name: registered first name
- Last Name: registered last name
- Middle Name: registered middle name
- UIN: University Identification Number
- Last Modified by IP Address: this is useful because it allows you to track what computer last modified the form, even if the user is not signed into the University system
- Student Expected Graduation Date: month and date a student intends to graduate
- Student Expected Graduation Term Description:
- Student Attribute Codes:
- Form Information
This section provides information about the form itself.
- Response Identifier:
- Response Survey Url:
- Survey Index Url:
- New Survey Url:
- Period Name
- Period Description
- Period Start Date: when the period begins
- Period End Date: when the period ends
- Phase Name
- Submit Date: date the form was submitted
- Submitted By IP Address: IP address which submitted the form response
- Last Modification Date: date that the last modifications were made
- Current Date (Local): local timestamp
- Current Date (UTC): coordinated universal timestamp
- Created By IP Address: IP address which created the form response
- Raw Response Identifier:
- Code for the current term:
- Description for the current term
- Campus for the current term
- Start date for the current term
- End date for the current term
- Questions
These values come direct for the form responses, and this section will likely be the most useful for you if you are creating a confirmation email, review page, etc. An individual section will be created for each section of questions on your form.
The "NetID Lookup" tab is just one example of an option that comes up in this section if you include a feature in your form. In this case, including NetID Lookup in your form allows you to use the information associated with that NetID throughout your form.
- Answer Value: NetID
- Display Name: name associated with NetID
- Email Address: university email address associated with NetID
- First Name: first name of user associated with NetID
- Last Name: last name of user associated with NetID
- UIN: university identification number associated with NetID
- Student Expected Graduation Date: date and month student intends to graduate
- Student Expect Graduation Term Description:
- Student Attribute Codes:
The "Questions" tab includes all other questions featured in your form, and depending on the type of question you have, you will be provided with a variety of options.
- Answer Value: shows up as the answer option the responder indicates on the form (e.g. user picks "cheese" and the answer value that shows up here is "cheese")
- Number of Answers: states the number of answers a form responder has indicated on a multiple choice question test
- Selected Choice Display Text:
- Security Groups
This section includes information about the security groups allowed to access the form.
- Form Group Administrator: inserts group member email addresses for form group administrators. This may be useful when you want to send an automated email to form group administrators.
- Registration
If your form is a registration form, this section will be provided to you.
- Claim Available Registration Slot Url: link directs user to where they can register for an available registration spot in your form
For more information and examples using the text merge tool, check out ATLAS FormBuilder - How to use text merge fields.