Form builder

Every form in Backed, from registration and application forms to assessment forms, milestone forms and landing pages, is built in the Form Builder. Templates live under Plan > Form templates, in tabs for each area: Registrations, Applications, Assessments, Milestones, Decision Letters, Contracts, Landing Pages, Eligibility Screeners and Referee Forms. A Referee Form is what a referee answers; see Referee requests and references.

Create a template

Go to Plan > Form templates and open the area's tab.
Select the area's new-template button, such as New Template.
Enter the Template name and select Create. The Form Builder opens.

Draft from guidelines

An application form can be drafted for you from your round's guideline document. This appears only when it is turned on for your organisation: Form drafting under Settings > Profile and terms, on the AI assistance tab. See AI assistance.

Select Draft from guidelines. It sits beside New Template on the Applications tab, and beside New Form in a grant's Application Form step.
Choose the guideline document from your File Uploads library, or upload one under Or upload a document. It must be a PDF, Word or text file with selectable text, of up to 40 pages. A scanned image has no text to read, and Backed says so.
Select Draft. The page shows Drafting from and the document's name while the draft is written; keep it open. When the draft is ready, the Form Builder opens on it with its pages, sections and fields: labels, help text, whether each is required, and any length limit.
Check the draft, change what you need, and select Save and Return. Nothing is saved until you do: leave without saving and the draft is discarded.

Every drafted section and field shows AI draft in its Properties, under Drafted from guidelines:

Source opens the passage of the guideline document the field was drafted from, and its page where the document has page numbers.
Mark reviewed clears AI draft from a field you have checked and are keeping as it is.
An edit is a review. Change a field's label or any of its properties and AI draft clears by itself.

A grant whose application form still has a field marked AI draft cannot be published. Its Publish Grant checklist includes AI-drafted fields reviewed, and Publish Grant lists the form until every drafted field has been edited or marked reviewed. Field Events, formulas, scoring and Field Tags are never drafted; add them yourself.

Build the form

Fields. The Fields panel lists the field types in groups: Simple Fields, Data Entry, Text Fields and Other Fields. They include Short text, Long text, Rich text, Single choice, Multi-choice, Dropdown, Yes/No, Slider, Date picker, Currency, Address, File upload, Table, Header, Free Text and Image, and on application forms Referee request. Press Enter on a tile to add it, or drag it onto the form.
Standard fields. On registration, application, assessment, milestone, conditions and supplementary information forms, the Fields panel opens with a Standard fields group: 22 common questions set by Backed, under Organisation, Contact, Project and Budget, such as ABN, Contact email address and Amount requested. Each one shows its field type and its Field Tag, such as std_abn. Select one to add it to the form. A standard field can be added once per form, so one already on the form shows Already on this form. The first time your organisation uses a standard field, saving the form creates its Field Tag.
Pages and sections. Select Add Page + and Add section to organise the form. Use the move, copy and remove buttons on each page, section and field.
Properties. Select a field to open its Properties: its label, help text, whether it is required, and any tag or event.
Free Text content. A Free Text field's Content is a formatting editor: headings, bold, italics, underline, dot points, numbered lists and links. Applicants, and visitors to a landing page, see the formatting as you set it. Text written before the editor arrived shows exactly as it did; it opens in the editor as paragraphs and is saved with formatting the first time you change it. Anything that is not formatting, such as a script pasted from another site, is removed when the form is saved.
Format and Notify on decision. On registration, application and milestone forms, a Short text field's properties include Format: None, Bank account (BSB and account number) or Email address. A Bank account answer is checked by your organisation's currency: in Australian dollars a 6-digit BSB and account number, in New Zealand dollars bank, branch, account and suffix (for example 01-0123-0123456-00), and in any other currency the digits with spaces or hyphens; the hint under the box says which. On an application form, a field formatted Email address also shows Notify on decision. Tick it and the Letter of Decline is also sent to the address entered in that field, whether or not the applicant is ticked under Notify when the decision is sent. Changing the field's Format away from Email address clears the tick.
Allow map pin. On registration and application forms, an Address field's properties include Allow map pin. Tick it and the applicant can drop or move a pin on a map under the address. The pin is used in place of the point found from the address, in maps and regional reports. Geocoding must be on for your organisation (Settings > Organisation > Geography), or no map is shown. Once the template is in use and locked, the tick can't be changed.
Standard field properties. A standard field carries a Standard field badge on the form. Its Properties show its label, type, support text, options, validation and Field Tag read-only, under Standard field – set by Backed, so the question reads the same on every form. You can still change Mandatory, the placeholder text, the tooltip, where it sits on the form and its Field Events. A standard field has no Copy button; copying its section or page copies it as an ordinary field.
Standard field answers. An ABN or NZBN standard field takes only a valid number. When the applicant leaves the field, a wrong one shows This ABN is not valid. or This NZBN is not valid., and the form cannot be submitted until it is fixed. When your registration form holds the same standard field, an applicant's new application opens with their registration answer filled in and marked From your profile; see Applying for a grant. In reports, a standard field's tag, such as std_abn, is one column under Tagged Form Fields with the answers from every form that holds it.
Requires field review. Tick it in a field's properties to hold a change to that field's answer once the form is submitted. The change waits for an administrator with Can approve Review Requests to approve it, and the previous answer stands until then. See Field reviews.
Do not copy. On an application form, tick Do not copy under a field's Application properties to leave it blank when an applicant starts a new application from a previous one. A value from the applicant's profile is still filled in.
FundraiserOne field. When FundraiserOne is switched on for your organisation, a field on a registration form shows FundraiserOne field under Integration. Choose the FundraiserOne field its answer is sent to from your organisation's list, or None to send nothing. A field inside a repeatable section, a table and a file upload have no FundraiserOne field. See FundraiserOne.

Preview the form

Select Preview to see the form as it will be filled in, at Desktop or Phone width. A preview says how many required fields still need an answer; nothing is submitted. Select Edit to go back.

Check the reading level

Backed gives text of ten words or more a school year, worked out with the Flesch–Kincaid formula. Your organisation's Reading level target is set under Settings > Profile and terms, in the Forms group; it is year 10 unless you change it.

A field whose label, support text or Free Text reads above the target shows a chip beside its name on the form, for example Year 12 · target 10. Text under ten words is not scored, so a short label never shows one. The chip changes as you type.
Select the down arrow beside Preview, then Readability, to list every field above the target, with which of its texts it is and its longest sentence. Select a field's name to go to it on the form. Select Back to fields to close the list.
In the same menu, File Uploads shows each file's Reading level, for example Reading level: Year 11. A PDF, Word document or text file is scored after its virus check. A file nothing could be read from, such as a scanned PDF, shows Not scored.
Each checked file in File Uploads also shows Version n of m. Select View to read a PDF or an image without downloading it. Select History to see every version, Download an earlier one, or Restore this version to make a copy of it the current file. Links you have already shared keep working and open the restored file.

The reading level is advice only: it never stops you saving the form or publishing a grant.

Save

Select Save and Return to save and go back to the template list. If you leave with unsaved changes, Backed asks first.

Other template actions

On the template list:

Duplicate makes a copy with the same pages, sections, fields, tables and tags, named "… (copy)". The copy is not in use, so all of it can be edited. Field Events are not copied.
Create Linked Template makes a copy whose fields keep a link to the fields they came from, so a later stage can carry its answers forward. See Multi-stage grant rounds.
Change Template Type moves a template to the area of another type.
Export to PDF lays the template out as a blank form, with conditional fields marked.

A template marked In use is used by a round or another record, and some changes to it are limited.

Translate a template

When your organisation has turned on a language beside English under Settings > Profile and terms, each template's page has a tab for every language. English (Australia) shows the form as built; the language tab lists each page title, section title, field label, help text, placeholder and option, with the English on the left and the translation on the right. Type the translations and select Save translations. Anything left blank shows to applicants in English.

A term in double square brackets, such as [[applicant_name]], is a merge field. Keep every merge field the English has, each as many times; the page warns you before you save if one is missing or extra, and a translation that differs is not saved.

To send every template to a translator at once, select Export translations on the template list, choose the language and a format (CSV for a spreadsheet, XLIFF for a translation tool) and select Download. When the file comes back, select Import translations, choose the file and select Import. The summary says how many rows were applied and lists each rejected row by its number with the reason. Nothing in a rejected row is applied.

These controls appear only when a language beside English is turned on.