Forms – preset options for Name

[Fiona Bellinger]

Hi Rob,

Working on a form where the teacher must enter the student name.  Because we all spell names differently, I want preset options to be chosen.  But with 600+ students its not something I can have as a drop-down box.  What do you suggest?  Ideally the teacher could start to type the name and it would come up with possible students…

(Same thing for area – the teacher starts to type “Gi” and the field automatically comes up with Gisborne for example)…

I’d also like the option of being to add a new student name, which is added to the preset options for future entries…

I know we briefly talked about this the other day but I had to run away sorry…

Thanks,

Fiona

[Rob Clarke]

Hi Fiona,

Another great question. This is a good one because it is a common use case in schools, ie. you want to force the data to be entered and make it easy for users to select from a list that may (or may not) change over time.

I think FormRanger is the one you want to check out (you can also find this in the Resource Library > Useful Add-ons).

This add-on allows you to dynamically populate Form fields from a list in a Sheet – VERY handy!

I would use the same Sheet for keeping track of the list of student names as the one for also capturing the raw Form data.

You will want to make the instructions on the Form explicit for users.

Let me know how you go.

Rob

[Fiona Bellinger]

Hi Rob,

I’ve got it working with FormRanger so thank you!

I’ve set the form if a name isn’t there, they have the option of choosing New Student, and going to a separate section to provide the necessary details.  If I understand correctly, I need to manually enter the new names on the master list, which with a click of a button on the form will update the fields in that form.

And one other query/concern – is there any point where I will reach overload? – I have 645 names in there at present 🙂

 

Thanks

Fiona

[Rob Clarke]

Hi Fiona,

From my research into FormRanger, it appears that it will easily handle this number of names. You could also look at segmenting the form so that it breaks the data up in certain ways if that helps?

If you chose to do this, then you’d use multiple FormRanger ranges to populate fields in different sections in your form. My ‘guess’ is you could do this by region to make the lists presented to people smaller. So, for example:

If a user chose ‘Canterbury’ in a dropdown at the start of the form, then he/she would be presented with ONLY the names of students from Canterbury. This might make it nicer for the end user.

Have a nice day!

Rob

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Rob Clarke.

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