Split a form into sections

A long form is easier to fill in one part at a time: the questions about the person, then the visit, then what happens next. A section is one of those parts. On a phone each section is its own screen, with Next and Back; the app checks a screen's answers before it turns the page, and a page with nothing to show is skipped.

Where to find it

Open a form. The "+" between two questions offers Split into sections here under Structure: the questions above it become the first section and the questions below it the second. Once a form has sections, the "+" between two sections adds a section, and the "+" inside a section offers Split section here, or New section after this one at its end.

Every section has a heading on the canvas, Section 1 of 2 and so on, with a title you edit in place the way you edit a question's label. A title can be left blank; the heading still shows which page it is.

Select a section's heading for its settings. Merge with previous section joins two pages into one. Remove section only takes the page away and its questions join the section beside it, or return to the form as a single page when it was the last section. Delete section and its questions removes both, and asks first. Move up and Move down reorder the sections.

What a sectioned form keeps true

Once a form has sections, every top-level item is a section: a question cannot sit between two pages, because the app would have nowhere to show it. Nova keeps that true for you. Dragging a question onto a page lands it there, and a move that would leave a question outside every page is refused with the reason.

Two more rules come from the device. A section is always at the top level of a form: a page inside a group would just be a group, so Nova offers the gesture only there. And a repeat that people add entries to cannot sit on a page, because a phone cannot add entries on a screen that shows several questions at once; fixed-count repeats, case-query repeats, and groups can.

Nothing is permanent: removing the last section returns the form to a single page with its questions in place, and you can undo any of it.

In Preview

Preview runs the form the way a phone does: one section per screen, a Sections strip showing where you are, Next and Back, and Submit on the last page.

• Next checks the questions on the page first. A required question left blank, or an answer a rule refuses, keeps the page and takes you to that question.
• Back never checks anything, and keeps what you answered.
• Choosing a later section in the strip checks every page on the way; an earlier one opens straight away.
• A section whose questions are all hidden by their display conditions, or that has no questions yet, is skipped, and the count leaves it out.
• Submit checks the whole form. If an earlier page has a problem, Preview turns to it and shows you the question.
• Clear form starts again on the first page.

Flipping between editing and Preview keeps the page you were on, and the heading you were looking at stays where it was.

On a device

CommCare on Android, and the one-question-per-screen mode of Web Apps, page a form exactly this way. Web Apps' default view shows the same form on one screen, each section as a titled group. The answers and the rules are the same either way; only the paging differs.