Getting started with Forms and the Form Builder

Getting started with Forms and the Form Builder

Resources → Forms is your organisation's form library: everything you build, import or download, organised into categories. The Form Builder is where you create and edit them, then export upload-ready XML for your clinical system.

The Form Library

  • Browse and search your organisation's forms, organised into categories. Create as many categories as you need with the folder button and drag forms between them.
  • New Form opens the Form Builder with a blank canvas.
  • Import — already have a form as XML? Upload it and it lands in your library ready to edit. EMIS templates can be imported with the dedicated button next to it.
  • Paste XML — can't save XML files to your computer? Some organisations block it. Open the export, select all, copy, and paste it straight into the box instead. It works for both form XML and EMIS templates — we work out which is which from the XML itself. The Form Builder has the same option next to its Import XML button.

Forms you create are yours; you'll also see forms shared across your organisation.

The Form Builder

The builder has three zones:

  • Element palette (left) — headings, questions, code-linked fields, pickers and more. You can also insert library items — reusable blocks built once and dropped into any form.
  • Canvas (middle) — arrange elements into the form.
  • Properties (right) — configure the selected element.

Two habits worth forming:

  • Preview shows the form exactly as it will appear in the clinical system — check it before exporting.
  • Every save creates a version, so you can review history and roll back from the library if an edit goes wrong.

Building an answer list from a refset

Tick lists, radio buttons and dropdowns don't have to be typed out by hand. With one of those elements selected, Import from Refset in the Properties panel turns a whole reference set into ready-coded options — every answer arrives with its SNOMED code already attached.

Finding the right set doesn't assume you know its name:

  • Browse by clinical area down the left, or narrow by category — asthma, diabetes, frailty and so on — without typing anything at all.
  • Search finds sets by what's inside them, not just by title. Type *metformin* and you'll see the sets that contain metformin codes, each showing how many matched.
  • Every result is tagged with where it came from — national TRUD sets, EMIS code lists, or lists built in your own organisation.

Pick a set and you choose how much of it to bring in: all of its codes, a selection you tick yourself, or the first 10, 20 or 30 for a shorter list. If the element still has its untouched starter option, it's cleared out as the real codes arrive, so there's no blank row left to tidy up.

Medications aren't offered here — a form answer list needs specific coded answers, and a drug group expands to thousands of individual products. Use a medication element for those.

Working through a long answer list

An imported refset can bring in dozens of answers, so the Properties panel lists them one line at a time: the answer's label, its SNOMED code and its heading. Click a line to open it and edit everything about that answer; click it again, or open another, to close it.

Anything incomplete is flagged on the line itself — a missing code, a missing heading, or an answer that has neither a code nor a note and so can't be saved. Above the list, the search box narrows by label or code, and the dropdown next to it jumps straight to the answers that need attention. Clear the filter when you want to reorder the list, so you can see what each answer is moving past.

Export to your clinical system

When a form is ready, Export generates the XML your clinical system imports. That's the full loop: build → preview → save → export → import into your system.

Learn by doing

Run Guides (?) → Forms for an interactive walkthrough, or Guides → Medicus build tools for the end-to-end tour across forms, questionnaires, searches, dashboards and library items.

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