A PDF form in Equip pre-fills its fields from a field map: a list that links each fillable field in the PDF to a value in Equip, such as the participant's name, your organization's street address, today's date or your account logo. The Equip team builds that map when the PDF is added to your account. The values themselves come from your own records, so a wrong or empty address on the PDF is fixed under Settings, General, while a field that pulls from the wrong place is a mapping change for Equip support.
Participants are labelled Clients, Students, Residents or Explorers depending on the account type. This article calls them participants.
Who can do this, and where
Everything here is in the Equip web app.
Any team member who can fill a PDF form sees the pre-filled values and can change them before submitting.
Account information is edited under Settings, General by account administrators, or by team members whose role has edit access to the account.
Adding a fillable PDF to an account and changing which Equip value fills each PDF field is done by the Equip team. There is no PDF upload or field map editor on the Create Form page.
Forms is turned on for your account by the Equip team. If you do not see Forms in the left menu, ask us to enable it.
Two kinds of forms
A custom form is built from Equip questions (short answer, single choice, and so on). You add and edit its questions yourself with Edit Form.
A PDF document form is a fillable PDF. Equip draws the PDF on screen, pre-fills the mapped fields, and saves the filled PDF as a document on the participant's profile when the response is completed.
Open the form and click Fill Form. If you see Equip questions, it is a custom form. If you see the PDF itself, it is a document form.
What a PDF field can be mapped to
The Equip team can point each PDF field at one of these sources:
Participant values: name, email, and profile fields such as Case ID.
Account values from Settings, General: the account name, Street Address, Room/Suite, City, State, Zip, Phone, Fax, Primary Email and Website.
Account logo, placed into an image field on the PDF.
Today's date, filled on the day the form is opened.
Pathway and pathway step custom fields, using the values captured on the participant's enrollment.
A copy of another field on the same PDF, so a name typed once appears in every place the PDF repeats it.
Steps
Fix account information that fills in wrong
In the left navigation click Settings, then the General tab. The page is titled Account Settings.
Update the fields the PDF uses: the account name (its label depends on your account type, for example Program Name), Website, Primary Email, Phone, Street Address, Room/Suite, City, State and Zip.
Save. Every PDF form filled from now on uses the new values. Responses already submitted keep the values they were submitted with.
Fill a PDF form
Click Forms, open the form and click Fill Form.
Choose the participant the form is about. The mapped fields fill in from that participant's record and your account.
Change any pre-filled value directly on the PDF if it needs to differ on this one response. Your change stays on this response only and does not update the participant or account record.
Click Submit Response, or Save & Finish Later to keep the values and come back.
Request a mapping change
Note the form's title and the exact field on the PDF (for example, the "Provider address" box on page 2).
Tell Equip support which Equip value should fill it, or that it should be left blank.
Equip updates the map. A change made to a shared template updates every account's copy of that form at the same time.
Limits and what the errors mean
Dates fill in the format MM/DD/YYYY.
A participant's email is left blank when their Equip record has no real email address.
The account logo only fills when it is a PNG, JPEG, GIF or SVG file. Any other format leaves the logo field empty rather than stopping the form.
Pathway and step custom field values only fill when the form is opened from the participant's pathway step (the step card or the progress details page). Opened from the Forms page, those fields are blank.
When one response is filled for several participants at once, the participant fields are recomputed for each one. Account values and dates you edited are kept for all of them.
Reopening a saved response keeps the values you edited; it does not re-pull them from the account.
AI-Powered Forms & Assessments Import accepts a PDF, but it turns the PDF's questions into a custom form. It does not create a fillable PDF document form.
A PDF document form cannot be duplicated with Duplicate Form. That option is only offered on custom forms.
Custom forms with Require Subject turned on cannot be shared with a public link. A PDF document form offers Copy Link when Allow External Responses is on and the form is Active.
FAQ
Can I add my organization's address to a PDF form myself?
Not by editing the PDF. If the PDF already has a field mapped to the address, fill in Street Address, City, State and Zip under Settings, General and it appears on every response from then on. If the PDF has no field for it, ask Equip support to map one.
Where does Equip get my organization's address?
From the Account Settings page under Settings, General: Street Address, Room/Suite, City, State and Zip. The account name, Phone, Fax, Primary Email and Website come from the same page.
Why is the address blank on the PDF?
Either the address fields are empty under Settings, General, or that PDF field is not mapped to the account address. Fill in the settings first. If the field is still blank on a new response, send the form title and field name to Equip support.
Why does my logo not appear on the PDF?
The logo only fills when the account has a logo uploaded and it is a PNG, JPEG, GIF or SVG file. Upload one in a supported format, then start a new response. Responses already saved keep their original values.
Can I change a pre-filled value on just one response?
Yes. Edit the value on the PDF before you submit. The change is saved with that response only; the participant's profile and Account Settings are not changed.
Is this the same as adding a question to a form?
No. Adding a question applies to custom forms, which you edit yourself with Edit Form. A PDF document form has fixed fields set by the PDF file, and what fills them is controlled by the field map.
Why are the pathway custom fields on the PDF blank?
Those fields only fill when the form is opened from the participant's pathway step, so Equip knows which enrollment to read. Open the participant's pathway, find the step, and fill the form from there.
Can I upload my own fillable PDF as a form?
Not from the web app. Send the PDF to Equip support and say which Equip values should fill which fields. Equip adds it to your account as a PDF document form.
Related
Creating a Form
Filling a Form
Managing Account Settings
Updating Your Account Logo or Profile Photo
AI-Powered Forms & Assessments Import
Assigning Forms to Pathway Steps
Creating Pathway and Pathway Step Custom Fields