Turn on Expiration Notifications in the Notification Settings section of the form, and choose the subscribers who should be reminded. The expiration date itself is not set on the form. It is set on each response, in an Expiration Date field that appears when a signed-in team member fills the form in, and it defaults to one year from that day. Equip then reminds your subscribers a week before that date and again on the day, and creates a to-do with a Fill Form button so the renewal is one click away.
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 happens in the Equip web app. The mobile app can submit a response but offers no expiration date.
To turn the setting on you need the Forms module set to Administrator on your role, or you need to be an account owner.
Any team member can be a subscriber. Participants cannot.
Expiration Notifications only appears when form expirations are enabled for your account, and it is hidden on umbrella accounts. If you cannot see it, contact support to have it turned on.
Turn it on
Click Forms in the left navigation and open the form.
Click the three-dot menu and choose Edit Form.
Scroll to Notification Settings.
Turn on Expiration Notifications, whose helper text reads "Allow users to set an expiration date on form submission?"
A Subscribers picker appears. Choose the people responsible for chasing the renewal, not everyone who might like to know.
Click Update Form.
The form's page now lists them under Notification Settings as Expiration Subscribers.
Set the date on a response
Fill the form as usual, from Fill Form or from Start Form on a participant's profile.
Next to the response Date field you now see Expiration Date, pre-filled with today's date plus one year.
Change it if this particular response should be renewed sooner or later.
Submit the response.
Equip stores that date against the participant and the form, so two participants can be on completely different renewal cycles for the same form. Editing a completed response and changing the date updates the stored expiration.
What happens as the date approaches
Equip checks every active form expiration once a day.
When | What the subscriber gets |
One week before the expiration date | An in-app notification and an email saying the form is expiring soon, plus a to-do due at the end of that week |
On the expiration date | The same notification saying it is expiring today, and the to-do's due date moves to today |
Reminders are delivered at 8am in each subscriber's own time zone, so people in different regions get them at a sensible local hour.
The email is titled "Some Equip form responses are expiring". It names the form when only one is expiring, or says how many when several are, and carries an Open Equip button.
The to-do is titled Form Expiration: [Form Title], reads "[Form Title] is expiring for [participant] soon. Please submit a new response.", and has a Fill Form button that opens the form for that participant.
When a new completed response is submitted for the same participant and form, Equip marks the old expiration complete, closes the to-dos that went with it, and starts tracking the new date.
Limits and what the errors mean
There is no form-level expiration date or length. The form builder only turns the workflow on and names subscribers. If every response should run for two years rather than one, someone has to change the Expiration Date on each response. There is no way to change the one-year default.
The date is per participant, not per form. Different people can hold different renewal dates for the same form, which is the point, but it also means there is no single date to look up.
Anonymous and external responders never see the field.Expiration Date only appears for signed-in users, so a response collected through a public link or an invitation carries no expiration. Fill those forms from inside Equip if the response needs tracking.
A response with no subject still records an expiration, but the reminder has no participant name in it and the to-do's Fill Form button has nobody to fill it for. Turn on Require Subject on any form you are tracking expirations for.
No subscribers means no reminders. The expiration is still stored and still shows in the report, but nobody is told. The date passes silently.
Only one active expiration per participant and form. Submitting a new response replaces the previous one rather than adding to it.
Editing a response can remove the expiration. If the Expiration Date field is not submitted with the response, the active expiration for that participant and form is deleted.
Reminders fire on two days only, a week out and the day itself. There is no daily nagging and no notification after the date has passed.
Turning Expiration Notifications off stops the reminders, but existing expirations remain stored and still appear in the report.
Reporting
Go to Reports, open the Forms group and choose Form Expirations to review active expirations across forms, participants and a date range. The report is only available on accounts where form expirations are enabled.
FAQ
Can I set one expiration date, or one expiration length, for the whole form?
No. The form builder only turns Expiration Notifications on and picks subscribers. The date lives on each response and defaults to one year from the day that response was completed.
Is the expiration always one year?
One year is only the pre-filled default. Whoever fills the form can change the Expiration Date before submitting, and editing a completed response lets you change it afterwards.
Who gets the reminders, and when?
Only the people you picked under Expiration Notifications on that form. They are reminded one week before the expiration date and again on the date, at 8am in their own time zone.
A form response expired and nobody was told. What went wrong?
Either the form had no expiration subscribers, or the response was submitted through a public link or an invitation, in which case no expiration date was ever captured. Check the Form Expirations report to see whether an expiration exists at all.
Can a participant filling the form on their phone set an expiration date?
No. The field only appears to signed-in team members in the web app. Responses submitted from the mobile app or through a link carry no expiration.
What happens when the renewal is submitted?
Equip closes the old expiration, completes the to-dos that came with it, and stores the new date from the new response. The old response and its document are kept.
Do I have to use the to-do, or can I just fill the form?
Either works. Submitting a new completed response for that participant and form closes out the expiration however you got there. The to-do simply saves you finding the form.
Why is Expiration Notifications missing from my form?
Form expirations are enabled per account, and the setting is also hidden on umbrella accounts. If neither explains it, contact support.
Related
Create a form
Get notified when someone submits a form
Form Expirations Report
Form Responses Report
Sending Form Reminders