In CareerPlug's Onboarding system, first go to Account > Settings and scroll down to the Forms section. Click the New Form button. After choosing PDF Form, you’ll need to name the form and choose a PDF file to upload.
After you click Save, your form will load and be ready for you to map fields (Note: form loading may take a few minutes). Add any instructions that you wish the employee to see before they begin to complete the form.
Select the Add Form Field button at the top right of the PDF to begin mapping fields. You will see a drop-down menu to choose the field type.
The form field types include:
- Open Text Response - allows the employee to enter any data
- Signature Area - requires a signature
- Date - includes a date-picker and will only accept a date as data
- Checkbox - adds a single checkbox that can be left checked or unchecked by the person filling out the form
- Select - Choices - adding this field type creates two small boxes as answer options (although you can add more than two answer options when you edit the field). When you use a Select - Choices type field, the person filling out the form must select only one of the given answer choices. If you have a group of options on a PDF form and the person filling it out can select any number of the options, use checkbox field types instead, as Select-Choices will require that the person filling out the form select only one choice.
After you select a field type — for example, Open Text Response — a field will be added to the form.
Move the field by clicking it and dragging. You can resize the field by hovering over any edge and manipulating the box.
Adjust the placement of the form field. Keep in mind that the order of the form field ranks by height, then placement from left to right on the page. For example, if one field is higher than the other, that question will be shown first. If two fields are the same height, the one to the left will be shown first.
Once the field is placed on the form, edit the field by selecting the pencil icon to the right of the field.
- Name: Rename the field to reflect the response needed. For example, if the field requires the employee to input their First Name, the field name should be “First Name." Correctly naming fields is essential when employees/managers are completing or reviewing the forms.
- Type: You can change the original field type you selected (open text response in our example).
- Required: Select this checkbox if this field is required.
- Responsible: Select who is responsible for completing this field, the employee or the manager. If this is an employee only form, all fields should be set to “Employee Completes Field.” If this is a manager only form, all fields should be set to “Manager Completes Field."
- Prefill From: You can select to prefill this field from existing information in the employee record. For example, First Name and Last Name are common prefills that save the employee time when completing the form.
- Font Size: You have the option to set a default font size.
- Overflow: You have options on what will happen if the response to the field overflows the field area. The default is to reduce the font size.Align: Select the alignment of the text in the field.
- Opaque: If you check this box, the field will be opaque. Leaving it unchecked will keep the field transparent.
Add as many fields as you need. For the field on this example form that asks you whether the account is a checking or savings account, we would use a Select-Choices field, which creates two small boxes as fields. The person filling out the form can choose which one applies.
