Testing a Form is recommended best practice before sharing the public-facing URL.
Testing a Form
Publish First
The first time you set up a form, you can work on it in draft form as long as you like (e.g. adding steps, and fields, and moving things around). In order to test it yourself or share it with others on your staff for testing, you'll need to select the green "Publish" button at the top right.
Once you do, the default view from the Form page will be your stats/ overview view. You'll always see the "Start form" button at the top right.
Launch the Start Page
The ability to start the submission yourself (always the best first step and an excellent way to catch typos and other errors). To launch your new form yourself, just hit the Start button.
The link to the form Start page so you can share it with others. We strongly recommend getting other team members to test your form before sharing it with the public.
To get the link for the form for testing (or posting to your government's website) you can select the copy icon and email it to colleagues, paste it into a chat, or add it to a website.
Note: You can keep improving the Form even after it's in use by the public, just remember that if you change a form, any applicant will continue with the version they started on.
Halt or Delete Test Submissions
When you've set up, tested, and revised a form and are ready to launch it with the public, you'll need to get rid of all the tests that you and your team launched during the setup and testing phase.
Before the public launch, select all the test submissions on your dashboard by selecting the checkboxes on the left side.
Then select Delete selected submissions from the "Actions" menu at the upper right, and your form will be ready for the public to use (and your data will be accurate for reports and not include any test data).
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