Staff Entity Forms

[Intro] In this lesson, we’ll be discussing setting up forms for your app. In particular, Staff Entity Forms. This feature enables your Staff to create a database. Let’s get started.

[Editor] To access the forms section, click on the Platfio editor, then click “Forms”. You will be directed to the Forms Collection Editor page where you can manage and organize all the forms for your app.

To add a new collection, click on the plus button to access the form collection editor. Then, we add the name “Entities” and press save.

Once you’ve created a collection, let’s add a new form. Click on the plus button at the top right. This will open the Form Editor.

Let’s say we as a business want to show our users quotes that they might find inspirational. Under the details tab, click the Name section and enter the name “Quotes”. Then, click the dropdown button in the Type section.

Let’s choose Entity. Entity forms allow staff or users to create databases. Once selected, the Setup section will appear. Click the Layers button next to it.

Per app databases are shared by all users of the app. Per user databases allows each user to have their own database.

Since staff will curate the database for users to see, select "Per app. Admins manage, all users view."

Let’s say we want to enable our staff to add the author’s name and an inspirational quote. Let’s go to the Fields tab and click on the plus button to open the Field editor.

For the Author field, let’s name this, Author and choose Text in the Type section. Then press save.

For the Quotes field, let’s name this, Quotes and choose Extended Text in the Type section. Then press save.

Now that we have created our form, let’s make it easily accessible to users. Press the helper on the lower right corner and click the Windows icon. You can then choose where to add the form. This time, we’ll add it to the Left-Hand side menu.

[Emulator] Next, let's test the form from the user's perspective using the emulator. Open the Left-Hand side menu. We will see that the database we have added is available. Click on Quotes.

[Manager] As a staff, let’s add a quote to the database by going to the Platfio Manager tab. Then go to Entities, then click on Quotes. Next, let’s add the Author “J.R.R. Tolkien”, and the Quote “All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost”. Let’s then add a few more test quotes.

[Emulator] As you can see, the user on the right can only see the quotes and is not able to add them. Meanwhile, the staff member on the left can add and manage the quotes.

In a more advanced video on pages, we’ll go into how you can use dynamics to get these data and display it to users in a completely custom way.

[Outro] Thank you for watching!