Blueprints, export and import

Introduction

A blueprint is a form to start from. Using one makes an ordinary new form you can change however you like; the blueprint stays as it was, and the form keeps no link to it.

Formidable ships these:

Blueprint	What it holds
Contact Us	Name, email, subject and message, emailed to your team with a copy to the visitor
Newsletter Signup	Email, first name and consent to be emailed
Support Request	Topic, urgency, details and screenshots, with New, In progress and Resolved statuses and buttons to move a request along
Quote Request	Contact details, the services needed, budget and timeline
Appointment Request	A preferred date and time with a second choice, and Confirm and Decline buttons
Event Registration	Name, ticket type, guests, dietary and accessibility needs, with a confirmation email
Feedback Survey	An overall rating, an agree-or-disagree grid, a 0–10 "would you recommend us" scale and suggestions
Job Application	Three pages: the applicant, the role with a CV upload, and past employers as "Add another" rows, with statuses and buttons from Shortlist to Hire or Reject
Volunteer Sign-up	Contact details, availability, interests and experience

Every email to your own team arrives switched off, with no recipient, until you choose who it goes to. Copies to the visitor go to the form's Email field and work straight away. You can save any of your own forms as a blueprint too, and every site in a Multiple Site Manager install can use it.

Behind both is the form document: a form's settings, fields, statuses, workflows and submission actions as one JSON file. Export one from a form, import it on another site, and you have the same form there.

Blueprints, export and import all need the Manage forms permission.

Starting from a blueprint

1. Open Formidable › Blueprints, or choose New › From a blueprint on the Forms listing.
2. Choose Use on a blueprint. You'll see its fields page by page, each workflow (when it runs, what it does, who it goes to, and whether it's ready or waiting to be set up), its statuses and buttons, and anything that won't come across as it was.
3. Change the name and handle if you like, and choose Create the form. It opens in the builder.

Saving a form as a blueprint

Open the form and choose Save as blueprint in its title bar. Give it a name, a handle and a description. It appears on the Blueprints screen, where it can be used, downloaded or deleted. Deleting a blueprint doesn't touch the forms made from it. The shipped blueprints can't be deleted.

A blueprint is a snapshot of the form when it was saved. Changing the form afterwards doesn't change the blueprint; save it again under a new name for that.

Moving a form to another site

1. On the form's page, choose Export. A .formidable.json file downloads.
2. On the other site, choose New › Import a form on the Forms listing. Upload the file, or paste its contents, and choose Check it.
3. Review what it holds and what won't come across, then choose Create the form.

The command line does the same: formidable:form:export --form=handle > file.json and formidable:form:import --file=file.json. See Command line.

What comes across

Comes across	Doesn't
The form's settings, pages and sections	Submissions, drafts and counts
Every field and its settings, including conditions and computed fields	A captured form's link to its template: an imported form is a builder form
Statuses and submission actions	Email addresses typed into workflows, member and role recipients
Workflows: when they run, their conditions and their email wording	Webhook URLs and secrets, workflow connections and attached files
Field recipients ("email the address in the Email field")	Connection keys, ever

A field linked to your field library is exported with its settings as they read. On import it's linked again if the site has a library field with the same handle and fieldtype, and arrives as an ordinary field otherwise.

What is matched on the new site

Some settings point at things on the site itself. They're carried by name and matched on the site the form lands on:

• Choices from channel entries, categories or members: the channel, entry statuses, category group and roles, by name.
• File fields: the upload destination and folder, by name.
• Turnstile and hCaptcha: the connection, by its name. Its keys are never exported; the new site needs a connection of the same name.
• Submission actions: who may run them, by role.
• The theme: by name. A theme the site doesn't have falls back to the site's own theme.

Anything that can't be matched is listed before the form is made, and again once it's created:

• A field whose fieldtype the site doesn't have is left out.
• A setting with nothing to match is left empty, to choose in the field's settings.
• A workflow that lost its recipients, URL or connection arrives switched off, until you set it up.
• A submission action whose roles aren't all on the site arrives switched off, so it never opens up to more people than it did.
• A File field arrives without an upload destination: choose one on its File tab before the form takes uploads.
• A handle already taken gets a number added.

A file exported by an older version of Formidable is brought up to date as it's imported.

For developers

Blueprints can also be written in PHP, with the same builder the shipped ones use:

use Nerdgency\Formidable\Library\Blueprint\BlueprintBuilder;

$document = BlueprintBuilder::make('Event RSVP', 'event_rsvp')
    ->description('Who is coming, and how many.')
    ->field('name', 'Name', 'text', ['required' => true], columns: 2)
    ->field('guests', 'Guests', 'number', [], columns: 2)
    ->workflow('Tell the organiser', 'submission_created', 'email', [
        'email_notification_subject' => 'New RSVP from {field:name}',
    ], needsSetup: true)
    ->document();

The document can be imported with formidable:form:import, or written to a file and imported in the control panel. A document from a newer version of Formidable is refused, so update the site first.