Create your library's e-mail question form

[English | Español | Français]

• Overview
• Benefits
• Setup steps
• Options
• Troubleshooting: Answers missing from a select-list or radio-list field

Overview

In the QuestionPoint Administration module, you (as an Institution administrator) can set up your library's e-mail question form using Forms Manager. You specify the content of your form. QuestionPoint hosts it and provides the URL for linking to it.

Other uses of Forms Manager:

• If you (as an Institution administrator) want to set up the Qwidget for your library, see Create your Qwidget (QuestionPoint widget).
• If you (as a Group administrator) want to set up the chat form for your group, see Create your group's chat forms.
• If you (as an Institution administrator) want to customize your group's chat form for use by your library, see Set up your library's chat form.

Benefits

This method for managing your forms:

• Is easy to use and reduces the need for IT staff involvement.
• Lets you customize your forms.
• Provides e-mail question forms in multiple languages.
• Supports improved access to data about reference transactions.
• Provides improved protection against spam.

Setup steps

The setup steps for your QuestionPoint e-mail question form are:

1. Decide what you want your form to contain. (For more information, see Options.)
2. Log on to QuestionPoint and go to Forms Manager at Administration > Institution > Forms > Forms Manager. When you first view the Forms Manager page, some links are inactive (grayed out). They become active as you complete prerequisite steps.
3. Click Choose Languages. Here you select the languages in which you want the form to be available. (For more information, see Options for Choose Languages.)
4. If you want your form to request additional information beyond the patron's name, e-mail address, and question, you must complete step 5 before step 6.
   If you want your form to request only the patron's name, e-mail address, and question, skip step 5 and go to step 6.
5. Click Choose Form Fields to select, add, and customize fields for gathering information from patrons. (For more information, see Options for Choose Form Fields.)
6. Click Create Question Form and do the following:
   1. Click Select the languages that you want to support in your e-mail form. Here you confirm the languages in which you wish to publish your e-mail question form. If you want to add a language not listed here, repeat step 3 above (Choose languages) to add it and then return here to confirm that it is selected.
   2. Click Define E-mail Look and Feel. Here you define the banner for the top of your e-mail form.
   3. Click Select the fields that you want to appear on your e-mail form. Here you choose the fields to appear on your form from the fields that you selected and customized in Choose Form Fields and you select and customize other fields to appear on your form, including the Question field, E-mail field, Name field, Assignment Selector, and heading, footer, and instructions fields.
   4. Click Put E-mail Fields in Order. Here you set or change the order of the fields on the form.
   5. Click View e-mail form. Here you can view and test your form in each of your selected languages. If you submit a question while testing, the question is added to your QuestionPoint account.
   6. Click Publish E-mail Form. Here you make the forms available on the web and get the URLs for linking to them. You must repeat this step each time you make changes to the forms.

   For more information, see Options for Create Question Form.

7. Add links to the form on your web site (or on other sites such as MySpace) and publicize your service.

Note: If you are replacing a form created through another method, check your Question Form URL at Administration > Institution > Forms > Question Form to see if you need to replace it with the new URL. For more information, see Display links to your reference service.

Options

• Options for Choose Languages
• Options for Choose Form Fields
• Options for Create Question Form

Options for Choose Languages

Here you select:

• Languages in which you want the e-mail form to be available.
• Default language. This is the primary language for the completed e-mail form. Links to the form in other selected languages will be be included at the bottom of the form. When you publish the form, you receive a URL for each selected language so you can create links to the form in any of the languages.

You can customize the wording in each language that you select. Full translations of default text are available for French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Italian, Catalan, Slovenian, Dutch, Korean, and German. For other languages, you must enter all text. If you want to provide forms in any of the other languages, contact your OCLC regional service provider to ask for more information.

Options for Choose Form Fields

In Choose Form Fields, you select and customize fields for gathering information from patrons. These fields are in addition to the Question field, E-mail field, Name field, and introductory and footer text that you select and customize in a later step.

• Up to 10 fields. You can select and customize up to 10 fields.
• Available fields and custom fields. You can select fields from a list of available fields or add (create) custom fields.
  Note: If there is an available field for a question that you want to ask patrons, select and customize it rather than create a custom field. When you use available fields, QuestionPoint can provide more uniformity of reference-transaction data.
• Field types. You can select or create the following types of fields:
  • Select list, a drop-down list of up to 30 answers from which the patron can select one.
  • Radio list, a radio list of up to 5 answers from which the patron can select one.
  • Text area, a text box with multiple entry lines (255 character limit).
  • Text box, a text box with a single entry line (255 character limit).
• If you select an Available Field, you can:
  • Customize the text of its label or question for each of your supported languages.
  • Provide the text of the answers in a select list (that provides customizable entry) for each of your supported languages.
  • Add or delete answers from a radio list or a select list (that provides customizable entry or pre-populated values).
  • Designate a default answer for a select list or radio list.
  • Add a header instruction such as "Select from" to a select list.
  • Order the lists that you created.

  Note: Some available fields have two versions so you can choose the version that best meets your needs. For example, the Institution field has a text-box version if you want patrons to provide any information they wish in the field and a select-list version if you want patrons to select from specified choices.

• If you add (create) a custom field, you:
  • Select a field type.
  • Provide the text of its label or question for each of your supported languages.
  • Provide the text of the answers in a select list or radio list for each of your supported languages.
  • Designate a default answer for a select list or radio list.
    Note: If you do not want to designate a default answer for a select list, add a list header and provide text for the list heading, such as "Select one." The list heading is visible in the list before the list is pulled down.

Options for Create Question Form

In Create Question Form, you:

• Select the languages in which you want to publish your e-mail form.
• Define E-mail Look and Feel (see notes below).
• Select the fields you want to appear on your e-mail form (see notes below).
• Put E-mail Fields in Order.
• View e-mail form.
• Publish E-mail Form (see notes below).

Notes about: Define E-mail Look and Feel

Here you define the following elements of the banner for the top of your e-mail question form:

• URL of the image file for the logo or image that appears on the left in the form banner. Recommended height of the image is 40 pixels.
• URL of the web page to which the patron goes if the image is clicked.
• Alternate (alt) text for the image.
• Banner text that appears next to your logo (40 character limit).
• Color (hexadecimal color code) of the background of the banner.
• Color (hexadecimal color code) of the banner text.
• URL and link text for up to two links that will appear in the banner.

If you have forms in two or more languages, you may either define a default banner that applies to all languages or customize the banner for each language.

Notes about: Select the fields you want to appear on your e-mail form

For the fields that you selected or created in Choose Form Fields, you can:

• Add them to, or remove them from, your e-mail question form.
• Indicate whether they are required or optional (Settings).

To customize these fields, return to Choose Form Fields.

For the Question field (required), you can:

• Customize the text of its label or question for each of your supported languages.

For the E-mail field (required), you can:

• Customize the text of its label or question for each of your supported languages.
• Indicate how you want to validate the e-mail address (Settings).
  Note: If you choose to validate the address using predefined rules, QuestionPoint accepts an e-mail address if it has a local-part and a domain separated by @ (at). The local-part may contain any of the following characters: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, - (hyphen), or _ (underscore). Also, . (period) may appear between characters in the local-part. The domain may contain any of the following characters: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, - (hyphen), or _ (underscore). Also, the domain may contain subdomains separated by . (periods). Each subdomain may contain up to 66 characters, except the last subdomain, which must contain 2-6 characters, a-z only. For example, QuestionPoint accepts this e-mail address:
  x-y.zZZz_u12u@aaaa.bbbb-bbBBbb_bbb34b.ccccccc.dddd

For the Name field, you can:

• Add it to, or remove it from, your e-mail question form.
• Customize the text of its label or question for each of your supported languages.
• Indicate whether it is required or optional (Settings).

For the Assignment Selector, you can:

• Add it to, or remove it from, your e-mail question form.
• Indicate how assignment of submitted questions will be done (Settings).

Note: To use the Assignment Selector, you must also set up Web Form Assignment (Administration > Institution > Settings > Web Form Assignment). For more information about Web Form Assignment and the Assignment Selector, see Set up web form assignment.

For E-mail Form Title, E-mail Form Introductory Text, E-mail Form Instruction, and E-mail Trailer or Footer:

• E-mail Form Title appears below the banner and has larger bold type.
• E-mail Form Introductory Text appears below the E-mail Form Title and has regular type.
• E-mail Form Instruction appears below the E-mail Form Introductory Text and directly above the fields that patrons complete. It appears in a gray bar in bold, regular size type.
• E-mail Trailer or Footer appears below the fields that request information from the patron and just above the Submit Question button. It has regular type.

You can:

• Add them to, or remove them from, your e-mail question form.
• Customize their text for each of your supported languages.

Notes about: Publish E-mail Form

When you click Publish E-mail Form, QuestionPoint redisplays the Create E-mail Form page with a URL for the e-mail question form for each of your supported languages.

Each time you change the form you must click Publish E-mail Form to add the change to the published forms.

Click Delete Published Forms if you want to remove the forms so they are no longer available.

If you delete published forms, be sure to remove any links to them that you added on your web site. If a patron clicks a link to a deleted form, an error page instructs the patron to contact your library.

Note about: Language customization

If you add a language, check each field that you selected for your forms to add any needed answers for the new language.

Troubleshooting: Answers missing from a select-list or radio-list field

Does your completed e-mail question form contain empty select-list or radio-list fields, in which no answers are available to select?

If it does, you may have selected the fields under Create Question Form before you finished customizing them under Choose Form Fields.

Try the following solution:

1. Remove the fields from the form in Forms Manager > Create Question Form > Select the fields you want to appear on your e-mail form.
2. Finish customizing the fields and adding answers in Forms Manager > Choose Form Fields.
3. Add the fields back into the form in Forms Manager > Create Question Form > Select the fields you want to appear on your e-mail form.