Form Builder Overview | Help Center

The Mapalyze Form Builder is where you design the data collection forms your team uses in the field. It provides a visual, drag-and-drop interface that requires no coding or technical skills. This article gives you a tour of the Form Builder and its key features.

Accessing the Form Builder

Log in to your Mapalyze dashboard at app.mapalyze.com.
Click Forms in the left sidebar.
Click New Form to create a form from scratch, or click an existing form and select Edit to modify it.

The Form Builder interface

The Form Builder is divided into three main areas:

Left panel -- Field palette

This panel contains all available field types organized by category. Drag any field type into the center panel to add it to your form. Field categories include:

Basic -- Text, Number, Yes/No, Single Choice, Multiple Choice
Media -- Photo, Audio, Video, File Attachment
Location -- GPS Point, Line, Polygon, Address
Advanced -- Date/Time, Signature, Barcode Scanner, Calculation
Layout -- Section Header, Instructions, Page Break

Center panel -- Form canvas

This is where your form takes shape. Fields appear in the order your users will see them. You can:

Reorder fields by dragging them up or down.
Delete fields by clicking the trash icon.
Duplicate fields by clicking the copy icon -- useful for creating similar fields quickly.

Right panel -- Field settings

When you click any field in the center panel, its settings appear on the right. Every field type has specific configuration options, but common settings include:

Label -- The question or prompt shown to the user.
Help text -- Additional instructions displayed beneath the label.
Required -- Whether the user must answer this field before saving.
Read-only -- Lock the field so it cannot be edited (useful for auto-populated values).
Hidden -- Include the field in submissions but do not display it to the user.

Working with sections

Sections help you group related fields together and make long forms easier to navigate. To create a section:

Drag a Section Header from the field palette into your form.
Give the section a name (for example, "Site Information" or "Condition Assessment").
Drag fields into the section.

On the mobile app, sections appear as collapsible groups, helping field workers stay oriented in longer forms.

Form settings

Click the gear icon in the top toolbar to access form-level settings:

Name and description -- Update the form title and add a description for your team.
Default location -- Set a default map center point for location fields.
Auto-save -- Enable or disable automatic saving of partially completed records (enabled by default).
Record title format -- Define how records are labeled in the list view, using field values as tokens (for example, "{Site Name} - {Date}").

Versioning

Every time you publish changes to a form, Mapalyze creates a new version. This means:

Records collected on an older version of the form retain their original structure.
You can view the version history and compare changes.
Field workers receive the latest version after their next sync.

For more details, see Form Versioning.

Keyboard shortcuts

Speed up your form-building workflow with these shortcuts:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl/Cmd + S	Save form
Ctrl/Cmd + Z	Undo last change
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z	Redo
Delete	Remove selected field
Ctrl/Cmd + D	Duplicate selected field

Next steps

Learn about all Field Types available in the Form Builder.
Set up Conditional Logic to show or hide fields based on answers.
Publish your form and start collecting data.