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Flow Writing Tools

An overview explanation the authoring tools to create a flow

Claudia King avatar
Written by Claudia King
Updated over 4 years ago

When clicking on an information point, there are 6 buttons to navigate:

Add

The Add button is what you will be using the most often. You can add to the left or the right of a point.

When you click Add it will show another 6 buttons (see image above). The purpose of these buttons are to collect information from the end user, which will ultimately be put into the document.

The 6 buttons it will bring up are as follows:

  • Token (Advanced)

  • Question

  • Answer

  • Output

  • Pack (Advanced)

  • Jump

You can use the question and answer buttons to add questions and answers to the interview created by your flow. Note, the answers to the questions are not going to end up in a document until you add them to the output, (more about the Output button below).

Question

The question button allows you to ask the user a Question in the interview. For every Question that is created, an Answer information point will be created automatically.

Answer

Every Question must have an Answer. You can add as many Answers as you like to each Question. Click on the Question point you have created to add additional Answer points. You would do this for a Question that has multi choice answers. The multi-choice answers could be "yes" and "no", or, the multi choice answers could be more complex and numerous. The image below is a "yes" multi choice answer point. The interview user will not be able to enter any free text, they will need to click on the correct answer. 

In the example below, we have added "yes" as a multi choice answer option

If you want the interview user to be able to enter then you need to flick over the toggle to "Allow user input". In the example below, we have added "Name" to the Answer point and flicked over the toggle. This will allow the user to enter their answer as free text.


Output

The purpose of the Output function is to take information and put it into the document that is created from the user's interview.

When you click on the Output  button - it brings up 7 black buttons as follows:

Instruction

The Instruction button creates a point or a "sign post" which can provide information for the interview user and help guide them through the interview. The Instruction point will appear in the interview but not in the document created by the interview.

Section

This is used to create headings and numbered text.

Sections have the ability to nest.

Paragraphs

The Paragraph button creates a block of text, on a fresh new line.

Text

The Text button creates a text snippet, which adds on to whatever is already sitting there. This means the text that you add in this Text point will continue on the previous line of text, without a line break.

Tables
You can create a table in your document. To add a table, start by adding a Table Start point.

Next add a row by clicking Table Row. You can then add as many cells as you want into this row by clicking Table Cell. Once you have added the number of cell you want in that particular row, you can add another row by clicking Table Row. Keep repeating the process until you have built as many rows and cells into your table as you want.

You can add text and tokens to table cells. 

Keep in mind, when you click Table Start, a new table will be started.

Jumps

Jumps are a really helpful tool!

The point of using a Jump is to allow the user to move from one point in the flow, to anywhere else in the flow. 

I.e if you are building a multiple-answer question, and you wish the interview to return to the original line of questioning.

The symbol is a rocket ship, so it it helpful to think of a way to "fly" to another point.

Cut and Paste

The Clipboard tool allows you to Cut, Copy, and Paste - from the point that you click on, and anything after that point on the right.

To Cut/Copy select the point you would like to replicate, click the LEFT Clipboard icon. Then, choose a point in the document, click the RIGHT clipboard, and click Paste.
Please be careful when completing large edits using these tools. Copy is for reusing a set of points and Cut for when you want to move them. Note, if there are any token in the points you are cutting/copying and pasting then you will need to delete and replace the tokens.

If you do run into any trouble contact our support team immediately as they will be able to rollback your flow.

ADVANCED TOOLS

Pack

The Pack feature can be accessed by clicking the button with a suitcase on. It will bring you to two buttons called Pack and Reference.


Packs
are a more advanced feature which allows for a set of questions which can be asked over and over.

For example - for a Trust, where you need to ask the name of the beneficiaries but you don't know how many there are - you would use a Pack.

While Packs are used to collect information, References are used for pulling that information out and adding it to the document created from the interview.

When you click on the Pack point (to create the pack) the Warning below will appear. This is just to remind you that everything to the right of where you are in the flow will go into the Pack.

Click continue to go ahead and create your pack.

Tokens

Tokens are found on the orange button with a ticket icon on it.  Tokens can be used for customised references, and allows the user to set certain values.

I.e if a question is about a person's gender, and the interviewee selects "Female" - the author can use Tokens to tell the document to use "she" and "her" when referring to that person, without having to ask additional questions.

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