About Forms

Forms usually include several different types of form controls and a form arrangement at the bottom.

In a Blueprint, a form is typically identified by the form icon . A form arrangement is typically identified by the form arrangement icon .

A theme controls the colors and styles of the form and its controls and gives the form a cohesive look. To see a sample form, see Tour a Form.

The following types of forms are available for each Business Object:

Standard form: By default, each Business Object has one designated default standard form; however, you can create as many standard forms as you need. For example, create one form for an internal support team and another for an external support team to show different data, or create smaller forms to embed in one larger default form (example: Toggle between a detailed and summary view of a Knowledge Article).
Summary form: A summary form is a smaller form with a subset of information. Typically, a summary form is used on a form arrangement tab where only a subset of information is required (example: Customer summary, such as name, department, title, and contact information).
Mini-summary form: A mini-summary form is a much smaller form with a very small subset of information. Typically, a mini-summary form is used as an embedded form when only a very specific subset of information is required (example: Very brief customer summary, such as name and contact information).
View-only form: An uneditable view of a form. A view-only form is used to review (not edit) form details in a CSM Portal view.
Edit-existing form: An editable version of a view-only form. An edit-existing form is used to edit form details in a CSM Portal view.

Note: The view-only and edit-existing form types are only available in a CSM Portal view. You can switch to a CSM Portal view in the Blueprint Editor in CSM Administrator using the Current view drop-down list. See Open the Form Editor.

For each Business Object, the following are also available:

Form arrangement: A form arrangement is a tabbed collection of child forms and records that can be dynamically displayed on a parent form/record to convey related information (example: Journals or tasks related to the parent record, or an additional form for the same record that displays fields in a different way).
Form view: A form view is a form that has been created specifically for a Business Object View so that data from a Business Object can be exposed in a more secure and more personal way. For example, create an Incident form for a CSM Portal view so that customers can access a simpler Incident form and grid. See Presenting Different Views to Users.

To help manage (create, edit, and delete) forms, CSM provides the Form Editor; to help manage form arrangements, CSM provides the Form Arrangement Editor. Both tools are accessed from within a Blueprint in CSM Administrator.

Managing Content-Protected Forms

If you are working with forms that were previously applied as part of a Protected mApp™ Solution:

You see a shield icon alongside content-protected forms.
If you open a content-protected form in CSM Administrator, you see a large transparent shield watermark in the Form Editor.
You can't edit or delete a content-protected form, but you can copy a form, then edit or delete it.
The copied form contains all protected definitions from the original form. The copied form itself isn't content-protected, but everything within the form is. For example, One-Step™ Actions and expressions are protected because they are not copies.
Toolbars are disabled in both the Definition Reviewer and Form Editor.
If you install a new Protected mApp Solution containing a form with a name that already exists, the form in the target system has an underscore prefix (_) added to avoid naming conflicts.