Installing Forms

November 14, 2023

Forms is an advanced forms builder and monitoring application that is integrated with Jahia. To install Forms and make it available to your websites, you:

  • Deploy the Forms - Enterprise Distribution package on your Jahia server
  • Enable the modules in the package for your websites
Note: You deploy the package and enable modules in Jahia.

Deploying the Forms package

You deploy the Forms - Enterprise Distribution package by adding the package's JAR file to Jahia. You can get the JAR file for the package by:

  • Searching for the package in the Administration page in Jahia.
  • Downloading the package from the Jahia AppStore. After downloading the package, you upload it in Jahia or copy it to the digital-factory-data/modules directory on your server.

The Forms - Enterprise Distribution package includes the required Forms Core module and additional optional modules. The optional modules extend or customize Forms. For example, the Forms prefill module provides prefilling of Forms fields from a user profile or its geolocation.

To deploy your module from Jahia:

  1. On the server on which Jahia is running, in Edit mode, choose Administration>Server>Modules and Extensions>Modules.
  2. On the Modules page, click Available modules and enter Forms as search criteria in the search box.
    forms-module-search.png
  3. To view more information about the package, click the Forms - Enterprise Distribution package. Information includes:
    • A description of the module and its key features.
    • A list of the Form Factories modules included in the package. 
    • Changelog notes and a summary of install details.
  4. To start the modules automatically after downloading them, select Start modules automatically after download.
  5. Click the Download arrow 
    download-icon.png
     in the Download column for the Forms - Enterprise Distribution package. A message shows the modules that were uploaded and started.
    forms-modules-deployed.png
  6. Click Installed modules tab to view the status of the modules. Use the Search box to locate the module that you deployed, as shown in the following image. For each module, you can view the version number, whether the module is stopped or started, and whether the module has been enabled for any sites.
    forms-modules-installed.png

You can stop a module by clicking the Stop button module-stop.png, and then start it using the Start button module-start.png or remove it from Jahia by stopping it and then clicking the Undeploy button module-undeploy.png.

Next, enable modules for specific websites.

Enabling your modules

After deploying the Forms - Enterprise Distribution package, you enable the modules included in the package for your sites. While only the Forms Core module is required, we recommend that you enable all modules in the package, unless you have a good reason for doing so. For more information on the modules, see Forms modules.

Note: You can also store form submissions in Elasticsearch by deploying and enabling the Forms Elasticsearch Storage module. For more information on configuring Elasticsearch storage, see Storing form submissions in Elasticsearch.

To enable modules:

  1. In Jahia, choose Administration>System components>Modules.
  2. On the Modules page, click Installed modules and enter search criteria to locate the module, as shown in the following example.
    forms-modules-list.png
  3. In the Status column, click on a Forms module. For example, click Forms Core.
  4. In Usage in sites, move the slider to Enabled for each site that you want to enable the module for.
    ff-enabled-for-sites.png

    In the following example, Forms is now available for the Digitall sample website by navigating to jContent.
    forms-jcontent.png
  5. Enable additional modules as required.