Context

What is an XLSForm?

XLSForm is a form standard created to help simplify the authoring of forms in Excel. Authoring is done in a human readable format using a familiar tool that almost everyone knows - Excel. XLSForms provide a practical standard for sharing and collaborating on authoring forms. They are simple to get started with but allow for the authoring of complex forms by someone familiar with the syntax described below.

The XLSForm is then converted to an ODK XForm, a popular open form standard, that allows you to author a form with complex functionality like skip logic in a consistent way across a number of web and mobile data collection platforms.

Basic format

Each Excel workbook usually has two worksheets: survey and choices. A third optional worksheet called settings can add additional specifications to your form and is described below.

Why add it to Flumen?

Petra can already export her Flow forms into an Excel sheet, by supporting XLSForms she could export her Flow form in this standard and use it in another tool
By being able to export Flow forms following the standard Flow forms can then be shared with other partners who use a different tool enhancing collaboration regardless of the software used
And other way around - by allowing to create a Flow form using an XLSForm, for created outside of Flow can be easily brought in, making it easier to collaborate or start using Flow
By allowing to create a Flow from using an XLSForm we will support offline survey form creation - a desired feature amount our users working in areas where internet connectivity is still unreliable
Forms are often first created in Excel to allow more people to review the form before it is digitised. Digitisation takes a lot of effort and can sometimes feel like double effort if the survey form is already defined. If we can create new forms by importing and XLSForm we will take away this effort
as a standard used across other tools we level up with the other tools out there
Enhance the use of Akvo standard surveys as providing them in the XLSForms standard can make them reusable across tools
Enable to export a Flow form and then import it in another Flow instance (once the 2nd part is in place)

Opportunity

The opportunity is twofold:

Enable exporting of forms in Flow following the XLSForms standard
Enable creating new forms in Flow by importing an XLSForm

Next steps

Reserach XLSForms, research open-source implementation of such forms, break up the work into small pieces, etc

akvo / akvo-flow