The main screen

This article presents help about the actions that can be performed from the main screen. If you need help on any other topic – please open the help article related to that topic directly from its screen [the help system is “context-sensitive” to where it is opened from] or navigate here in order to see an introduction to using the system and a general list of help topics.

In most cases when you reach the main screen, it will be displayed to you in “normal” mode, and you will be able to view data from it, and perform actions, as detailed below, but if a sentence appears on the main screen indicating that there are no forms in the system yet, and that is the topic you want to learn now, skip to here to read more.

• If the message “Create a document / record of a form type” appears on the screen:

You have not yet saved any record in the system [it may be that you have not created a record yet, but it may also be that your organization has licensing that does not allow saving records – probably “free” licensing – and therefore you also will not be able to save records later – see further explanation later in the article.

If you see the words “system administration” in the main menu, then you are connected to the system as a “system administrator”, and you can perform many actions that are not accessible to a regular user. In the case where you set up the system, you were granted “system administrator” permissions automatically. For a review of the actions that system administrators can perform from the menu, see here.

• The organization name appears together with the connected user’s name. If you updated your profile picture, this picture will appear in the top-left corner, next to the username and the menu-open icon.
• The help button appears and allows opening the help article relevant to the page you are on.
• Clicking the menu-open icon will open a menu from which you can perform additional actions:
  • “My profile” opens the profile and preferences update screen of the connected user – see help for this screen here.
  • “Settings” opens the settings update and password-change screen of the connected user – see help for this screen here.
  • “About us” – opens the “About the system” screen in which the system version is displayed.
  • “Log out” – logs the connected user out of the system [log out] and takes them to the login screen.

• The wizard can help you prepare a new form for capturing information quickly and easily, with or without generating documents and/or electronically signing them. See help on this topic here.
• If you “turned it off” and you want it to appear again, go to the profile update screen [see here], and “turn” it back on.
• To minimize the display of the forms wizard – click the red arrow next to it. Another click on the red arrow will expand the wizard again.
  To turn off the forms wizard – click “Do not show this wizard again” and confirm.

• During regular service hours:
  • To hold a chat with a customer-service employee
  • To go to a screen displaying several main links to the DocsRobot help system
• Outside regular service hours – to send a support request for the next business day.

In organizations that have not set up forms yet [including, of course, new installations that this is the first time entering them], one of the two following messages will appear on the screen – please act according to what is stated below:

• The message that appears is: “It seems your organization does not have forms yet. Without forms, documents cannot be created. Please contact the system administrator to add forms”
  • You cannot use the system yet since it is not ready.
  • Please contact whoever manages the system in your organization, and ask them to add forms, so that you can create records, generate documents, and as needed send them for signing…
• The message that appears is: “It seems you have not created any form yet. Without forms, documents cannot be created. Click here to create your first form”? You probably only just registered, and have not yet created forms for capturing information. Without forms you will not be able to create records, documents and signatures, therefore as a system administrator you will need to create the first form as soon as possible, and therefore you should do one of the two:
  • Create the organization’s first information-capture form manually – go to the forms list screen to continue, or
  • Create the organization’s first information-capture form using the DocsRobot forms wizard – see here for further explanation.

In an organization that has not yet created records [or that has records, but the current user cannot see them due to access control – see the access-control topic in the form editor screen], on the main screen the message “Create a document / record of a form type” will appear [if this message does not appear, and instead another message appears indicating that there are no forms in the system yet, look to the right to learn what to do…]. This message will always appear if your organization has licensing that does not allow saving records [probably “free” licensing].

Below it appears a drop-down box with the form types existing in the system. You must choose a form type in this box and click “Create new record”. Now you will be taken to a record data-entry screen, according to the structure of the form prepared for it. On this screen you can perform various actions according to the licensing – see help here.
If you have already created records in the past from various form types [whether you saved them or not], several “shortcuts” will also appear below the drop-down box under the heading “Recreating records from recently used forms” – clicking each of them will take you to the new-record creation screen of that form type

The screen structure described in this article refers to the case of an organization that has licensing allowing it to save records [paid licensing], and that has already created and saved such records. If instead of the structure described here you see the sentence “Create a document / record of a form type” – look to the right in this article to see what you should do.

The screen structure:

• To the left of the main menu, the “form-types bar” appears. This bar displays a list of the form/document types managed in your organization – clicking the name of each of them will display the records created from this form [only records you are allowed to see – for an explanation of preventing access to records via permissions (for system administrators only) – see the article about the form editor]. The bar also allows you to easily locate a form type if the list of form types is long, to pin certain form types to the top of the list, and to minimize or expand its display – see elaboration in this article.
• To the left of the form-types bar, the “records table” will appear. This table allows you to view the latest records created, filter them for quick location of a record, run a query that displays only records meeting a certain condition, page between records, open a record for viewing or editing, and add a new record – see here for further explanation about this table.