How to ensure that respondents provide input in the desired format?
When you have a publicly shared form, you will receive responses in a variety of formats from different users.
To maintain consistency, you may want respondents to follow a specific pattern when filling out the form.
To achieve this, you can add a Single Line field to your form and use the Entry Format option in the field properties.
You can frame your format using the denotations provided in this help.
If you wish to collect driver's license number with one alphabet followed by 12 numbers (Eg: S-514-778-616-977), you must enter the pattern as follows in the Single Line field Properties:
To make things even easier for you, Zoho Forms offers the option of generating the desired format if you simply enter an example of your format! Amazing, isn't it?
For example: If you wish to collect the PAN of your respondents in a format with the first 5 characters being alphabets, followed by 4 numeric values, and ending with an alphabet, you can enter an example of the format as shown:
You can let your respondents learn about the expected format of response by adding a description of the desired format in the field
Instructions,
under
Properties
of the field.
On top of that, you can customize the default error messages under Settings > Custom Messages > Field Validation Messages
to help your respondents enter the response in the required format.
