Advanced Tips for Custom Forms
Custom Forms within HR Partner can automatically update some core employee information as well as any custom fields you have set up! We've put this article together to outline what information can be updated and how!
Which Core Fields Can Be Updated?
You can use Custom Forms to update any of the following employee information in HR Partner:
- First Name(s)
- Last Name
- Salutation
- Birth Date
- Tax Identifier (TFN/SSN/National ID)
How Do I Automatically Update Core Fields?
First, head to Forms > Configure > Templates and create a new form. You can follow the steps outlined here to build the form itself.
When you are editing the components of your form, you will notice that they each have both a "Label" which is what the recipient of the form reads, and a "Name" which is stored in the back end of the form and essentially makes the form work:
To set up the automatic field update function, you will need to ensure that you set up the field names in your form in accordance with those outlined below:
| To Update This Employee Field | Use This Field Name |
| First Name(s) | employee__first_name or employee__first_names |
| Last Name | employee__last_name or employee__surname |
| Salutation | employee__salutation |
| Birth Date | employee__date_of_birth or employee__birthdate |
| Tax Number | employee__tax_number or employee__ssn or employee__tfn |
IMPORTANT: The special field names all begin with 'employee__' which is the word 'employee' followed by TWO underscore '_' characters in succession, then the rest of the field name
Updating Custom Fields
You can also use Custom Forms to update any custom fields that you might have set up to store any data that we do not store by default.
Let's take the example of an employee's bank details. You could create custom fields to hold this data and using the automatic update functionality their bank details could populate within their record as soon as they submit their new starter form as a part of their onboarding checklist.
When you set up custom fields under Setup > Configure > Custom Fields, you have to give each field a unique name:
All you need to do is to use the SAME field name in both your custom field and your custom form, and the information will be automatically updated in the employee's custom field when they submit the form to you! For example:
The only thing you need to be aware of is that the field type matches in the custom form and the custom fields area (e.g. a custom date field must be set up as a Date type field in the custom form etc.)