Mirror Forms with Reference Forms

Reference forms let you reuse the same form structure across multiple forms. You build the field groups and fields once in a reference form — then other forms can mirror the reference and inherit the structure automatically. Changes in the reference appear in every mirrored form instantly.

When to use this

• You have several forms that need the exact same fields — for example "Inspection: North district" and "Inspection: South district"
• The structure may change over time and you want to avoid updating each form by hand
• You want to control structure changes — only admins should change the field setup, but many people can create new forms based on the reference
• You need consistency across forms — for example the same standard fields on every case form

How it works

The mechanic uses two roles:

• Reference form — a form marked as a template. It's the reference others mirror.
• Mirrored form — a form pointing at a reference form. The structure (field groups, fields, and field settings) is inherited from the reference.

Mirrored forms are live copies — when you change a field in the reference, the change shows up in every mirrored form immediately. Mirrored forms cannot add or remove fields themselves; the reference is the only source of structure.

Permissions, notification rules, the PDF template, and form responses, on the other hand, are per mirrored form — every mirrored form has its own settings for these.

TIP

Think of the reference form as a field template and the mirrored forms as instances — the structure comes from the reference, but data and settings are unique per instance.

Create a reference form

1. Create the form as usual and build out the field groups and fields.
2. Open the form's Properties.
3. Turn on Reference form under Advanced.
4. Save.

The form is now marked as a reference and can be picked by other forms.

WARNING

Reference form is locked once the form has its first response or if it already mirrors another form. Decide the role early.

Mirror a reference form

1. Create or open an existing form (with no responses).
2. Open Properties → Advanced.
3. Click Select reference form under Mirror with.
4. Pick the reference form from the list.
5. Save.

The mirrored form's field groups and fields are replaced with the reference's structure. The field editor becomes read-only — you can no longer add, remove, or change fields in the mirrored form.

What gets mirrored

Part of the form	Mirrored?
Field groups (name, order)	Yes
Fields and field settings	Yes
Field-level conditional visibility	Yes
Field group conditional visibility	Yes
Subform structure	Yes
Form name and description	No — set per mirrored form
Confirmation texts and empty state	No — set per mirrored form
Icon	No — set per mirrored form
Permissions	No — set per mirrored form
Notification rules	No — set per mirrored form
PDF print template	No — set per mirrored form
Form responses	No — every mirrored form has its own responses

Break the mirror

To unlink a mirrored form from its reference:

1. Open Properties → Advanced.
2. Click the X next to the chosen reference form under Mirror with.
3. Save.

WARNING

Breaking the mirror is locked once the mirrored form has its first response or has its own subforms. You'll need to handle that data before you can unlink.

Use cases

Standardized case forms

Create a reference form Case template with fields like Title, Description, Category, and Priority. Mirror it in IT cases, Facilities cases, and HR cases. Each mirrored form has its own notification recipients and permissions, but identical field structure. When the business adds a new field to the template, all three case forms get it automatically.

Multi-tenant data

An applet handles several districts' inspections and each district needs its own form (for permissioning), but the structure should be identical. Create Inspection as a reference form and mirror it in Inspection: North, Inspection: South, and Inspection: West. District managers only have permissions on their mirrored form, but structure changes apply to all.

Versioned field setups

For recurring surveys — create Survey 2024 and Survey 2025 mirroring two separate reference forms. As the survey evolves over the years, each year's responses keep exactly the structure that was current at submission time, because you can leave old reference forms untouched and only edit the new ones.

Example

Scenario: Your company runs weekly reports across multiple offices. The structure should be identical but each office should have its own report with its own permissions.

1. Create the form Weekly report template with field groups Summary (text) and Metrics (numeric fields).
2. Open Properties → turn on Reference form → save.
3. Create the form Weekly report: Stockholm:
   • Open Properties → click Select reference form → pick Weekly report template.
   • Set Permissions so only the Stockholm team can write.
   • Add a notification rule that emails the Stockholm managers.
4. Repeat for Weekly report: Gothenburg and Weekly report: Malmö — each with its own permissions and notifications.

When you later add a new field Risks to Weekly report template, it appears in all three office reports right away — without you having to touch them.

Tips

TIP

Keep reference forms in their own category or with a clear name prefix — for example Template: or [Reference]. That makes it easy to tell references apart from regular forms in lists.

TIP

Set strict permissions on the reference form itself — structure changes affect every mirrored form. Only admins who understand the impact should be able to edit the fields.

TIP

Combine mirroring with permissions per app to expose the same structure differently in different apps — for example the full structure internally and a stripped-down version in a customer app.

Common mistakes

WARNING

Structure changes in the reference form propagate immediately to every mirrored form. Test changes in a staging environment before adjusting references with many mirrored dependents.

WARNING

If you remove a field in the reference, the corresponding values in mirrored forms' responses are gone. Be careful with deleting fields that already have data.

WARNING

Mirrored forms can't add fields themselves. If a single form needs an extra field that doesn't belong to the template, that's not a clean mirroring case — consider breaking the mirror or moving the field to a subform.

WARNING

The Reference form toggle is locked once the form has its first response. To later mirror from it, you'd need to create a new reference form and move the structure there.