Form Settings and Metadata

Last updated: 19 Nov 2025

In the formbuilder, there are a number of optional configurations you can set for your project. You can access these by clicking on the Layout & Settings button.

Form style

You can change the way the form appears in Enketo web forms, such as multiple pages, grid theme, etc., in the Form Styles drop-down menu. Learn more about the different form styles here.

Form metadata

Metadata are hidden questions that can aid data analysis and can be used for auditing and data integrity purposes. The metadata is captured in the background during the normal data collection process:

Metadata	Description
Start Time	Records the exact time and date when a submission is started.
End Time	Records the date and time when a submission is finalized.
Today	Records the date of the submission.
Username	In KoboCollect, records the username saved in the KoboCollect app settings. If no username is set, it records the one used to sign in to the server. In Enketo, records the account username only if authentication is required. Note: Because the username field can be edited in KoboCollect, it may not match the account used to authenticate to the server. To see which account submitted the data, refer to the automatically generated _submitted_by field.
Audit	Captures a detailed log of the interview process, including start time, end time, location, and user actions during the entire data collection process. This metadata question is not supported in Enketo. Learn more about audit logging here
Background Audio	Records audio in the background while a form is open.
Device ID	Records the unique identification of the device or browser used to collect data. The device ID is automatically generated and cannot be modified by users. Note: In KoboCollect, the device ID is updated whenever the app is reinstalled on a device. In Enketo, the device ID resets any time a new browser window is used.
Phone Number	Records the phone number stored in the KoboCollect app settings. This metadata question is not supported in Enketo.

Adding form metadata in XLSForm

If you are building your form in XLSForm, you can add metadata as follows:

type	name
start	start
end	end
today	today
username	username
audit	audit
background-audio	background_audio
deviceid	deviceid
phonenumber	phonenumber
survey

No labels are required as the questions are not visible within the form itself during data collection

Background audio

When the “Background audio” setting is turned on, audio will be recorded while the form is open. Learn more about background audio recording here.

Details

When creating a new project, you have the option to set the description, sector, and country for your project. You also can opt in to anonymously share the country and sector information with KoboToolbox for the purposes of improving the platform. You can add or change these details in Layout & Settings pane within the formbuilder or in the SETTINGS>General tab.

Additional settings

Apart from options found in the formbuilder’s Layout & Settings tab, you can also change other project-level settings, such as sharing, connected projects, REST services and media and more.

You can download an XLSForm with examples from this article here.