Form Settings and Metadata

Last updated: 25 Aug 2022

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	Date and time when opening the form (timestamp)
End Time	Date and time when finishing the form (“Submit” button pressed)
Today	The date of the form’s submission
Username	The username of the enumerator if authentication is used for data collection
Audit	Record an audit log while the form is being completed. Learn more about audit logging here
Background Audio	Record audio in the background (only available in KoboCollect)
Device ID	IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity)
Phone Number*	The cellphone number of the data collection device

The Phone Number meta question is only captured on mobile devices that have a SIM card.

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, KoboCollect will record audio while the form is open and continue recording each time the form is opened before submitting. 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.