Form Elements

The Business Forms plugin is equipped with a wide variety of element types to cover almost any imaginable web application requirements.

info

All form elements (starting from version 4.9.0, including sections) can be created dynamically. For more info, please refer to the Dynamic Forms page of the Business Forms panel documentation.

Layout

You have a choice of three layouts - Basic, standard Buttons Only, and Sections. To switch between them open the Layout category.

Layout can be Basic, Buttons Only, and Sections.

Form elements layout types.

Basic

In the Basic layout, all form elements are positioned vertically, one following another.

Sections

With the Sections layout, you can create as many sections as needed and place sections either vertically or horizontally using the Orientation option.

As shown in the picture above, when the layout Sections is chosen, the controls to create sections appear. For every section you can specify an ID, to use for referencing later, and a name which will be a displayed as a section label.

Version

The Collapsable parameter has been supported starting from version 4.0.0.

Sections can be collapsible. This functionality is available only for the sections in the Vertical orientation. You can make any section Expanded for the form opening/refresh.

Collapsible sections.

In addition, you can control the Expanded and Collapsed states in the Custom code using the following commands:

context.panel.expandSection(id);
context.panel.collapseSection(id);

note

The full list of the Business Form panel parameters can be found in the Custom Code section of the panel's documentation.

Buttons Only

The standard Buttons Only, as the name implies, keeps only standard buttons on your form. The standard buttons include Submit, Reset, and Save default. With this layout, all panel options related to other form elements are hidden, which gives a cleaner Edit mode to work with.

Add a form element

Go to the Form Elements category to add a form element. Start by specifying ID, label, and type. After you click the Add Element button, more element options are available to configure.

Element types have specific options. For instance, the Text area type has Rows to regulate the element size on the dashboard.

Form element in Edit mode.

Move a form element

Version

Supported starting from the version 3.0.0.

You can drag-and-drop form elements in the edit mode to change their order on the form.

Drag-and-drop form elements in Edit mode.

Form element types

The picture below illustrates all available element types prior to the version 4.4.0

Form elements on UI.

• Custom button
• Checkbox List with custom options
• Code Editor
• Color Picker
• Date
• Date and Time
• File
• Link
• Multi-select with custom options
• Number Input
• Number Slider
• Password Input
• Radio Group with boolean options
• Radio Group with custom options
• Read-only
• Read-only Text Area
• String Input
• Select with Custom options
• Text Area
• Time

Common configuration

There are three form elements with select options.

• Multi Select with Custom Options
• Select with Custom Options
• Radio Group with Custom Options

All three have some options in common.

Icon

Optionally select an icon for this element.

Custom color/background color for elements

Version

Colors for elements supported starting from version 4.0.0.

You can play with Form Elements colors. Configurable are:

• Background color,
• Label background,
• Label color.

Color options

Select Options from Query

Version

Below is supported starting from the version 3.2.1.

Reference a query from any configured data source to populate form elements dynamically. You can specify the Label and Value fields.

Use values from the query for your types with select options.

Select Options from Get Options Code

Version

Below is supported starting from the version 3.5.0.

Get Options Code allows to hard code options using the code editor. The code must:

• return array with {label,value} objects,
• be synchronous.

Use hard-coded values from the Get Options Code for your types with select options.

Set Options received asynchronously

The Get Options Code does not support asynchronous code. However, you still can work with options received asynchronously.

It could be done in two steps:

Step 1. Initial Request.

Initial request to work with options received asynchronously.

In the example below, we find a necessary element and update its options. Once the data has been received, we update the element using context.panel.onChangeElements().

const url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users";
const element = context.panel.elements.find(
  (element) => element.id === "select"
);

async function fetchData() {
  try {
    const response = await fetch(url);
    const body = await response.json();

    const optionsNew = body.map((element) => ({
      label: element.name,
      value: element.username,
    }));

    const newElement = {
      ...element,
      options: optionsNew,
    };
    const newElements = context.panel.elements.map((element) => {
      if (element.id === "select") {
        return newElement;
      }
      return element;
    });
    context.panel.onChangeElements(newElements);
  } catch (error) {
    console.log("Error:", error);
  }
}

return fetchData();

Step 2. Create the GET Options Code

Set options for your element from context.panel.elements.

Get Options code for the Options received asynchronously

const element = context.panel.elements.find(
  (element) => element.id === "select"
);

if (element?.options) {
  return element?.options;
}

Custom Values

Version

Available starting from version 4.9.0.

If allowed, users can enter custom values into the Select and Multi select form element types

If allowed users can enter custom values into the Select and Multi select form element types.

Conditional Visibility

Every form element has the Show If returned value is true parameter where you enter JavaScript code.

• If this code returns true, the element is shown on the panel.
• If this code returns false, the element is hidden from the panel.

Conditional visibility example.

Example code to check the current value of the select element and show the dateTime element if the value equal to max:

const select = context.panel.elements.find(
  (element) => element.id === "select"
);

if (select) {
  return select.value === "max";
}

Version

Below is supported starting from the version 3.2.1.

You can use the dashboard and global variables within your JavaScript code.

Conditional visibility using a dashboard variable example.

Example code to check the value of the dashboard variable var:

const test = context.grafana.replaceVariables("$var");
return test === "test";

Field Mapping

Version

Below is supported starting from 4.4.0

To map the Initial Form Elements values, use the Initial Fields options category.

Data source 4.4.0

Steps to configure the Initial Request for Data Source. New location of `Field Name` fields.

Query 4.4.0

Explicitly specify the field-to-form element mapping for Query using Query Field. New location of Query Field fields since version 4.2.0

Version

Below is supported starting from version 3.2.1 to version 4.0.0

Using the Field name parameter for Data Source and the Query Field for Query, you can specify field-to-form mapping.

Data Source

Explicitly specify the field-to-form element mapping for Data Source using Field name.

The Field Name option for each Form Element is located under the code editor when the data source option is enabled. Specify a field name for appropriate form element from the data source response.

Query

Explicitly specify the field-to-form element mapping for Query using Query Field.

The Query Field option for each Form Element is located under the code editor when the Query option is enabled. Specify a field name for appropriate form element from the Query response.