In this Support article, you'll learn the unique functions of Users and Groups in IndyForms, as well as how to set them up.
With Users and Groups, you can collaborate with your teams and even external stakeholders in IndyForms.
This allows you to:
Assign forms and delegate tasks to team members with ease.
Ensure teams complete required forms and meet deadlines with automated reminders and real-time tracking.
Collect and organise responses efficiently with visibility into submissions and progress.
Share forms with groups instead of selecting users one by one.
Restrict access to sensitive data to specific users and subsets of users (Groups).
Easily track who has completed what, ensuring compliance and accountability across teams.
Remember:
Forms: A form is the template—the set of questions, fields, and structure you design—used to gather information in a repeatable format from respondents.
Form Records: A form record is a single instance of a form assigned to a respondent to complete. Every time you share a form with a respondent, a new form record is created specifically for them—unless specified otherwise. Learn more.
IndyForms Organisation: An Organisation in IndyForms is a separate workspace with its own dashboard, forms, users, and data. When you sign up for an IndyForms account, an Organisation is automatically created for you. You can join and create unlimited Organisations; and an unlimited number of Organisations can be linked to one account.
What are IndyForms Users and Groups?
Users
Everybody who has a log-in to an IndyForms account is an IndyForms user. They may be an internal team member or an external stakeholder; as long as they have unique log-in access, they are a user.
However, there are two distinct types of users in IndyForms. User types determine what the user can see and do in their unique IndyForms account.
The two different user types are:
Admin Users: Full Access
General Users: Restricted Access
Access for these two user types is summarised in the table below:
| Admin Users | General Users |
IndyForms platform access |
|
|
IndyForms data access | Can see all data from all users in the IndyForms Organisation. | Can only see their own data in the IndyForms Organisation, (i.e., their own form records), as well as data they have been shared by other administrators and general users (i.e., form records they have been invited to contribute to). |
Can build new forms and update existing form designs? | Yes | No |
Groups
As explained above, access permissions in IndyForms are controlled by user types. IndyForms’ ‘Groups’ work on top of this, adding another level of access control.
Groups are a designated cohort of users. They help Administrators manage how users can interact with forms and form records. (More on this below.) Groups also make it easy to share forms in bulk, as you can share a form with all users in one Group at once simply by sharing that form with that Group.
Default Groups in IndyForms
Every IndyForms Organisation contains two fixed, default Groups that align with the default user types. (However, additional custom Groups can be created.)
These two fixed groups house all users and cannot be deleted.
They are:
Administrators Group
General Users Group
The Administrators Group contains Administrator Users only, and the General Users Group contains General Users only.
A note on subscription:
Note that IndyForms’ subscription costs are calculated per Admin User (“Admin licence") within each Organisation on an account (and you can have multiple Organisations connected to one email account).
By default, when you create your IndyForms account, you create your first Organisation, and you, the creator, are the first Admin User (assigned the first Admin Licence). For any subsequent Users invited to this same organisation, their invite will prompt their assignment to a Group. To grant Users Admin licences, they must be assigned to the Administrator Group. Users can be in more than one Group (however; they must be in at least one Group.)
You can then create as many Organisations as you would like from your one account.
Creating New Groups
IndyForms’ default ‘Administrator’ and ‘General User’ Groups may be enough for your needs. However, you will likely need to create additional Groups to manage your unique workflows.
We’ll go through this in more detail below, after we’ve demonstrated what you can do with Groups first.
Flexible functions and features of Groups:
You can use custom Groups in IndyForms to manage how users interact with forms/form records in your organisation. (This applies to "Internal" forms only; that is, forms accessible to your users only, not accessible to all).
By creating Groups that contain specific users, you can define what these Groups (and then the users within these Groups) can see and do on records shared with or created by them.
You can manage Group access to forms/form records in two areas of IndyForms:
Form settings
Form section settings
Form settings
Within the ‘Settings’ tab of the Form Builder is an ‘Access’ section that contains a table.
Here, you can configure access settings for any number of custom groups for the form (Internal forms only). One form and records of that form can be accessed in different ways by different groups.
Simply select the (+) on the column header, add your Group, and select the relevant checkboxes.
You control which users (as part of a Group) can:
Create an unlimited number of records for the form
Share the form (not form record) with other users for their records
Delete their own record/s of the form
Edit and submit their own record/s of the form
Share their form record/s with others
Submit record/s of the form
Set/change due dates on record/s of the form*
Delete all record/s of the form*
Edit all records/s of the form*
Manage action items on record/s of the form*
Unlock submitted record/s of the form*
View all records
*By default, users can access only form records on which they are contributors. Update the setting – ‘View all records’ – to allow a user to view all records of a form, regardless of their contributor status, as well as access (and edit, delete etc.) form records on which they are not contributors.
If you select the (x) above your added Group; this will remove this Group’s specific access permissions on the form/form’s record/s. However, users can still access form records as contributors—including any additional access as set under the fixed ‘Contributors’ column in the Form Settings’ Access table—if the form (and thereby form record) is shared with them.
Form section settings
In addition to controlling how users can interact with forms and form records, you can also control user access to specific content on a form (internal forms only).
You can revoke view and/or edit access to form sections for specific user Groups.
That means you can hide specific sections; for example, Office Use-only sections, to certain users.
Simply hover your mouse over the form section on which you would like to configure access. A tooltip appears in the top right-hand corner of the section; select the cog icon. Then untick the ‘Can View / Can Edit’ options for your different user Groups or contributors.
Note that before you can restrict sections to some Groups, you must ensure those Groups have access to the form through Form Settings first.
A note on contributors:
A contributor in IndyForms is any user (or Guest User for Public forms) linked to a specific form record—either the user has created the form record themselves, or the record has been shared with them. One form record can have multiple Contributors.
There will always be a contributor on a form record, and there will always be administrator access to that record.
For this reason, Access permissions settings (the Access table in the Settings tab) for all forms will always show two fixed options for Administrators and Contributors. You can add Groups here, but you cannot remove an administrator or a contributor from form options.
Because of this, some Admin users may wonder if additional user Groups are required, when they can simply grant a user access by sharing a form with them (thereby making the user the contributor on the record created through sharing), or by adding the user to a form record as a contributor.
However, sharing one form to multiple users at once is only possible through Groups.
Additionally, there are default restrictions on contributors’ form/form record access.
For example, contributors cannot:
Create their own form records; they can only complete form records shared with them
Share forms with others for their records
View/edit all records in one form.
While IndyForms is designed to allow you to quickly share a form (and thereby a record) with a user who’s not part of a Group, as your team grows, the need for more complex access control is typically necessary.
For this reason we recommend starting with User Groups, no matter the size of your own team.
Creating new Groups
Follow these steps to set up new groups in IndyForms easily.
Access the "Groups" section in the side menu.
Create a New Group by clicking "+ Create New."
Enter a Name for the group in the designated field.
Select users from the available options to add to the group.
Finalise Group Creation: once you've named the group and selected users, click "Save" to create the group.
Note: If desired users are not visible, ensure they have been added to the User's list. Go to the Users section by clicking "Users" in the side menu and add users using the "Invite User" button.
Inviting Users
Follow these steps to invite users to your IndyForms account.
To invite users to your IndyForms account, go to "Users" from the side menu first.
Click on the "Invite User" button.
Enter the details of the user. All fields are mandatory, and make sure to assign them to their designated groups.
You can also add a customised invitation message to be sent with their invite email here.
Click on "Invite User" to send out your invitation email.
Once your users have accepted their invitations and created their IndyForms account, their status will change from Pending to Active.
Adding multiple Users to existing Groups
Following these steps, you can easily add multiple users to an existing group in IndyForms.
Access the "Groups" section in the side menu.
Click on the "Edit" icon associated with the desired group.
Search for the Users you want to add.
Select the required users.
Click on "Save" to update the changes.
Adding a User to a Group
Following these steps, you can easily add a user to a group in IndyForms.
Access the "Users" section from the side menu.
Click on the "Groups" icon associated with the specific user.
Select the desired user groups.
Click on "Save" to save the changes.
Removing Users from existing Groups
To remove users from existing groups in IndyForms, follow these steps:
Go to the "Groups" section.
Click on the "Edit" icon.
Click the delete "x" button next to the users you want to remove.
Click the "Save" button to update the changes.
Alternatively, you can go to "Users" and edit the "Groups" the selected user is associated with by clicking the "Groups" icon and selecting to delete "x" on groups you no longer want this user on and clicking "Save" to update your changes.
Editing User's Groups
Alternatively, to make changes to the groups a user is associated with at the user level:
Navigate to the "Users" section.
Click on the "Groups" icon.
Remove users from unwanted groups by clicking the "x" next to the group name. To add users to groups, select the group/s from the drop-down list.
Select "Save" to update your changes.
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