Forms Builder

The Forms Builder module enables users to create Q/A forms that are presented to end-users by sending a Direct Message to the bot. The Q/As can be set up to be a sequence of multi-choice or open questions, with the final output (submission) being sent into a server channel by the bot itself for further validation, priority assignment and optional integration with external services.

(Optional features) Upon accepting a submission, a submission summary can be forwarded as a read-only post to a different channel and can be automatically given an “upvote” and “downvote” reaction for people to show their support (or lack thereof) to the specific submission.

Currently, each form submission can be configured to remain within the Discord realm, or uploaded to Trello (a powerful web-based, list-making application) as a “Trello card” (“share mode”).

Trello integration also includes the 2-way synchronization of upvotes/downvotes and comments number from and to Discord and Trello (showing the number of upvotes and downvotes on the Trello card, as well as showing the current number of Trello comments and votes on the Discord message), and Discord DM notifications to the author of the submission upon Trello card activities (new comments, title changes, card archival, etc.).

Warning

For the Trello integration to work, some limitations currently apply:

  1. You must invite GiselleBot to your Trello team and give it permissions to edit the board in order for the bot to monitor, post and update cards. You can invite GiselleBot to your Trello team using this email address: gisellebot@cycloptux.com.

  2. You must pair the Discord server with the Trello team by using the !trellopair command. Each Discord server can only be paired with 1 Trello team.

  3. Form settings will be fixed once a user sends a submission. Any change to a form will not apply to submissions that are already in the approval queue. This also means that the Trello board must be set (thus, exist) before a submission is sent.

Note

Users that are enabled to use the module using the Permissions System will always be authorized to accept or reject any submission coming from any form. In order to enable more roles to accept/reject specific forms, you can set one or more roles as “authorized roles” on each form both during the initial setup of the form and through the !formsetup command.

Premium

Out of the box, each server is limited to having a total of 3 available forms. If you want to remove this limitation and have up to 20 forms, you can unlock the number of forms as a Premium feature (see: Premium Perks).

Hint

In order to ease the creation of the complex strings you need to add questions to a form, you can use this Forms Builder Helper to create pre-made strings to be used in those phases. Just create a copy of that sheet and customize it to your needs.

!trellopair

Command Syntax

!trellopair [team name/URL, or "-"]

Command Description

Pairs a Discord server with a Trello team. No restrictions are applied to the number of Discord servers that can pair a Trello team, although each server must pass the verification step individually (see below).

In order to pair with a team, you can use the team name or the URL containing the team name (see the note below).

Using the command without any argument will show the current paired Trello team.

Using - as the only argument will unpair the current server from the paired Trello team.

Note

The team name is the one you find inside the Trello URL within the team page, which usually has this form: https://trello.com/TEAM_NAME/home

As a security measure, the Trello team pairing process is composed of 2 steps. Running this command will issue a verification request to the target Trello team, giving the user who run the command a 6-digits unique code (that is generated randomly when the command is run). You must then verify that you have enough permissions to create cards on at least one Team board before the pairing is effective.

GiselleBot will start querying the Trello team boards in order to find a card with the 6-digits code set as title. You must head to one of the Team boards and create a card (in any list) with the provided 6-digits code as title.

If no card is found with the correct title within 5 minutes from running the command, the pairing will fail. If the card is found, the pairing will complete and the team boards will be available for use in the Forms module.

Once the card is found the pairing will complete, actvating the integration. The verification card will be deleted, and you will be notified (with a mention) in the current channel.

Permissions Needed

User: Manage Server

!submit

Command Syntax

!submit

Command Description

Shows the available forms for the servers a user is currently in, giving the option to start filling a submission.

Note

This command can be used in a Direct Message channel with GiselleBot. In that case, GiselleBot will start the submission by showing a list of servers the user can select.

If used within an actual server, it will make GiselleBot send a DM to the user running the command, showing the available forms for the specific server the command was run into.

When the command is used in GiselleBot‘s DMs, the list of available servers is taken from GiselleBot‘s current cache. If the server you are looking for does not appear, use the !submit command from within that server.

This command is not subject to any permissions other than a specific blacklist check (see !formblacklist).

The actual form submission must always happen though GiselleBot‘s DMs.


!submitreact

Command Syntax

!submitreact [--m {message id}]

Command Description

Other than sending the !submit command to GiselleBot via DM, or using it in a server to quickly start the DM workflow, authorized people can enable a specific reaction on a message of choice (or a message created by GiselleBot for that purpose) to have GiselleBot send the initial form submission DM to the user clicking on the reaction.

This command starts a simple interactive process to build this “submit reaction message”. GiselleBot will guide you through the process of creating this reaction, just follow the in-Discord instructions.

If a valid message ID is specified through the dedicated parameter, the submit reaction will be created on the target message.

Examples

!submitreact
!submitreact --m 123456789098765432

!submitreactremove

Command Syntax

!submitreactremove [message id]

Command Description

Removes the submit reaction behavior from an existing message. The message itself won’t be deleted, nor the existing reactions will be removed, but GiselleBot will now not do anything with the reaction on that message.

If the message ID is omitted (or is invalid), GiselleBot will attempt to pick the latest submit reaction message in the current channel.

Examples

!submitreactremove 123456789098765432

!adsubmit

Command Description

Toggles the automatic deletion of the “confirmation” message that is sent upon using the !submit command into a server, and of the command itself.

The user-sent message will be deleted immediately. The confirmation message will be deleted after 5 seconds.

Permissions Needed

User: Manage Messages
Bot: Manage Messages

!forminit

Command Syntax

!foinit

Command Description

Initializes a new form builder. The bot will guide the user into setting up the basic configurations and first question.

Forms questions will expire after:

  • 5 minutes, for reaction questions;

  • 15 minutes, for open questions.

The format to set a form question is:

(message/reaction)|(text of the question)|(list of reactions)/[validation words]|[alias]|[Trello mapping]

Each question has to be set using 5 fields, separated by one | character.

  • First field: message will require the question to be answered with a plain text message. reaction will require the user to select one answer by clicking on a reaction that will be added to the question by the bot.

  • Second field: The actual question.

  • Third field:

    • If reaction is selected in the first field, this field will list all of the possible answers, using ; to separate these answers. If this is the case, this field is mandatory.

    • If message is selected in the first field, this field will include a list of validation words: any answer given by the target user will be ignored unless the message contains at least one of the chosen words/sentences (case insensitive). Again, you can separate words/sentences with ;. If this is the case, this field is optional.

Note

Due to Discord limitations, there can only be a maximum of 20 answers in a reaction question. Answers from the 21st onward will be ignored.

  • Fourth field: The question “alias”. This is the title that will replace the full question when the feedback is posted in the server channel. This field is optional, but it’s higly suggested that you set an alias.

  • Fifth field: This will map the question into one of the entities of the Trello board. While private and attachment have a meaning in in-Discord share mode (see !formsetup), the rest is only useful if you are interested in Trello integration; you can choose whether or not including Trello integration later:

    • title will use the answer as the title of a card.

    • list will use the answer as the title of a list.

    • label will add the answer as a card label.

    • attachment will add the answer as a card attachment. If the “attachments highlighting” option is active, fields flagged as attachment will also appear in the public in-Discord summary message.

    • description will add the answer as part of the description text, with the format: {Alias}: {Text}.

    • private will show the answer into the “in-Discord” embed during the authorization process but won’t upload the field to Trello (or show it in the public in-Discord summary message) whatsoever.

Warning

A field being “optional” means that its content can be left blank, but the field itself has to exist; e.g. message|Heads or Tails?||The user picked...|

Hint

In order to ease the creation of these complex strings, you can use this Forms Builder Helper to create a pre-made string to be used in this phase. Just create a copy of that sheet and customize it to your needs.


!formsetup

Command Syntax

!foset (form id)

Command Description

Opens the forms builder interactive configuration menu. Use the menu items to configure the available settings.

Forms Builder Interactive Configuration Menu

Options 1. and 2. are used to save the settings you applied through the menu (the settings will not apply until you save them), or discard said changes.

  1. “Set title” sets the title of the form, as it appears when listed by GiselleBot.

  2. “Set color” sets the form embeds color.

  3. “Set authorization channel” sets the channel where form submissions are sent to for the initial validation by the authorized users. This option is mandatory.

  4. “Set forwarding channel(s)” sets the additional forwarding channels where, if set, the public in-Discord summary message will be sent to. This is optional.

  5. “Set authorized role(s)” sets the list of roles that will be both authorized to accept and reject submissions to the current form, and mentioned (optional, see option 18) within the authorization channel when a submission is received.

  6. “Toggle share mode” sets the final target of a validated submission to either Trello, or just Discord.

  7. “Toggle publish status” works as an alias of !formpublish and !formwithhold to make a form available or unavailable for server members through GiselleBot‘s DMs.

  8. “Toggle upvoting” enables or disables the upvote tracking feature (and upvote arrow application for new submissions) on a specific form.

  9. “Toggle downvoting” enables or disables the downvote tracking feature (and downvote arrow application for new submissions) on a specific form.

Note

  • Disabling a voting arrow will not remove the :arrow_up: and/or :arrow_down: reaction from existing submissions, but it will stop those submissions’ votes from being tracked in Trello (if you are using the Trello share mode). New submissions will not have the corresponding arrow reaction applied.

  • Enabling a previously disabled voting arrow will not reapply the arrow to existing submissions. It will track the votes as long as any user adds the :arrow_up: and/or :arrow_down: reaction to the public submission message (as long as it’s the native Discord reaction and not a custom one).

  1. “Toggle highlighting of attachments” enables or disables the public embed from having an additional field where all of the “attachment”-flagged fields are linked, using their gisl.eu short link (using the same engine behind !shorturl).

  2. “Set mentioned role(s)” sets the list of roles that will be mentioned in the public in-Discord summary message(s) when a submission is accepted.

  3. (Only useful in “Trello share mode”) “Set target board” lists the available boards within the paired Trello team (refer to !trellopair) and sets the linked Trello board for the current form. Renaming a board in Trello will not affect this link.

  4. (Only useful in “Trello share mode”) “Toggle extended embed” enables or disabled the public in-Discord summary message extended mode: by default, a submission that has Trello set as “share mode” will only show a short summary of the submission, while the actual full post will be found in the linked Trello card. By enabling the “extended embed”, the whole submission will be kept within Discord, while still having a link to the corresponding Trello card.

  5. (Only useful in “Discord share mode” or “Trello share mode” with “extended embed” active) “Anonymize public submissions” completely hides the submitter info from the public in-Discord summary message, keeping the user’s anonymity intact (as long as “private”-flagged fields are used for other kinds of recognizable data within the form).

  6. “Anonymize rejection messages” enables or disables whether the name of the user that rejected a submission will appear in the rejection message on a specific form.

  7. “Mention the authorized role(s) on new submissions” toggles whether the authorized role(s) will be mentioned when a new submission is received.

  8. “Toggle priority reactions” toggles whether the priority reactions are applied to the validation message. When this option is off, the only options will be “Pass (No Priority)” and “Drop”.

Here’s an example of a public in-Discord summary message with Trello share mode, extended embed, attachments highlighting and anonymizer on.

Forms Builder Submission Example

!formaddqst

Command Syntax

!foaq (form id)

Command Description

Adds a question to an existing form. Follow the instructions given by the bot to configure the question. Refer to the previous paragraph for more details.

Examples

!foaq 1

!formeditqst

Command Syntax

!foeq (form id) (question id)

Command Description

Replaces the selected question from an existing form with a new one. Refer to the previous paragraphs for more details.

Examples

!foeq 1 5

!formremqst

Command Syntax

!forq (form id) (question id)

Command Description

Deletes a specific question from an existing form.

Examples

!forq 1 5

!formsortqst

Command Syntax

!fosq (form id) (question_ids)

Command Description

Sorts the questions of an existing workflow into the specified order.

Examples

!fosq 1 4 5 1 2 3

!formpublish

Command Syntax

!fopub (form id)

Command Description

Publishes an existing form, making it available to server members through the dedicated section of the bot Direct Messages behavior (see !submit).


!formwithhold

Command Syntax

!fowh (form id)

Command Description

Witholds a previously published form, making it unavailable for server members. This is particularly useful, or even required, for forms that need to be edited/deleted.


!formdelete

Command Syntax

!fod (form id)

Command Description

Completely deletes a server form.


!formpreview

Command Syntax

!fop

Command Description

Prints the list of available forms for the current server. For each form, a preview of each question (and the corresponding question ID) is shown.


!formblacklist

Command Syntax

!fobl (user id(s)/mention(s)/q_name(s))

Command Description

Toggles one (or more) user’s presence on the forms blacklist. Blacklisted users won’t be able to see any available form for the current server.

Examples

!fobl cycloptux#1543

!formsexport

Command Syntax

!foexp

Command Description

Exports the current forms submission statistics and contents for the current server.

Permissions Needed

User: Bot Owner