Forms and spreadsheet imports

Build your own forms for grant reports, program counts, client records and office work, then fill them one at a time or load a whole spreadsheet at once. Part of membership.

The kinds of form

When you make a form, you pick what it’s for. That choice decides what it may ask.

• Grant report: what you report to a funder, such as numbers served or money spent.
• Program activity: counts and tallies for a program. No client names.
• Client record: one entry per client, filled from the client’s page. It’s kept like the rest of the client’s file.
• Office records: volunteers, donors, inventory and the like.
• Public form: anyone can fill it from a link on the Kinshare site. It can never ask about a client.
• Grant application: the questions applicants answer, if you make grants.

Only a client record form may ask which client. Kinshare holds no health information, so a form with health wording is refused.

Build a form

Organization administrators build forms on the Forms page.

1. Choose New form, or start from one of the Kinshare forms to start from with Use this form. A starter becomes a draft copy you can change.
2. Give it a title in English and Spanish, and choose Who may fill it in.
3. Add questions. Each one needs both languages. The Spanish has to be a real translation, not a copy of the English.
4. Check it with Preview, in either language.
5. Save draft while you work. Save and publish when it’s ready.

Publishing makes a new version. Answers already given stay with the version they were given on, so changing a form never scrambles old entries.

Fill a form

• Staff open the form from Forms and choose Save answers. The form clears for the next entry.
• For a client record, open the client’s page, go to Forms and choose Fill a form. It shows in the client’s preferred language.
• Every answer can be seen, changed or deleted under Answers given, and downloaded with Download CSV.

Public forms

A public form gets its own page on the Kinshare site.

1. Publish the form.
2. Under Public link, choose Turn the link on and copy the link.

Anyone with the link can fill it in, with no sign-in. The page shows a short privacy line. Turn the link off at any time. Use it for things like volunteer sign-ups or event interest, never for anything about a client.

Import a spreadsheet

Have a stack of entries in Excel already? Load them in one go on Spreadsheet imports.

1. Choose a form and its columns. Required columns are always included.
2. Download the blank template, as Excel or CSV. The Excel file lists each question’s allowed answers on a second sheet.
3. Fill it in and upload the filled file: .xlsx or .csv, up to 5 MB and 5,000 rows. Choose Check the file.
4. Review and save. Kinshare shows how many rows are ready and lists each problem by row and column: a missing answer, a date it can’t read, a choice that isn’t allowed, and so on. Fix the file and upload it again, or save the good rows and leave the rest out.

Nothing is saved until you choose Save. The uploaded file is deleted when you save or cancel, and within 24 hours either way. The record that an import happened, with its counts, is kept for 30 days under Recent imports.

For a client record form, each row names the client by your organization’s reference for them. A row that matches no client, or more than one, is listed as a problem. Kinshare also refuses rows holding things it never keeps, such as ID or account numbers.