What is a repeat section or table?

Repeat Sections

When building out a form, a form designer will often need to collect the same set of data for multiple people or entities. To deal with this Syntaq has a unique feature called a repeat section. A repeat section allows the user to enter more than one set of data, by repeating an input section. This has an advantage over other systems as the form designer does not have to build out the same section multiple times. The user only needs to see as many of these repeated sections as necessary for their input into the form.

Repeat sections also help to streamline document templates. In most document automation systems, you would have to set out the document to account for the maximum number of repeated sets of data. If only one set of the data was filled out, say a lone prospective tenant filling out a tenancy application that could have had up to four applicants applying for a lease together, then there would be parts of the document left blank. With our system, a quick application of a mergefield Table section in the document and once assembled, only the amount of data necessary for the given form will be shown.

Creating a repeat panel in your online form

To implement a repeat panel in one of your forms, follow these steps:

1. Open the form builder.
2. Add a new repeat to the form by dragging across a Repeat Panel content block from the Layout menu and placing it in its desired location.
3. That's it! Any fields or layout features you drag into this panel will be repeated each time a user presses the ‘Add New’ button at the bottom of the section.

For more information about how to customise your repeat section with limits on number of rows, instructions for empty sections, labels for the ‘Add New’ button and repeat dividers (among other things), see our article on Layout Fields.

Implementing a repeat section (table) in your document template

A repeat section is matched in a document template using the “TableStart:” and “TableEnd:” Commands. You can insert these commands easily by clicking ‘Repeat Section’ on our Word add-in ribbon. When you insert these two commands into your document table, the content the user has entered into the matching repeat section on your form will be inserted into the document:

{ MERGEFIELD TableStart:RepeatName }
Content to be repeated, for example: { MERGEFIELD Name_txt }
{ MERGEFIELD TableEnd:RepeatName }

In this example, the data added to the field on the form with the field name Name_txt will be inserted into the document. If the user has entered more than one name on the form by adding repeat rows, then each of the names entered on the form will be inserted into the document.

You can only access Name_txt in your document is if it is surrounded by the TableStart: and TableEnd: commands for the relevant repeat section in which the Name_txt field is included on your form.

For more information on mergefields and connecting your documents to your online forms, see this article.