A school can easily end up with 50, 100 or 200 forms over a few years. Without categories, the user-facing forms list becomes an unmanageable wall of links. Categories group forms together so parents, students and staff can find what they need.
Where to manage categories
Go to Forms → Categories. The list shows every category configured for your school in a tree structure.
The tree structure
Form categories are hierarchical — categories can have child categories. A common pattern:
Permission Slips
├── Excursion Slips
├── Camp Slips
└── Activity Consent
Surveys and Feedback
├── Parent Surveys
├── Student Voice
└── Staff PD Feedback
Application Forms
├── Enrolment Enquiry
├── Scholarship Application
└── Leave Application
Two or three levels deep is usually plenty. Beyond that the structure becomes hard to navigate.
Creating a category
- Go to Forms → Categories → New category.
- Set the name.
- If it’s a child category, choose the parent from the dropdown.
- Set ordering (lower numbers first within the parent).
- Save.
Assigning forms to a category
From the form designer, set the Category field. A form can belong to exactly one category — pick the most specific one.
Editing categories
- Rename — changes everywhere immediately.
- Move — change the parent to relocate the whole branch. Children come with it.
- Reorder — change the ordering field on each category.
Deleting categories
Deleting a category moves its forms to the Uncategorised bucket. You’ll usually want to reassign them to another category before or after the delete.
You can’t delete a category that has children — delete or move the children first.
What users see
The user-facing forms list (/forms/ on the parent or student portal) shows categories as collapsible sections. Within each category, the forms are listed alphabetically (or in the order you’ve set on each form).
Subcategories appear nested.
Practical category design
Three principles:
- Mirror how users think. Permission Slips is more useful than PDF Forms — users care about what the form is for, not its technology.
- Don’t over-segment. Six categories with 20 forms each is easier to navigate than 30 categories with 4 forms each.
- Use subcategories sparingly. Only when there’s a clear hierarchy that helps users (e.g. Permission Slips → Excursion Slips makes sense; Permission Slips → 2024 Slips doesn’t).
Audit annually
At the start of each year:
- Review the categories — do they still match how your school thinks about forms?
- Move forms that have ended up in the wrong place.
- Retire categories with only one or two forms — collapse them into their parent.
- Add new categories for emerging types of form (e.g. Wellbeing Surveys when wellbeing becomes a focus area).
A tidy category tree is the difference between users finding the form in 10 seconds and giving up to email the office instead.