Kestrel

Part 5. Administration

5.6 Forms and workflows

Version 1.0 ·Updated 2026-10-07

Next reviewed by 2027-04-07.

Written for a school's staff learning how Kestrel works, the trainers who teach them, and the families using the portal.

Building the school's own forms, publishing their versions, and the workflows that route each answer to the right person.

Written forITRegistrarBusiness manager

What this area is for

The school's forms are built here. A form is a set of questions that staff, families, students or the public fill in. A workflow is a list of steps that follow a filled form, such as an approval, a task, a notice and an outcome. Staff fill forms in and work the steps from the console, as Chapter 3.10 describes. This chapter is about building them.

Who uses it

The IT administrator builds forms, and the registrar and business manager often design the ones their offices use. Building needs the capability to write form definitions, so a role that can read a form cannot change one.

Key ideas

Form
A named set of questions with a key, a title and a retention class.
Version
A form starts as a draft that can change. Publishing makes it immutable, and the next change is a new version.
Who fills it in
The audience: staff, a family, a student, anyone by name or anyone anonymously.
Retention class
How long the answers are kept, such as Operational or Child safety. The Accountability chapter lists the periods.
Workflow
The steps that run when a form is filled in, each waiting on a role or on the assigned staff member.

Screens

  • Forms

    /app/settings/forms

    The school's forms, and the place to start a new one.

  • A form's versions

    /app/settings/forms/[key]

    The versions of one form, with its questions and a preview.

  • Workflows

    /app/settings/workflows

    The school's workflows and those needing attention.

  • A workflow's versions

    /app/settings/workflows/[key]

    The steps of one workflow.

Building a form

  1. On "Forms", choose "Start a form".
  2. Give it a Key and a Title, choose "Who fills it in" and its "Retention class", then choose "Start it".
  3. On the form's page, choose "Add a question" and give each a Key, a Label, a Type, its Choices where it has some and a Tier.
  4. Choose a Workflow for the answers to follow if there is one. A form that changes the record only once a member of staff approves it, such as a medical confirmation, cannot be published without one. Where the form should set a field on the record, choose "Sets the school field" and "To the value".
  5. Check the form with "Preview".
  6. Choose "Publish this version". The message reads that the form is published and that its questions cannot be changed from now on.

To change a published form, choose "Issue the next version". It opens as a draft, saved as a draft, and the published version keeps serving until the next is published. "Retire" takes a form out of use and "Offer it again" brings it back.

Building a workflow

  1. On "Workflows", choose "Start a workflow" and give a Key and a Title.
  2. On its version page, choose "Add a step".
  3. Choose "What it is": an approval, a task, a notice or the outcome.
  4. Give the "Step title", who it "Waits on" (a role or the assigned staff member) and, where it applies, "Due in days".
  5. Move a step to change the order, or remove one.
  6. Publish the version.

The "Needs attention" list on the workflows screen shows work that has stalled.

Tasks

Journeys that use this chapter

Settings

A form's own settings are its key, its title, who fills it in, its retention class and the questions with their tiers. The consent purposes under The student record make forms for you under keys that begin with "consent-".

Training notes

  • Build one real form with the office that will use it, from key to published version.
  • Show the preview before publishing, since a published version cannot be edited.
  • Explain that retiring a form leaves its answers in place.