Skip to main content

Sharing and Copying Form Templates Across Programs

Written by Medtrics

What it does

A form template built at one level of your organization can be distributed two ways: sharing publishes it as a locked standard others can see and use but not change, while copying creates an independent duplicate inside a target program that the receiving team fully owns and can edit.

Who it's for

Organization administrators standardizing evaluations across institutions, institution administrators distributing forms to their programs, and program administrators pulling proven forms into their own program. Recipients of a share see the standard form; recipients of a copy get their own editable version.

How it works

Sharing as a locked standard. From a template, select Share template to open the share panel, then choose Share with — an organization, an institution, or a specific program. Sharing locks the template's content so the standard stays consistent everywhere it's used. The owner can toggle Lock template off temporarily (with a reason) to make corrections, then relock it. Shares can be revoked at any time, also with an optional reason.

Audit trail. Every significant sharing event — shared, revoked, content locked, content unlocked, content edited while locked — is recorded with who did it and when.

Copying into a program. On FormsTemplates, open the Copy tab. The copy tool lists forms available to you with filters by type and program. Select one or more forms, and the platform creates full, independent copies in your working program, including sections and questions; changes don't flow either direction between original and copy.

Organization administrators also have a dedicated organization-level template list for managing organization-scoped forms.

Before you start

  • You need to own the template (or have edit access at its level) to share or copy it.

  • Decide whether the receiving team should get a locked standard (share) or their own editable version (copy).

  • For a share, know the target scope — organization, institution, or a specific program.

Do this

  1. Open the template you want to distribute and select Share template → the share panel opens.

  2. Choose Share with and pick the organization, institution, or program → the target appears in the panel.

  3. Confirm the share on that panel → the template shows under Current shares as Shared, and its content locks for every recipient.

  4. To copy instead, open FormsTemplates (/forms/templates) and select the Copy tab → you should see a filterable list of source forms by type or program.

  5. Select one or more source forms and select the copy button on that screen → independent copies land in your current program, including their sections and questions.

You're done when

  • A shared template appears as Shared under Current shares, and recipients can use it without editing its content.

  • A copied form appears in your program's template list as its own editable template.

  • The sharing event (shared, revoked, locked, unlocked) shows in the audit trail.

Boundaries and limits

  • Shared templates are content-only today: receiving tiers can see and use the standard, but sharing does not grant them the ability to set assignment rules, manually assign, enable on-demand access, or create public links for the shared form.

  • Content on a shared template is locked; the receiving program cannot edit the questions or settings of the standard. Only the owner can unlock, edit, and relock.

  • Sharing and revoking go through validated, authorized actions; revoking is a soft removal and the audit history is retained.

  • Copies do not stay in sync with the original — there is no update propagation to copies.

  • Sharing targets are limited to organizations, institutions, and programs inside your platform tenancy; there is no cross-tenant sharing.

  • Sharing actions are recorded in an immutable audit trail written by the server; audit entries cannot be forged from the browser.

Common questions

Q: What's the practical difference between sharing and copying? A: Share when you want one consistent standard everyone uses — content stays locked and centrally controlled. Copy when a program should own and adapt its version independently.

Q: Can a program edit a form that was shared with it? A: No. Shared standards are content-locked. The program can request changes from the owner, or ask for a copy it can edit.

Q: If I fix a typo in a shared template, do users of the share see it? A: Yes. A share points at the one canonical template, so corrections made by the owner (via unlock, edit, relock) are what everyone sees.

Q: Can I undo a share? A: Yes. Revoke it from the share panel, optionally with a reason. The revocation is recorded in the audit trail.

Related articles

Did this answer your question?