Note: These tools are available to Data Admins

Did you know that Workiva offers you the option to have more control over your data and how they appear in your forms? 

Did you know that you can create your own fields, name them and place them whenever you like?

The form template editor is already sitting in your workspace, right behind the Configure button you pass every day. Here's how to put it to work this week.

🔒 Yes, You Can Undo It

Editing a template touches every related form of a specific data type, which is exactly why it comes with guardrails:

Save or Discard: Nothing lands until you click Save. Discard prevents your changes from being applied to any related form.

Removing Isn't Deleting: Take a field off a form and nothing is deleted permanently. Add it back any time — with its previous data intact.

Labels vs. Data: Editing a field label won't affect the underlying data. If you need a field to do a different job, insert a new one instead of renaming the old one.

Permission-Gated: Data Admins can edit all form templates. Anyone with owner permissions to a data type can edit the form template for that data type.

💡 Put It Into Practice: 5 Easy steps to make changes

Look for Configure in your toolbar on the main landing page, or inside a specific form.

1. Find Your Template

The Use Case: A form template controls the layout, arrangement, and content of a form. One edit updates all related forms instead of dozens of one-off fixes.

Where to Go:

📝Pro-Tip From Your CSM: The option name changes by experience, but the editor is the same. Updates to a data type template only apply to forms within the Data experience.

2. Group Related Fields Together

The Use Case: Stop making preparers hunt across a form for fields that belong side by side.

The Steps: Select one or more fields in the same section, click Move to (or the three-dot menu), then choose an existing section, New section, or Remove from section.

📝Pro-Tip From You CSM: Sections can't be nested more than one level deep and can't be added into columns. A section with no property or relationship field in it won't display at all.

3. Put the Important Fields First

The Use Case: Push rarely-used fields down and pull the ones your team fills out every time to the top.

The Steps: Select your fields, click Rearrange (or the three-dot menu), then choose Move up, Move down, Move right, or Move left. 

📝Pro-Tip From You CSM: Your last choice stays selected, so moving a field several rows up is just repeated clicks, no re-picking the menu each time.

4. Clarify a Field Without Retraining Anyone

The Use Case: Rename a confusing label, add a tooltip that answers the question your team keeps asking, or lock a reference field so nobody types into it by mistake.

The Steps: Select a single field, click Edit details, then update the label, tooltip, or read-only setting.

📝Pro-Tip From You CSM: Making a field read-only hides its tooltip text,  so if there's guidance the preparer needs, put it in the label itself.

👉You can watch a walkthrough video here!

5. Update an Entire Test Phase in One Pass

The Use Case: Reassign a tester, shift a due date, or correct a review plan across every test form in a phase without opening them one by one.

The Steps: In the Testing experience, filter to one Phase, tick the test forms you want, then click Edit and choose Test forms, Test phases, or Review plans. Make your changes and click Continue, unedited fields stay exactly as they are, then review and Save. 

📝Pro-Tip From You CSM: Saved edits replace the existing values across all selected test forms, test phases, and review plans. 

👉You can watch a walkthrough video here!

💬 Let's Trade Tips!

Which form has your team been fixing by hand? Drop a comment with the template tweak that saved you the most time or the change you wish you could make in bulk.

👀 Next Up! Creating Forms, Not Just Editing Them?

If you're standing up a new audit program for your testing or you want to create new audit forms, you can import requests, audits, test forms, test phases, and review plans in bulk instead of creating them one at a time.