1. In order to create a form in Apricot, you must be an Administrator or Site Administrator
2. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator
3. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Form Designer”, then select Standard Forms”
4. Decide which Tier 1 the form should “live” under (e.g. if it is a participant case note, it should be under the Participant Tier 1). Find that Tier 1, hover over Actions and select “New Tier 2 From Scratch”
5. Expand the Field Choice categories on the right-hand side to drag and drop all fields into your form
6. Be sure to make at least 1 field both quick view and required 
7. Select the “Record Name” from the required field options – this will be the form identifier, which is most visible when printing from the document folder (oftentime, this is a date field)
8. When you have your fields in the form and all requirements have been met, click “Publish Form” on the right-hand side under “Form Actions”

1. Create and publish a Tier 1 Form
2. Go to “External Access”, then click “Intake Forms”
3. Click “Create New Form”
4. Name Your Form and Select the Tier 1 you want to utilize
5. Use the panel on the right-hand side to pull in all fields you want in your Intake Form.
6. Select the Program the form should be associated with.
7. Click Save at the bottom on the page.
8. At the right of the screen, click the “Publish” button
9. You now have a link you can share to gather data through an online form!

1. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator”
2. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Form Designer” and click on “Standard Forms”.
3. Choose the form you would like to add or remove Fields to, hover your mouse over “Actions”, then click “Edit”

Adding a Field

• In the “Field Choices” palette on the right-hand side, find the desired field
• Click and drag the field into the main body of your form. The location for the field will be highlighted green when you drag it into the form.
• Click the gear icon on the field to open its properties and configure as needed
• Publish the form after all desired changes have been made.

Removing a Field

• If the form has not been saved since you have added the field, click the gear icon on the field and select “Delete” to remove the field from the form
• If the field contains existing data (or the form has been published since adding the field), click the gear icon on the field and select “Deactivate” to remove the field from the form while preserving existing data.
  1. NOTE: To recall a deactivated field to use in the future or to pull into reports, click the check box at the bottom of the Form Action palette that indicates “Show/Hide Inactive Fields”. Drag the field back into the form.
• Publish the form after all desired changes have been made.

Why it matters?

Forms are the backbone of your data collection in Apricot. Being able to add or remove fields ensures that your forms remain aligned with evolving program needs, funder requirements, or reporting goals. Clean and well-structured forms lead to more accurate data and efficient workflows.

Your Apricot database has a limited number of user seats available. These users are split up into “Standard” and “Administrator” seats. Some sites may have “Guest” as an option (an add-on feature).

1. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator”
2. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Access Control” and click on “Users”, then click “New User” in the top right-hand corner  
3. Add New User’s email address, first and last name, then select the User Type
   1. Standard users have access to login and edit data in the Apricot database. Their access to certain forms, records and reports can be managed or limited by Administrators through Roles.
   2. Administrators have the same access as Standard users, but in addition they also have access to the Administrator functions under the Administrator tab at the top of the page. Access for Administrator users cannot be edited or limited.
   3. Guest users have the same level of access as a standard user, but can only access a limited number of forms.
4. Select which Site(s) you want to associate the User with
5. Assign Role(s) and Program(s) 
6. Click send Invite (important note – the login link contained in the invite email will only be valid for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes the link will expire)
   1. If a user’s invitation expires, direct them to click “forgot password” on the login page.

Administrators can make changes and updates to specific users by clicking on their User Card located on the Users Page. Navigate to this page by selecting the “Administrator” tab, expanding “Access Control” from the left-hand menu, then clicking on “Users”. 

1. Update User info: Administrators can update the name and email address for a user by selecting the Update button or by clicking on the name or email address fields.
2. (De)Activate User: Administrators can (de)activate a User by moving the Active toggle. Once a user has been deactivated, they can no longer log in to Apricot or access any part of your database, and they will no longer take up one of your user seats; however, certain details about them will remain in the system – information about what records they created or edited, for example, will still be recorded. Because Apricot keeps track of this kind of historical data, users cannot be completely deleted.
3. Update User Password: Administrators can manually reset their own password if they remember their old password.
4. Force Password Reset: Clicking this will force this user to reset their password upon their next login.
5. Send Password Reset Email: Clicking this will send a password reset email to the user. This is a great method of unlocking user accounts if they can’t log in.
6. Assign Roles & Programs: If an admin needs to change/update a user’s Role or Program assignment, they can select the pencil icon next to the Role/Program that they wish to edit. If an admin needs to add a Role or Program, they can do so by selecting Add.

1. Select the “My Apricot” tab, then choose a Tier 1 Form from the left-hand menu
2. Expand the gray arrow next to “Favorites List” from the right-hand side panel 
3. Click “Create New”
4. Name your new Favorites List
5. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.
6. At the right of the screen, click the “Publish” button
7. You can now add records to your list by clicking the gray stars in the Add column

1. When searching a name in Navigate to your Favorites Lists by selecting the “My Apricot” tab, then choosing a Tier 1 Form from the left- hand menu, and finally expanding the gray arrow next to “Favorites List” from the right-hand side panel
2. To add more records, click a gray star
3. To remove a record, click a yellow star

Tip: A record can also be added or removed from the record itself too by expanding the “Favorites” from the right-hand side menu, then(un)checking the list(s) you want to add to or remove the record from. Don’t forget to click on “Set Favorites”, otherwise it won’t work!

Rules & Alerts in Apricot allow you to automatically notify users when certain conditions are met, helping you stay on top of critical updates, compliance, or workflow triggers.

1. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator”
2. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Workflow Station” and click on “Rules & Alerts”, then click “New Role” in the top right-hand corner. From there, configure your rule in three parts: Rule Details, Trigger and Action.

Rule Details

• Give your rule a clear, unique name and a short (max 140 characters) description
• Select the form the rule should apply to (Tier 1 forms appear first)
• Click “Save & Continue” 

Trigger

• Choose when the rule should fire: on record creation, update, or both. Optionally, add field-specific conditions using dropdowns for fields, operators, and values
• Use “Add Field Condition” to combine conditions (all are joined with AND)
• Note: for “Matches Any” logic, separate values with a | pipe (e.g. Red | Blue | Green)

Action

• Write a short Notification Message (this is what users will see)
• Choose who gets the alert (by site, program, role, individual user, or user type)
• Add multiple actions if you want different messages for different audiences
• Click “Save & Continue”
  

Why it matters?

Rules & Alerts in Apricot help you stay ahead of the action by triggering instant notifications when key conditions are met, whether it’s a new referral, a compliance risk, or an overdue task. Automate your follow-ups, flag exceptions in real time, and make sure the right people see what matters most.

When searching a name in Apricot, you should utilize the wildcard function: % in front of your search.

1. Go to your search, add name as a search field
2. In first and/or last names, add %, then type in all or part of the name.
3. In a situation where you are searching for someone with a last name of Jones-Smith, you may not know if they are already in Apricot with the correct last name, just Jones, just Smith, or maybe even Smith-Jones. In the last name field, you can type in “%Smith” and your results will contain any last names with “Smith” anywhere in them (ex. Smith, Smith-Jones, Jones-Smith, Smithson, Blacksmith, etc.).

Why this is important: In Apricot, while the duplicate check function is helpful, it does not find duplicates when there are small differences between records (ex. The name is spelled slightly differently, the DOB is off by a day or year, etc.), so strong search practices help to reduce the duplicates that will have to be merged or archived later on.)

1. Select the “My Apricot” tab. From here, you can see a list of the Tier 1 Forms used to collect data in the system. Each of these forms collects its own specific kind of data. Please note the following:
   1. You must first choose a form to search. You cannot search the entire database for the name of a person without first choosing a form.
   2. Decide what kind of information you want to search for. For example, if you want to look for data collected about a client, you need to search the Client Profile records. If you want to look for information collected about an event, you need to search the Event records.
2. Once you have chosen a Tier 1 to search, you’ll be taken to that Search page. Use the “Add Search Field” dropdown menu and choose a search field to add from the drop down list. It is organized by which form collects the data. Any Tier 2 underneath the chosen Tier 1 with a searchable field will appear, grouped by the form that the field can be found on (ex. Program Enrollment, Case Notes, etc.)

Tips:  

• You can use the “Add Search Field” menu to add more than one search field. This can be particularly useful in case you’re not exactly sure which record you need to find (perhaps you only know part of a client’s name).
• You should also utilize the wildcard function: % in front of your search. In Apricot, while the duplicate check function is helpful, it does not find duplicates when there are small differences between records (e.g. The name is spelled slightly differently). To learn more about how to optimize the wildcard search, check out our past “How to” (link in the post!)
• If you don’t see a field you would like to search by, you can enable any field to be searchable by navigating to the administrator side, finding the form to edit, selecting the field and changing the field properties by enabling the “Searchable” option.

1. Select the “Administrator” tab, select “Form Designer” from the left-hand menu, then click on “Lookup Lists”.
2. Expand the gray arrow next to “Lookup List Actions” from the right-hand side panel.  
3. Click “Create New Lookup List”.
4. Select Simple or Masked. A simple lookup list will allow you to create one display value for each option in the list. A masked lookup list will allow you to create one display value and one masked (hidden numeric only) value for each option in the list. 
5. Select a category. 
6. Name your list. 
7. Click “Create”
8. Type in the display values you would like to have available for your option fields.
9. Click Save Lookup List.

Tip: When to use

Lookup List can save you time when:

• You have a list that will be used on multiple fields
• You have a list that will be used on multiple forms
• You have a list that needs to be the same in multiple locations but it may also need to be changed at some point (all at the same time)

Every record for every form created in Apricot has an identifying number, which is called a Record ID. It is a built-in unique identifier generated by the system and can be used to distinguish clients without revealing personally identifiable information. This field, as with all System Fields, cannot be edited or imported into. To find the Record ID, use any of the methods below:

1. Simply scroll to the section labeled “System Fields” to locate the Record ID field
2. Use the “Find” Function
   1. Click “Expand All” in the upper right-hand corner
   2. While holding the Ctrl key (or the Command key on a Mac) press the F key which will bring up a search box in the top right corner of the screen
   3. Type “record id” into the search
3. Identify a Record ID by URL
   1. When viewing a record the Record ID can be found at the very end of the URL 

1. Before you can copy a record you must ensure the function is enabled. This setting is applied on a form by form basis. 
2. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator”
3. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Form Designer” and click on “Standard Forms”
4. Click on “Edit” for the form you wish to enable record copy. 
5. Next, click on the Form Settings Gear
6. Make sure “Allow Copies” is checked
7. Click “Apply”
8. Click “Publish” in the Form Actions menu
9. Select “Copy Record.” If “Copy Record” is not available in this menu on the right hand side, then copying has not been enabled on the Administrator side within the design of the form.
10. Once the record is copied, you can choose to “Reload Original Record” or “Go to Copy”.

Copying a Tier 2 record is similar to copying a Tier 1 record. If copied from the record itself, the new Tier 2 copies will always be placed under the same Tier 1 record. If copied from the document folder, the record can be copied from the current Tier 1 to one or more other chosen Tier 1s. (For example, copy Sally Jones’ case note to add to both Bill and Bobby Jones.)

1. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator”
2. On the left-hand side menu, expand “Form Designer”, then select “Standard Forms”
3. Either create or edit the form you want emojis on. If you’re unsure how to create a form, check our previous how to’s.
4. Next, pull a field into the form (we recommend radio button, masked radio button, and likert scales for best experience).
5. Find the emoji(s) you would like to use from the Emojipedia website and paste them into the field options.
6. Publish the form.

Note: Emojis will show in native reports, can be filtered, and will export into Excel as emojis. If you need them to appear in Results reports – we can help!

The Auto Populate field is a type of linking field in Apricot that allows you to automatically pull data from one record and display it on another related record. This is recommended when you need to create a calculation on one form using data from another form or physically display data from one form on another related form.

1. Determine your base form and target form (target form is the form data will be pulled from, a base form is the form data will be pulled to) and create a link between them. Linking creates a relationship between two otherwise unrelated forms.
2. Add a Linking field to the base form by dragging it in from the field choices palette onto the form and choose which (target) form you want to link to. In order for auto population to work, be sure to set the “[target] record can be linked to each of these records” to 1. Click Apply.
3. Next, in the field choices palette, expand the black arrow next to “Linking” and drag the auto populate field into your form. Click the gear for the newly added auto populate field, name it and choose the linking field that you previously created. Then, choose the field that you want to pull data from.
4. Click Apply and Publish.

Note: it’s important to use Auto Populate sparingly, as it can lead to data redundancy in your database. Reach out to us if you have questions whether this feature is recommended for your use case.

1. At the top of your screen, click “Administrator
2. On the left-hand side menu, expand “c”, then select “Reports”
3. On the right-hand side, under “Report Actions”, click “Create New Report”
4. Add in pertinent fields, including Date of Birth (tip: add date of birth in twice to see both the date and age)
5. Go to your Date of Birth column and click the gear to see the column properties
6. On the left-hand side of the pop-up, you will see Data Styles. Click the Age option, change the column title to Age and click Apply. This age will change as the participant gets older, always referencing the current date.

To successfully publish a form in Apricot, make sure your form includes at least one:

• “Required” field to ensure every record has some data. 
• “Quick View” field, which display key info on the record search screen. Choose a field that helps users identify records quickly (e.g., Last Name, Program, Intake Date)..
• “Searchable” field, which allow users to find records using the form’s search filters. For Tier 1 forms, this is required; for Tier 2 forms, it’s optional but highly recommended. 
• (Optional but Recommended) “Duplicate Check” field. While not required for publishing, setting a “Duplicate Check” helps reduce redundant records and it’s ideal for fields like Name, Date of Birth, or ID numbers.
  

Tip: If your Publish button is still grayed out, double-check that:

• The form has a name and at least one field
• All required settings above are checked
• No validation errors are showing at the top of the form builder

Why it matters?

Before you can publish a new or updated form in Apricot, you need to meet certain system requirements, otherwise, the Publish button stays grayed out. These checks ensure that every form you release is functional, searchable, and ready for reporting. Knowing what to look for saves you time and frustration during the form-building process.

A restricted report is a pre-built Apricot report that cannot be edited. These reports are view-only and cannot be modified, renamed, or restructured by admins. They’re built using Apricot’s stock forms and are designed to provide a standard reporting baseline that many organizations find useful, or are used to meet federal or state reporting requirements.

1. Select the “Administrator” tab, expand “Report Center” from the left-hand menu, then click on “Reports”
2. Locate the locked report you’d like to edit, click the gear icon next to the report and select “Copy Report”
3. Select a category for the new report, give it a name and click “Create”
4. Open the copied version – you’ll now have full access to add filters, change columns, or modify visualizations
5. Once edits are complete, click “Publish” to make the new report available to users

    

Note: The original locked report will remain unchanged. You can hide it from end users by editing permissions or hiding the category if needed.

Why it matters

 Restricted reports give you a ready-made starting point. While you can’t change the originals, copying lets you adapt those reports for your own organization’s needs, e.g. adding filters, customizing fields, or tailoring visuals, without losing the baseline report.

Exporting data from Apricot is quick and lets you take your reports into a familiar format for sharing or further analysis. Whether you’re preparing numbers for a funder, a board presentation, or just need to slice the data differently, Excel exports give you flexibility without changing anything in Apricot.

1. Select the “Administrator” tab, select “Report Center” from the left-hand menu, then click on “Reports”
2. Locate the report from which you want to export the data and open it
3. From the right-hand side menu, click  “Export” 
4. From the Export Configuration pop-up window, select whether you want to export all sections of the report or one specific section. If you choose All Sections, each section will appear in its own tab in the Excel Workbook or you can export every report section into its own file.
5. Next, choose a file format:
   1. XLS will export the report as a Microsoft Excel file compatible with versions before 2007.
   2. XLSX will export the report as a Microsoft Excel file compatible with versions after 2007.
   3. CSV is only available when exporting one report section at a time and will export it as a CSV file.
6. Finally, choose whether to enable “Data Style Checking”. This feature helps Excel correctly interpret your data (e.g. treating date fields as actual dates instead of plain numbers). We recommend enabling it if you plan to filter or sort your report in Excel by dates or numbers. For very large reports, you may want to disable it to improve performance.
7. Click “Export” and save the file to your computer
8. Open the file in Excel to review, format, or share as needed

Tip: What you see in Apricot is what gets exported, so double-check your filters before exporting to make sure your file includes the right data.

Why it matters

Sometimes you need to share Apricot data outside the system, e.g. for a funder report, a board meeting, or deeper analysis in Excel. Exporting your data ensures you can work with it in a familiar format, while keeping your original Apricot records intact.

Adding a new program in Apricot allows you to separate data collection and reporting by service area, site, or initiative. Each program has its own forms, reports, and user access settings – access to which is set up at the Role level – so setting it up correctly ensures your staff see only what they need.

1. Select the “Administrator” tab, select “Access Control” from the left-hand menu, then click on “Sites & Programs”
2. Click the “Create New Program +” button at the top-right to open the New Program page
3. Add a name and a description to the program. If you have multi-Site functionality,  assign the Program to the appropriate Site; otherwise it’ll be saved under your Default site.
4. Adjust program settings as needed (address, services offered, referral options, etc.)
5. Click “Save Program”

Why it matters

Programs control access and reporting scope in Apricot. Creating a new program helps keep your database organized, maintains data security, and ensures staff only view records relevant to their work.