Safety Forms

- Email in PDF(for hardcopy) and CSV(for excel/access)?

No. The email notification is in plain text or HTML. Not PDF. The entry is not emailed as CSV, but you can export entries as CSV.

- Keep form info in database for backups, history, etc...

All form entries are stored in your WordPress database.

- Upload pictures, pdfs, or any data (most plugins do... but some are annoyingly complicated)

Yes. You can allow uploads by file extension.

- Revisit forms with database information... like say I have 100+ forms that will be exactly the same. Each person needs to beable to view past forms. So, for example, I would need to catagorize my forms on a per-field basis, and allow a person to see the previous forms of that catagory and add additional forms.

Not really. I'm not quite clear what you are asking, or how it will be used, but this does not exist in Gravity Forms currently.

- Create report type forms. Goes with the above question... a report that is populated with database info that you can then print, pdf or csv like all the other forms

You can populate a form with information from a database. But for reports, there is no concept of that really, and no built in way to send that form entry as CSV or PDF.

All these things COULD be accomplished using Gravity Forms, but they're not built in features, and would require customization on your end to make it happen.

Here is an example of a form that I fill out weekly: http://rosewoodresources.net/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/safetyFormExample.jpg

OK

My intention: You can scroll through previous forms by clicking previous/forward buttons, and add a new form at any time. All these forms that are basically copies, and are kept in a catagory for organization. In effect, act like a small historian that you can keep adding to and view older forms.

Not sure if you mean forms or entries. Page through entries. Is that what you mean? There is typically one form for each application, and then you get multiple entries from a form submission. Is that what you mean? If so, then Gravity Forms will do fine. All the entries are saved individually and you can view them all individually. There is no paging one by one, but pagination is added when you have more than 20 entries.

All that info is in the database...Then you can use the database to fill out a predefined report/form with the "Allow field to be populated dynamically".
* another example to save steps... employee A logs in and the $current_user can be used to fill out Name on all forms accessed by employee A. Is that the way it works?

Yes.

- What, if any... plugins that make it easier to query, build reports, graphs etc?

There are none that I know of. But the data is in CSV format, so you can use any spreadsheet program, macros, online tools, anything you want to manipulate the CSV data. Gravity Forms is looking into creating a reporting add-on in the future, but your requirements seem pretty specific and the add-on might not meet your needs.

- Does GF create a new table for each form? Is the database easy to work with?

The number of tables are fixed. There is not a new table for each form or each entry. Entries are stored in one table, forms in another table. Easy to work with? The data is serialized, so that is difficult to work with in some cases. There are functions in Gravity Forms that will enable you to retreive all that data though.

- Is there any built in functionality.... like adding new entries to the data table? Separating information out to various tables on submission?

New entries to the data table? Not really. Just submit the form again

Separate out to separate tables on submission? Not really. All the entries are stored in one table.

- Can you backup the GF forms/databases?

Of course, just like any MySQL database or WordPress installation. VaultPress works fine.

- It works within WPDB? Can you use other databases, or setup GF to stay separate from WP?

It is not designed to allow other databases for storage. But you can always submit data directly to another database by using the gform_after_submission hook to send the data there.

Is there any examples of people using GF for complex tasks like this? I mean, a year's worth of daily information inputed, stored, sorted and accessable for reports and viewing of older forms? Dumping information into excel/access/a historian?

Not that I know of. But it's certainly possible.

Sorry my questions are so long... hope that helps... Got a lot riding on this and I've been building it from scratch... and I don't know enough to do it all.

No problem on the questions. It sounds like you have a complex application for Gravity Forms. Gravity Forms is designed to capture all the data. After that, you might have to customize things to get the data out in a format you like. It's all possible, and easier than starting from scratch, but it's not going to happen without some work on your end.

SafetySystems, please begin a new topic with your specific question and reference this topic if it's relevant. It will help us help you. Thanks.