Technical notes about management on FlexiForms Admin

What is an Environment?

In terms of software, an environment refers to a specific setup or context in which software applications are built, tested, and run. Each environment typically includes a combination of:

• Hardware (physical or virtual machines)

• Software dependencies (like operating systems, libraries, databases)

• Configuration settings (such as environment variables)

• Access permissions (who can access what)

Here are the most common types of software environments:

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🔧 Development Environment (Dev)

• Where developers write and test code.

• Often includes debugging tools, IDEs, and local versions of services (e.g., databases).

• Usually runs on a developer’s machine or isolated container.

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🔍 Testing / QA Environment

• Used by testers to validate new features, fix bugs, and ensure stability.

• Closely mimics production but may contain test data.

• Can include automated testing suites and CI/CD pipelines.

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🧪 Staging Environment

• A near-exact replica of production.

• Used for final testing before release.

• Helps catch environment-specific issues that dev/test environments might miss.

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🚀 Production Environment (Prod)

• Where the software is actually used by end users.

• Must be stable, secure, and monitored.

• Changes here are typically deployed through controlled release pipelines.

FlexiForms Environments

There are three environments each of which corresponds to typical software development stages in FlexiForms:

• Development is used to develop the forms, and play around with them to see the effects of different designs and setups.

• QA is used to test the form design and set up before pushing the form into Production environment.

• Production is the real environment the end user will use.

It is not necessary to use all these environments. They point to the same database by default.

You can export the form, and then import it into a different environment easily.

The users except System Admins (Admins and Users) are limited to the environments where they are created.

Only System Admins can switch environments on the Admin application.

User Types

There are three types of users in FlexiForms:

• System Admins can access everything (every form, every page, every API data source etc.) in every environment and can switch the environments on Admin application. They are defined in Application Config file of the Admin application and cannot be deleted.

• Admins are administrators for the environment where they are created. They can access everything in their environment. An Admin can delete another Admin.

• Users are defined by the Admins or System Admins for a limited form, or group of forms. The Admin/System Admin assings them to forms. These users cannot access API data sources. They cannot access the templates used for the forms to which they don't access.

Use Users and Permissions pages (under Manage Tab) to manage the users or permissions.