Forms category template

About

Forms covers the ways a Veteran begins a form, the drafts they haven’t finished, and the submissions they’ve already sent. It’s the only category page that doesn’t appear in the VA Health and Benefits mobile app.

This page documents the Forms category page in the authenticated experience. For the templates used to build a form itself, refer to Forms.

Read the Category pages overview first. This page covers only what Forms does differently.

Example

Select a numbered marker to jump to the guidance for that difference.

Differences from the Category template

Action required holds failed submissions

Every item in Action required on this page is about a submission that didn’t go through. An item appears because a form failed to send or a document failed to upload, and it asks the Veteran to send it again.

• Name the form in plain language in the title, as in “Reupload application for disability compensation.” Never use an internal submission ID.
• Each item carries a deadline 60 days out, written as “Resubmit by [date]” or “Reupload by [date].”
• An item comes off the section as soon as the system recognizes a resubmission of the same form. Forms doesn’t use the processing tag described in the overview, because the item stops being shown rather than waiting in place.

Never:

• Surface anything but a failed submission here. A form the Veteran hasn’t started, or a draft they haven’t finished, belongs in a record subsection.

Get started holds the ways to begin

Forms carries Get started rather than Quick access. It holds the 2 or 3 ways a Veteran begins a form, and it sits between Action required and Updates, because starting a form is a key reason people may come to this page.

Never:

• List the full catalog of forms. That’s what the find a form page is for.

Two record subsections

Forms carries exactly 2 record subsections under Updates.

Drafts. Work the Veteran started but hasn’t submitted, cut to the 2 most recent, newest first.

• Say in the row title or its metadata that the row picks the draft back up, as in “Continue your application for disability compensation.” An Action List item has no button and no separate label, so a word like “Continue” has nowhere else to go.
• A “Show all drafts” link opens the full list.
• Drafts is the one subsection with no feature page behind it. That’s a knowing exception to the rule in the overview, not a new rule. The feature page comes after launch, and until it ships Drafts is a destination reached from this page rather than a navigation child.

Submission history. What the Veteran has already sent, cut to the 2 most recent, newest first.

• Each row carries a status, such as “Received” or “Submission in progress.”
• Rows cover both kinds of submission. Name a QuickSubmit upload by its upload number, as in “QuickSubmit upload #213159.” Name a form by its title, and put the VA form number in the metadata.
• Draw these rows from the same source as the submission history page, so the 2 shown here always match the top of the full list.
• A “Show all submissions” link opens that page.

Never:

• Put the sort control on this page. It belongs to the full list on the subpage.

Everything else follows the template

The page title, page description, category alert, Updates, and Need help? sections all work as described in the Category pages overview.

Related

• Category pages — the shared template
• Forms — the templates used to build a form
• Authenticated home page