Blueprints and moving forms between orgs

A blueprint is the portable file for a form: its definition, its elements in order, and their configuration, keyed by external IDs so it round-trips cleanly between orgs. Use it to move a form from sandbox to production, to keep a form in version control, or to hand a form to someone else’s org.

Export

1. Open the form in the Form Builder.
2. With nothing selected on the canvas, open the Share tab.
3. Click Download blueprint.
4. Store the file in version control, or hand it to the destination org’s admin.

Every export declares the format it was written in, so a file declaring a version newer than the installed package understands is refused rather than guessed at. If you see that, the file came from an org running a newer version of Sliick Forms than this one. A file with no such declaration is read as the earliest format, so blueprints exported before this existed still import correctly.

Import

1. Go to the Sliick Admin Dashboard.
2. Click Import blueprint in the Forms toolbar and choose the .json file.
3. Review the summary: definitions created, definitions updated, elements created, elements updated, elements deleted.

Import is desired-state, not additive. If the incoming blueprint omits an element that still exists in the target definition, that element is deleted. Read the delete count.

Import also refuses a blueprint whose structure a form could not actually render, naming the blocks involved and writing nothing at all. Two examples: a page or section that opens inside a repeating group, and an End Repeat that closes nothing. Rearranging such a file to make it fit would move fields out of the repeating group they were authored in without telling you, so the import refuses instead. Because nothing partial is written, you can fix the file at source and re-run.

Round-tripping

Export and re-import only match up cleanly when every element carries a stable external ID. Without one, import cannot match an element to the row already in the org and treats it as new.

An imported blueprint is also the one route by which settings the builder does not expose reach a form, such as a field’s own link parameter name, and the one route by which a theme value can arrive in a format the builder’s own colour pickers would never produce. See Colours, fonts and logos.

What a blueprint does not carry

Allow on your public Sliick Edge address is not part of a blueprint. A form created by import is off, and re-importing over an existing form never changes that setting either way: the tick is about your org’s address. See Hosting on Sliick Edge.

Recommended rules for moving forms

1. Keep definition and element external ID values stable across environments.
2. Never use Salesforce record IDs in a deployment workflow.
3. Export from a known-good source org before making large edits elsewhere.
4. Review delete counts carefully after each import.
5. Keep blueprint files in version control, so form changes are auditable outside the org.