I'm sorry I don't remember. I just remember it has to be done in a certain order. I think..... when you input your capital gain, there is some sort of drop down menu where you SELECT the Z and you have to enter how much of that gain went to a QOZ. Mine was a portion of four different gains, so I had to do this on four capital gain entries for the Form 8949. I think you have to do the 8949 and once you find the drop down menu where you can click on the Z, it will generate the Form 8997. Memory is a bit fuzzy.... All I know is they didn't make it easy. I'm an Accountant and it was hard for me to figure it out. I didn't invest this year in a QOZ but my carry forward 8997 was generated. I will try to play with my current form and do a "pretend" entry to see if I can remember how it was done.
