> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Submissions

> The inbox for everything people send through your public forms: triage, spam, deciding, and turning a submission into a person and an application.

**Submissions** in the sidebar is the inbox for your public forms. Every adoption application, foster application, volunteer sign-up, donor form, surrender request and contact form that somebody sends arrives here, whether they filled it in on your public site or on your own website through the embedded form. You build the forms themselves under [Settings → Operations & forms → Forms](/settings/forms).

Each submission is a card. A card shows who sent it, which form, the answers, and what has happened to it since. Press the name at the top of a card to open the submission on its own page.

## Who sees which submissions

A submission belongs to the part of RescueConsole its form is for, and you see it only if you can read that part.

| Form kind                                                   | Who can read it         | Who can act on it        |
| ----------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------ |
| Adoption application, Foster application, Surrender request | **read** on Animals     | **write** on Animals     |
| Volunteer sign-up                                           | **read** on Shifts      | **write** on Shifts      |
| Donor form                                                  | **read** on Fundraising | **write** on Fundraising |
| Contact form, General                                       | **read** on People      | **write** on People      |

Acting on a submission means marking it, deciding it, assigning it, adding notes and deleting it. Somebody who can read but not write can open a submission but not change it.

## What arrives, and what happens by itself

When somebody sends a form:

1. The submission is stored with the status **New**, and only the answers to questions the form asks are kept.
2. If the form asked for an email address, RescueConsole looks for a person with that address in People. If there is one, the submission is joined to them. If there is nobody, a new person record is made from the answers, and the form's kind gives them a role: an adopter, a foster, a volunteer or a donor. Surrender, contact and general forms add no role.
3. An adoption or foster application also makes the [application record](/animals/applications) for that person, with any animals they ticked on the form.
4. For an adoption application, foster application, volunteer sign-up or donor form, any workflow your organization set to start when that kind of form is received starts on the person. See [Settings → Operations & forms → Workflows](/settings/workflows).

A person who was already on file keeps their record as it was: none of the form's answers are written onto it, because anybody can type an email address into a public form. The one exception is the adopter or foster role, which an adoption or foster application adds when it makes the application for them. The card says which way it went: **Matched by email to an existing person record** or **Added to People as a new person record**.

A submission with no email address is not joined to anybody. It waits on the card until somebody presses **Add to People**.

<Note>
  Nobody on your team is emailed when a submission arrives. The person who sent it sees your form's thank-you message on screen, and is sent nothing else unless a workflow you set up sends it. To reply by hand, use **Send an email** on the card.
</Note>

## The list

Across the top are three numbers: **Submissions**, **Awaiting review** (the ones still **New**) and **In spam**.

### Filters

The rail on the left narrows the list. Each option shows how many submissions it would give you.

| Filter       | Options                                                                                   |
| ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Status**   | **New**, **Reviewed**, **Converted**, **Spam**                                            |
| **Decision** | **Approved**, **Rejected**, **Not decided**                                               |
| **Assigned** | **Assigned to me**, **Nobody yet**                                                        |
| **Kind**     | The kinds of form you can read, such as **Adoption application** or **Volunteer sign-up** |
| **Form**     | Your forms, by title, busiest first                                                       |

Above the filters, **Views** keeps a set of filters you use often. Filter the list, press **+ Save current view**, and give it a name.

### Statuses

| Status        | What it means                                                                                                                                                             |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **New**       | Nobody has reviewed it yet. A submission that was joined to a person automatically is still **New**: making the record is bookkeeping, and somebody still has to read it. |
| **Reviewed**  | Somebody pressed **Mark reviewed**, or decided it.                                                                                                                        |
| **Converted** | Somebody pressed **Add to People**, or linked it to a person already on file.                                                                                             |
| **Spam**      | Marked as spam, by hand or by the spam check. Hidden from the list unless you choose it.                                                                                  |

### Deleting several at once

Tick the box beside each card, or **Select all** for every card on the page, then press **Delete selected**. You are asked once. Afterwards a sentence says how many were deleted, how many you did not have the access to delete, and how many were already gone.

## Spam

Every public form carries a hidden box that people never see and automated form-fillers fill in. A submission with that box filled in is kept, marked **Spam**, and left out of the list. It is not joined to a person and starts no workflow.

When there is spam, a line above the list says how many were hidden, with **Show them**. A browser or extension that fills in every box it finds can trip the check on a real person's application, so look through **Spam** from time to time.

* **Spam** on a card marks it as spam by hand.
* **Not spam** puts a spam submission back to **New**. You can then add it to People and decide it.

One internet connection can send your forms at most ten times an hour. After that the visitor is asked to try again later.

## On a card

### Answers

What the person told you, in full. Answers can never be edited: they are the record of what was actually sent.

On a card in the list, each answer is shown under its field key, such as `person.email`. On the submission's own page, each answer is shown under the question as the form asks it today, in the form's order. If a question has since been removed from the form, its answer is kept and shown under its key after the rest.

When the form asked which animals the person is interested in, the submission's own page links each animal to its record.

### Add to People

For a submission that is not joined to anybody yet. **Add to People** makes a new person record from the answers.

If somebody with the same email address is already on file, you are told so instead, with **Link to them** and **Open their record first**. Linking joins the submission to that person and does not make a second record.

Making a new person needs **write** on People. Linking to somebody already on file needs **read** on People. Either way the submission becomes **Converted**, the workflows set to start when this kind of form is received start on the person, and an adoption or foster form makes its application.

### Send an email

Opens Compose addressed to the person, with the conversation linked to this submission. Shown to people with **write** on Communications. See [Compose](/communications/compose).

### The application

On an adoption or foster application, a line shows the application made from it and its stage, with **Open the application**. The review, the contract and the payment are kept on the application. If you have **write** on Animals, you can change the stage from the card.

When the form is joined to a person but has no application yet, for example because it arrived before applications were made this way, press **Make the adoption application** or **Make the foster application**. When nobody is on file yet, the line says the application will be made once they are added to People.

### Decision

Adoption applications, foster applications and volunteer sign-ups are approved or rejected. Other kinds are not decided.

Write a note for your team if you like (it is never shown to the person who applied), then press **Approve** or **Reject**. Once decided, the card shows who decided and when, with **Save the note** when you change the note, and **Undo the decision**.

Deciding:

* marks a **New** submission **Reviewed**,
* takes it off hold,
* gives the application made from the form the same decision, and
* starts any workflow your organization set to run when this kind of form is approved or rejected, on the person it belongs to.

A workflow starts only when the answer changes: approving twice starts nothing the second time. Undoing a decision starts nothing. If nobody is on file for the submission yet, its decision is kept and the workflows start when it is added to People.

A submission marked as spam cannot be decided until it is marked **Not spam**.

### Assigned to

Who on your team is working on it. Choose somebody under **Assign a team member**, or press the cross beside a name to take them off. Only members of your team can be assigned, up to ten.

Each person newly assigned is told in the app, and by email unless they chose otherwise under [Settings → Your account → Profile & password](/settings/your-account). An adoption or foster form and the application made from it share the same list of people.

### Mark reviewed, Spam and Delete

* **Mark reviewed** sets the status to **Reviewed**.
* **Spam** and **Not spam** are described under [Spam](#spam).
* **Delete** removes the submission.

<Warning>
  Deleting a submission cannot be undone. The person record it is joined to is kept: deleting removes what they sent, never the person.
</Warning>

### Internal notes

A line of notes for your team, never shown to the person who sent the form. Press **Save** to keep them.

## The submission page

Open a submission by pressing the name on its card. The page is for working one application through, top to bottom.

* **On hold**: shown when a check on a workflow this form started has failed and put it on hold, with the reason. **Take it off hold** clears it. Deciding the submission clears it too.
* **Decision**, **Assigned to** and **Answers**, as on the card.
* **Emails**: the conversations linked to this submission.
* The person it belongs to and the application, as on the card.
* **Follow-up**: see below.
* **Workflows**: see below.
* **Review**: **Add to People**, **Mark reviewed**, **Spam** or **Not spam**, **Delete**, and the internal notes. Shown to people who can act on the submission.

**All submissions** at the top goes back to the list.

### Follow-up

Shown once the submission belongs to a person. It lists the checks a rescue makes before deciding:

* Interview them
* Check their vet references
* Check their landlord's rental policy
* Send a follow-up email
* Check the Aggravated Animal Cruelty site
* Search the Public Registry
* Confirm what the application says

**Add a task** beside any of them adds it as a task on the person, named with the form's title, for example "Interview them (Adoption application)". It is assigned to the first person assigned to the submission, or to you when nobody is. A check already added says **Added**. Beside **Search the Public Registry**, **Open the registry search** goes to the [registry search](/registry/search) if you can read the Public Registry.

Adding these tasks needs **write** on People. The tasks already on the person are listed underneath. See [Tasks](/everyday/tasks).

### Workflows

The checklists running for this submission. A workflow runs on a record, not on a submission, so what you see depends on what the submission has become:

* **With an application**: the application's own workflows, the ones this submission started, and the applicant's workflows for the same purpose, in one list. **Start a workflow…** offers the checklists for the application and for the applicant.
* **With a person but no application**: the person's workflows.
* **With nobody on file**: the workflows that are waiting, with how many steps each has and what starts it. They start once the submission is added to People.

Tick steps here as you would on the record. See [Settings → Operations & forms → Workflows](/settings/workflows) for how a checklist is built.