Forms

Settings → Operations & forms → Forms is where you build the forms the public fills in: adoption and foster applications, volunteer sign-ups, donor forms, surrender requests and contact forms. You can also reach it by searching for “Forms”. What people send arrives in Submissions. Each form is a card showing its title, its kind, how many questions it has, how many new submissions are waiting, and whether it is Published or a Draft.

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Who can build forms

A form’s kind decides who can read what it collects, and so who can build it. You see the forms of every kind you can read. New form, Publish, deleting and changing questions are offered only on kinds you can write.

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Starting from the standard forms

When you have no forms yet, a banner asks Start with the forms most rescues need? and offers to add them in one press: Adoption application, Foster application, Volunteer sign-up, Donor form, Surrender request and Contact us, or as many of those as you can build. If you started from these and one kind is still missing, the banner offers the ones you don’t have yet. Each standard form arrives as a draft, with a short introduction and the questions its record cannot do without. Add your own questions, then publish it.

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Making a form

1. Press New form.
2. Give it a Title.
3. Choose What is it for?: the kind of form. This decides who on your team can read its submissions, and what the submission becomes (see Submissions).
4. Press Create.

The form is created as a draft, already holding the questions its record requires, such as the person’s name. Its address on your site is made from the title: a form called “Adoption application” is at /f/adoption-application.

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Questions

Press Edit fields on a form to see and change its questions, and Close to fold them away. Each question shows how it is asked, a red star when it is required, its type, and its field key.

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What a form can ask

A form asks only for things a record already keeps. Every answer has a place to go, so a question on an adoption application is a field on the person’s record, and the answer lands there when the submission becomes a person. The Field list groups what you can add:

• About the person: the person’s own details (name, or its parts one by one, email, phone, address, how they would like to hear from you, date of birth), the questions in the person record’s own sections (employment, how they found you, housing, pet experience, co-applicant, foster preferences and experience, volunteer availability, skills and experience, donor information), and your own custom fields for people.
• About the animal: on a Surrender request only. The animal’s name, species, breed, sex, date of birth, microchip, size, colors, pattern, coat, how it came to you, health, whether it is spayed or neutered, and a description, plus your custom fields for animals.
• About the application: on an adoption or foster application only. Which animals are you asking about?, described below.

Your custom fields, and the questions from the person record’s own sections, are marked (custom field). A field hidden on the record layout is not offered, and a field the layout requires is offered as required. A few of the person record’s questions are not offered, because each is a pick from your own records that a member of the public cannot see: an employer chosen from your directory, a co-applicant chosen from People, and preferred volunteer roles.

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Adding a question

1. Choose the Field.
2. Under Ask it as, type the question the way you want it asked, or leave it blank to use the field’s own wording.
3. Tick Required if it must be answered. It starts ticked when the record requires it.
4. Press Add field.

The line under the field shows its type and, for a list, its choices. The type and the choices belong to the record’s field and cannot be changed on the form.

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Question types

A custom field of a type forms do not have, such as a web address, is asked as Short text.

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Changing a question

Press the pencil beside a question to change Ask it as (the wording), Help under it (a line of help shown under the question) and Required. Press Save field. Use the arrows to move a question up or down. The public form is laid out like the record layout’s form, in this order, with each field at the width the layout gives it, so an email and a phone can sit side by side. When the order differs from the record’s, Arrange like the record puts it back in the record’s order. On a phone every question takes the whole width.

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Removing a question

Press the bin beside a question. It is removed at once. Submissions already received keep their answer to it: on a submission’s own page, an answer to a removed question is shown under its field key.

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Which animals are you asking about

An adoption or foster application can ask which of your animals the person is interested in. The form lists every animal your public site shows (up to 200, by name, with its breed), each with a tick box. When none are listed, the form says “No animals are listed for adoption right now.” An animal that is not on your public site is never offered. The animals ticked become the animals on the application made from the form.

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Publishing

A draft form cannot be reached by anybody. Press Publish to put it on your public site, and Unpublish to take it off. Publishing needs at least one question: the app says “Add at least one field before publishing this form” otherwise. Once published, a form can be:

• Opened on its own page at /f/ and its address on your public site. The card shows the address at the end of the grey line that starts /api/forms/.
• Added to a page of your public site as a section: see the public site.
• Put on another website with the embed code: see Put it on your website.
• Linked from an event, so visitors can say they are coming.

Unpublishing a form takes it off your site at once. Its own page says it is not available, a page section that showed it shows nothing (the page editor warns you), and the embedded form stops showing.

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What the visitor sees

The form’s title, its introduction if it has one, the questions in order, and Send. Required questions carry a star, and the form will not send without them. If something is wrong, such as a required answer left blank, the form comes back with what they typed still in it and a line saying what to fix. After sending, they see a thank-you page: “Thank you. Your submission has been received.” with a button back to your site. The submission arrives in Submissions. Nobody on your team is emailed when it does. To have a checklist start when a form arrives, and an email sent to the person when somebody ticks a step, set up a workflow under Settings → Operations & forms → Workflows.

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Deleting a form

Press the bin on the form’s card. A form that has any submissions cannot be deleted, because deleting it would destroy what people sent you: the app says “This form has submissions. Unpublish it instead of deleting it.” A form with no submissions is deleted at once.