Forms can do so many things, from event registrations and information requests, to collecting payments for tickets and other items for sale. Forms help streamline the process of collecting information, making communication and event management easy for you and members of your community. Once a member submits any form that includes their profile information, they will now get a receipt emailed straight to their inbox.
This article includes the following topics:
- Examples & Inspiration
- Getting Started
- Adding Images to a Form
- Payment Elements
- Form Settings: Notifications and Form Submission Limits
- Tagging Profiles via Forms
- Creating a Custom Response
- Adding Smart Forms to Your App and Sharing on the Web
- Enabling and Disabling Forms
- Form-Response Indicators
- Share, View, Edit, Export, Duplicate & Delete
- Adding a Hyperlink to a Form
1. Examples & Inspiration
- Create a prayer request form
- Create a connection card form
- Create a volunteer interest form
- Create a retreat registration form
- Collect payments for books
- Collect payments for special events
2. Getting Started
To create a form, simply log in to your management portal and select the Forms tab at the top of the screen. Click the Create New Form button, enter the title of your new form in the “Form Title” field and select "Create"
After you have created your form, you will be able to customize it by selecting different fields on the left side of your screen:
- Read Only Form Elements:
- Headline Text: Large text used to display a title or headings in your form.
- Spacer: Add space between sections of your form.
- Paragraph: Block of descriptive text to add context. You can also add an image using HTML; see instructions below.
- Interactive Elements:
- Short Text Response: A blank single-line field allowing for a short answer from the user. Great for something like "What's your birthday?"
- Long Text Response: A blank paragraph field allowing for a longer response from the user. Great for something like "Tell us more about yourself."
- Checkbox List: Creates a list of options, allowing the user to select multiple options.
- Dropdown List: Creates a dropdown field that allows the user to choose one item from a list.
- Single Option Selector: Creates a list of options that allows the user to select only one option.
- Profile: Requests basic contact info from the user. This will create a profile in the system if one doesn't already exist and the contact info will be used to send an emailed receipt when the member submits the form. You can associate the profile with a tag upon submission by clicking Link Tags once you have added the Profile field to the form. Learn more about creating tags and how they are used here.
- Payment: Creates fields for the user to enter payment information (if using aware3 payment processor). This also requires a profile section on the form (added automatically).
Once you have created your form, don’t forget to click save at the top of your screen.
3. Adding Images to a Form
Images an be added to a form in several ways. Images wider than 620px across will be automatically resized to span the entire width of the form.
Accepted file types for images include:
- .JPEG
- .JPG
- .PNG
- .BMP
You can add an image to a form in the following ways:
1. Image upload
In the form editor, you can upload an image directly from your device. A URL will be generated once the image is added.
- Click Image Upload to add this field to the form.
- Click Choose File and select the image file, then click Open.
- The image will display as a new image URL in the Image Upload field.
- Click Save.
- Click View to see a preview of the form with the image in place.
2. Image by URL
In the form editor, you can add an image's URL so that the image displays on the form. You can add any image that does not have copyright restrictions. The image will be centered on the form.
- Click Image by URL to add this field to the form.
- Paste the URL for the image.
- Click Save.
- Click View to see a preview of the form with the image in place.
3. Image via Paragraph field
Paragraph fields accept HTML, so this is a good option if an image needs custom resizing (such as half of the form width), should be left-aligned or right-aligned, or has other HTML attributes.
HTML format example for a photo:
<img src="URL" style="width:100%">
Simply copy and paste this into the Paragraph field and include the URL for the photo that you want to include in the form in between the " ".
For example, <img src="https://d3oeq6z5d8uq8l.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/08144003/group_mens.png" style="width:100%">
4. Payment Elements
If you are using aware3's payment processor, you can add payments to smart forms to take care of things like event registrations, tickets, or other items for sale, including open donations from your donors.
Start by choosing one or more Payment Elements with a Defined $ Amount or our newly introduced Any $ Amount from the menu on the left of the Form Builder screen:
Once selected, the item chosen will automatically be added to the bottom of the form, along with a payment setup section where further information will be required.
Defined $ Amount:
After entering just a few details, this payment element makes event registrations, and sale of tickets or other items simple!
- Item Name: Enter the Description of the item as you would like it to appear on the form
- Minimum:The number of event tickets, t-shirts, books, etc. you would like to require per submission. This quantity can be set to zero to make the payment optional.
- Maximum: Want to place a cap on how many payments are made in a single form? Place a max to make this happen.
Example of User view for the Defined $ Amount element on the form:
Any $ Amount:
With the addition of our newest payment element, you can offer donors an open amount field where any amount between $1 and $1million can be specified. This feature can be designated as required or optional via the simple button on the right, and also provides the ability to create a customized description (250 char max) that will appear beside the option on the form.
Note: if no Description is entered in the form setup, a default value will be shown on the user form: “Support <fund name>” that includes the fund name where donations will be applied.
Example of User view for the Any $ Amount element on the form :
Payment Setup
Selection from easy to use drop down menus shown below will allow you to specify the Campus (where applicable), Fund, and default payment type for the elements in the form.
Credit, debit, and ACH payments are accepted on forms. Donors simply toggle between the Card and Bank Account tabs to select a payment method.
You also have the option to ask donors to cover the processing fee! Should you choose to ask the Donor to cover the processing fees, a checkbox will appear within the secure payment section prompting the donor to cover fees. This added charge will be reflected on the donor’s giving receipt.
5. Form Settings: Notifications and Form Submission Limits
If you want to be notified as soon as someone submits a form, you can set notifications by email and/or text. To set up notifications, click the edit icon to access the form editor, then add an email and/or text notification under Settings in the lower left hand corner. Additional emails or phone numbers may be added by clicking the green +.
You have the ability to set a limit on the number of total form submissions that can be received. To set a limit, click the edit icon to access the form editor, then enter the number of form submissions you want to allow. When the maximum number of submissions is reached, the form not allow any additional submissions.
6. Tagging Profiles via Forms
You can automatically tag a Profile-enabled form. For example, if you are collecting registrations for a volunteer event via a form, you can create a tag for that volunteer event and add the tag to the form. The tag will be automatically added to any profiles who fill out this form. You can then use tags to segment messaging via push or text! Read more about how tags work across the platform here.
7. Creating a Custom Response
You can customize the response a user receives when they submit a form. This custom response can even include helpful links to other resources!
* Note: If the form has a payment element and there is not a custom message set up for the form but, there is a custom message associated to the fund, then the custom message for the associated fund is displayed. If there is no custom message for either, then nothing is displayed on the form response.*
From the Forms menu, either create a new form or select the form you would like to create the custom response for and click the Customize Response button.
You will then see the Custom Form Response window displayed.
Add the custom messaging you would like to display on the form response in the Custom Message field and click Save.
User will see the custom message after submitting their response to the respective form.
Clicking the ‘View My Submission’ button displays a read only version of the form which includes the custom text, as well as the form responses submitted by the user.
8. Adding Smart Forms to Your App and Sharing on the Web
If you have a mobile app, you can add forms to the app. Once a form is created under the Forms tab inside the management portal, select the Copy Public Link to save the web address. From there, you may either copy into a single Link feature to open directly or copy into a Link(s) feature to provide a list of forms to pick and choose from. The link to a form can also be copied and shared across the web--on your website, social media, etc.
9. Enabling and Disabling Forms
When you no longer want a form to be active, you may toggle off the 
button to 
and it will no longer be viewable online or in-app.
10. Form-Response Indicators
On the Forms tab, you can see a summary of all your forms. You will see the number of responses and the date of the last response.
11. Share, View, Edit, Export, Duplicate & Delete
Under the Forms tab, you can also copy the link to the form, view the form in your browser, make edits to the form, and export the form responses.
- Copy Public Link. Select Copy Public Link to copy the link to include in-app, your website, or via social.
- View Public Form. The View button will display a form preview as it will appear in your app and online.
- Edit. Need to make changes? Click Edit to adjust form fields and copy.
- Edit Form Name. Edit the form Name by hovering over the name and clicking the pencil icon.
- Download Responses. View form results by clicking Download responses.
- Duplicate. Create a copy of a form by clicking Duplicate.
- Delete. Delete a form by clicking the garbage can icon
12. Adding a Hyperlink to a Form
You may want to include a link to an outside source in your form. Now you can! You can only add your hyperlink in the paragraph field of the form. Here's the hyperlink to insert using Google.com with the title Google Search Engine.
The hyperlink to insert is:
<a href="https://google.com" target="_blank">Google Search Engine</a>*
Here's the breakdown of the hyperlink:
<a href="insert link to desired location" target="_blank">Title of desired location</a>*
Check out our short video on how to create a form below!
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