Video: Building a Web Form

Let's build a form from scratch: a volunteer sign-up for Chanukah. We'll lay it out, decide what happens after someone signs up, and put it on your website. In Forms, click New form. There are a few starting points here. To build it your own way, choose Blank form. Give the form a name, like Chanukah Volunteers, and pick the category its sign-ups belong to. Then click Create form. Now build it from the palette on the left. Drag in Contact Information, and you get name, address, phone and email in one move. For a question of your own, open the Custom blocks, and drag a Dropdown row onto the form. Click the dropdown to open its settings on the right, and type your question in the Label box. Then click Edit options, and add the choices people can pick from: setup crew, serving, or cleanup. Each one gets a short value for your records, and the words people see. Click Done when the list is ready. Check Required, so nobody can skip it. Finish with Action buttons from the Groups list. That adds the Submit button at the bottom. Click Assistant, Preview, to see the form exactly the way people will see it. Now open the Settings tab. Where submissions go sets the department, and the subcategory for any payments the form takes. You can also offer the form to your members in the Members Portal. Under After a submission, list the staff who should get an email for each new sign-up, and write the thank-you people see on screen when they're done. The Email Confirmation tab is the email every volunteer gets after signing up. Give it a subject, then fill in who it comes from: a name, and an email address on your domain. Write a short note, then use Insert a field to add their answers. Click Preview to see the email just the way they'll get it. Their answers are filled in for them, so every volunteer has a record of what they signed up for. Under Security, bot protection is already on, and the default suits most forms. Happy with it? Click Save. Now put it on your website. Back in Settings, open Embed on your website, and click Copy embed code. Paste it into any page of your site, and the form appears right there. Every sign-up shows up in your Forms list, under Submissions, and your staff get an email as each one comes in. With the form builder, you can make any sign-up or registration form, choose who hears about each one and what people receive, and put it right on your website.