Building a Form - General Options

Forms can be used for a variety of purposes. As a result they have several options which make them appear to be more complicated to set up. We hope this tutorial will help you start collecting leads and make it easy for your customers to contact you. If you have a need beyond the capabilities we have designed, let us know and we can enhance the Form Builder to suit your needs. Some forms require secure access, so it is important to also read about the Security Module.

Areas of Form Builder
 

List Forms - Lists all forms with options such as: View Responses, Edit, Organize, Preview form, Duplicate Form and Delete.

Search Responses - Allows you to view and search through all form responses. Click here for more details on searching resposnes.

Manage Rules - Create custom rules for Product and Multiple Select fields on your forms.

Manage Statuses - Create and edit statuses to organize your form responses with your own labels for processing sake. You can then filter your response searchs by status or specific filters.

Add Form - Allows you to begin creating a form. After creating a form you must add it onto a page where it can be viewed and used. Click here for instructions on doing so.

Click Add Form to Create a New Form

Form Name - Give your form a short descriptive name so you will recognize its purpose later. The form name is not displayed on the website.

There are 4 tabs in the edit screen containing different sets of tools to use on your Form. This article covers the General Tab. The articles that proceed this one explain what options are availalbe on the Advanced, Security and E-commerce tabs.

General Tab Options

Introduction Content

Allows you to add content above your form. This will display above the form on any page you put the form on. Click on Show/Hide to see the content editor.

After a visitor completes your form and submits it, they will automatically be taken to a "Thank You” page. Thank them or give them further instuctions if nessecary. Click on Show/Hide to see the content editor and add your text or images.

Notify Owner

This option tells the site to send an email when someone completes the form. The person whose email address is entered in the "Notification Email Address" field below is sent the message.  Whenever a form is submitted, whether it is confirmed or not, the "owner” will be notified. The "Owner email” does not have to be an administrator’s but anyone.

Note that multiple email address can be entered. Seperate each email with a semi-colon. No spaces. You can also create a field on your form that allows the site vistor to choose who to send the notification email too. Click here for instructions on setting this field up.

Send using verified email (SMTP)

You can customize the email address that the system uses to send any Formbuilder notifications. You can choose 2 methods.

1. Choosing "No" will send the email using our built in emailer. This uses any email address typed in the From Address field. Easy to use but has a higher risk of being marked as spam.
   
2. Choosing "Yes" will use SMTP to send an email message. This means it will log into a real email address and send the email using a proper send protocol that is more secure and less likely to be seen as suspcious or as spam. You can click "Add" to add a new email address to send from. You can read more on setting up SMTP emails here.
   

Reply To

If you enable the "Email Field" on your form you can use their email as the "Reply-To" in the email sent to the form's owner.

Spam Blocker

Enabled by default the Spam Blocker enables a Capthca code on your form to prevent computer bots from auto filling your form and flooding it with spam. Note this will not stop human spammers from completing your form. If you find you are getting spam still you can enable the "Confirmation" feature under the Advanced tab.

Form Fields

We have included some default form fields you may want to include on your form. Note these fields are used in other areas of SiteApex such as creating a security user or collecting an email for a newsletter so it is recommended to use these fields to collect this information instead of creating your own field for these values.

Note a few fields allow you to change their labels such as the State/Province field, the Zip/Postal Code field and the Username field.

Adding Custom Fields

If you require additional fields on your form, click on the "Create Form and continue to Addtional Fields" Button. This will take you to a new screen that allows you to create your own fields. There are a large number of field types so we have created a support article specific to creating custom fields for customizming to your needs.

Click to to go the the next article: Building a Form - Advanced Options