Creating online forms

Form Generator forms can be used in a number of ways throughout the site: requests for information, product orders, questionnaires, registration forms, etc.

To begin, click on the Form Generator link in the administration area. If the email form has already been created, it will appear in the scrollable list of forms.  To edit an existing form, click the name of the form.  To create a new form, click Add New Custom Form in the upper right hand corner.  Then fill out the fields in the following sections as described.

Form Settings

• Name of Form: This will appear at the top of the form.  Choose a short but descriptive name, such as "Website Feedback Form."

• Would you like to use a Custom Layout for this form?: Choosing “yes” here will allow you to layout the fields of the form to appear in up to three columns on the page. Choosing “no” will create a default layout.

• Page Header for this form: A page header (a graphical header like those on most common pages and modules) for the email form can be chosen. The selections in the pull-down menu correspond to all the page headers originally created by Affiniscape for your various content pages and modules.  You don't have to choose a header, but you can if one of the headers is appropriate for this form.

• How would you like to restrict access to this form? There are 3 options:

• Any visitor: Anyone can fill out the form.

• Any active or inactive member: Anyone in the database can fill out the form. When someone fills out the form, they will be prompted to log in. You can create a "guest" membership so if someone is not a present member, they can add themselves to the database. These individuals will be an inactive member but will be able to proceed with filling out the email form.

• Any Active Member: This form will be for Active members only.  Not only must they log in, but they must be identified as Active for their Active Inactive field in your online database in order to fill out the form.

  NOTE: If you choose to restrict to active and/or inactive members, the following option will appear:

• If you are restricting access to Any Active or Inactive Member or Active Members Only, do you want to allow only one submission of the form per member?  If you choose Yes for this option, then a logged-in member can only submit the form once.  If the member attempts to access the form again, he/she will receive a message saying that the form can only be filled out once.  If you choose No, a person can fill out the form as often as desired.

  If you remove the form entry for a specific person (see Managing and downloading online form responses), then the person can again fill out the form.

• A CAPTCHA challenge is automatically displayed to any user filling out a form that is open to Any visitor. This is a safeguard to prevent automated software spam systems from posting to your form.

• Would you like to receive notification when someone fills out this form? If you want an email confirmation every time a user fills out the form, choose Yes and then fill in your email address in the next field.

• Send Form To: This only appears if you chose Yes above.  Enter the email address of the person receiving the form notifications.  To send the notifications to more than one email address, separate the addresses with semicolons (such as "person1@whatever.com; person2@whatever.com").

• Form Intro: Enter an introduction for the form.  This will appear at the top of the form under the name of the form that you chose above.  You do not have to add a form intro, but most forms will benefit from some explanation at the top.
  
  HINT: A common phrase to add to a Form Intro is "Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required."  That is because the system will add an asterisk to any fields you choose to be required fields.

• Form Footer: Enter a footer for the form. This will appear at the bottom of the form, under the last field. You do not have to add a form footer, but this may be a place where you will add a disclaimer, such as “By clicking ‘submit’, you agree that all information on this form is correct.”

• Would you like the first three fields to be First Name, Last Name, E-Mail Address? If you want form respondents to fill out their name and email address, you should choose Yes to this question.
  
  NOTE: If you want our system to be able to send an email response to the person filling out the form, you must choose Yes.  This will cause two new fields to appear as explained below.

• Do you want to e-mail the user a copy of the form entry to their entered email address? If you chose Yes to including first/last name and email, you will see this choice.  All "Generic" emails you have created on the Automatic Emails page (see Creating automatic emails) will be listed here.  If you pick one, the automatic email you pick will be sent to the provided email address of each person that fills out the form.  Also, the form fields they filled out will be attached to the email.  (You can choose to have specific fields not attached to the email when you actually create the form fields.)
  
  NOTE: If you don't see any emails in the pulldown, or you're not sure what they are, go to Automatic Emails from your Admin menu (or click the link on the form page itself).  If you create an automatic email of type "General," you will be able to pick it on the Form Generator page.

• What address do you want the e-mail message to come from?: The email address you put in this field will become the "From" address of the email response you picked in the previous field.

Display Options

• Include the navigation graphics?: If you answer Yes (default) this page will be displayed within the graphics created for your site.

• Include area header graphic?: If you answer Yes (default) this page will include the area header.

• Do you want to dynamically display form entries on a non-admin page on your web site? If you choose "Yes," then you will be able to configure a dynamic page that displays the form entries as they are submitted.  Choosing Yes will open up more options to configure this results page.
  
  If you would like to use this feature, please see Displaying form entries on a web page for specific instructions.

Form Security SSL

• Would you like this form to be secure?: Select Yes if the form will require payment, or if the form will ask for secure information such as Social Security Numbers.  When a member accesses the form, it will redirect them to your secure site so that the person will feel comfortable submitting secure information or credit card numbers.

Payment/Confirmation Information

• Does this event require payment?: Select Yes or No.  If Yes is selected, payment fields will be available on the following page.  NOTE: If you choose Yes, you should also choose Yes for making the form secure in the previous option.

• Do you want to your visitors to see a summary of payment totals before submitting? If you chose Yes above to enable payments on this form, then you can use this option to display a running total of payment fields chosen by the person filling out the form.  If you choose Yes, then all payment fields you create will also be displayed at the bottom of the form, and they will adjust in real time to show the amounts for the individual payment fields, in addition to the grand total.

  See the following screenshot for an example of the bottom of a form with this option set to Yes.  This example has three different payment fields, and the person filling out the form has chosen payment amounts for two of the three fields.

• Confirmation Page: Use the Editor provided to create the page that will appear after the user submits the form (and payment, if applicable).

When finished, click Submit.  The next page that displays is Manage Custom Form Fields. See Creating fields on a form for an explanation.

When finished creating the form fields, you will need to post the form so people can use it.  See Making a form visible to users for instructions.