Church Websites(Sidekick): Form Builder: Creating a Form

The Form Builder can be used to create custom forms for purposes such as contact forms, event registration, volunteer sign-up, fundraising, donation forms, and more. To create a form, while in your Website Editor, click on Form from the Feature option in your toolbar.

 

 

Once you select the Form feature, you will be presented with the option to add an existing form or to create a new one. Choosing the Create New option will bring you directly to the Form Builder.

 

 

You will be presented with two different ways to start the form: Choose from an existing template or Start from Scratch. Whether choosing a template or starting from scratch the system will ask you to name the form.

 

If your Sharefaith website is not connected to a Sharefaith Giving account, you will not have access to the Giving Forms template. In order to make that connection, please follow the steps provided here. Choosing a template will format the form with the questions/fields needed for that specific format type. You can also edit the form to remove and add questions/fields as needed. 

 

Creating a Form from scratch gives you a completely blank template to work with.

 

After choosing your starting point and naming the form, click Build Form to further customize your form.

 

To add questions/fields, drag questions/fields from the right panel into the form. There are four categories of questions/fields: Basic Fields, Field Set, Static Content, and Contact Info Fields.

 

 

Basic Fields include your standard question and field types that would appear on a form, such as drop-down menu choices, radio buttons, short text answers, long text answers, checkboxes, date boxes, fields that only accept answers with letters, and fields that only accept answers with numbers. Dollar amount choices are not included; to include options that provide dollar amounts, use one of the Payment Fields.

 

Field Set options allow for creating new sections of fields within your form that can be duplicated for multiple instances.

 

Static Content reflect fields that will not change or do not accept answers. The Section Header, Divider, and Empty Space options are used to make the form more aesthetically pleasing. The Static Text field is used to inform the form user of important information that does not require a response.

 

Contact Info Fields are pre-made questions with fields that ask for the form user’s name, email, phone number, and address.

 

Payment Fields are used for displaying the cost of registering or the cost of additional items. Please be aware that these fields will only be available after connecting the Form Builder to your Sharefaith Giving account using the steps outlined here.

  • Base Amount automatically adds a cost at the bottom of the form for registering.
  • User Amount allows the person filling out the form to input the amount they would like to pay.
  • Dollar amount choices can be displayed in checkboxes using the Item Checkbox(es) option, via radio buttons by using the Item Radio Button(s) option, and via dropdown menu by using the Item Dropdown option.
  • Fund Dropdown(s) option allows the user to choose a fund that this form payment is tied to. This will load your active fund options that you have setup via the Fund Management page. For assistance with Fund Management, click here.
  • Amount Button gives the user different buttons to click that have different dollar values (see screenshot below). By default, an “Other Amount” button is included for the donor to input their own dollar value.
  • Calculate Amount is a dynamic field that can display a max per item per person, a total amount of items, and the price per item (see screenshot below). This would be advantageous to use when creating a form for a banquet with a limited number of seats, for signing up for a class with a limited number of books, etc.

 

Once your questions have been added, you can customize the form as a whole by adjusting your Form Settings. Click either the Form Properties button in the bottom left corner or the Configure icon in the top right of the form page.

 

 

The Form Settings menu is divided into seven sections: General Info, Theme, Advanced Theme Settings, HTML, Submission Settings, Payment Settings, and Email Notifications.

 

 

  • General Info allows you to edit the name of the form and the description of the form, upload a header image for the form, enable recurring payments, and access the embed code or direct URL for the form. The embed code can be used for input into your website’s source code to embed the form questions right into your website page, and the direct URL can be used to link the user from your website to the form in a new window.

  • Theme provides several design templates to choose from. Just click the design template you like the best and the form will change colors and font to display this design template.

  • Advance Theme, If the pre-made design templates aren’t giving you your desired look, you can choose your own background colors, accent colors, and fonts within this tab.

  • HTML can be used by those that are seasoned in writing their own website HTML code. Customcode such as google analytics tracking can be included in this tab.

  • Submission controls what message the user sees after they submit their form response, if they redirected to another page, and how many submissions one user can submit. You can also set a submission open date and a submission close date for your form.

  • Payment controls what cards donors can use for payment, can be used to enable a convenience fee, and can allow donors to input a discount code for lower pricing. Also another avenue to assign a fund to the form. This is useful in the case that you have an alternate depository account tied to a specific fund and would like funds from the form to be deposited to this alternate account. For instructions on adding an alternate depository account, click here.

  • Email sets up an email notification to be received by any email address(es). The email body displays a custom message including the details of each user’s form response. For assistance with setting up email notifications, click here.

 

When the form has been completed to your satisfaction, click Save Changes and then choose to either save any updates that have been made with Save Only or make the form live by choosing Publish. The form cannot be accessed by direct URL or embed code until it has been published.

 

You can always update the form by logging back into your Website Editor, navigating to the page where your form resides, placing the page into edit mode, selecting the form and then choosing the edit pencil icon.

 

 

 

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