Create a form

If you want to ask your contacts for some information, you can link a form to your message or you can use a web version of the form to share the link or place it on your website. All the data that can be filled in in a form can be found in the reports. This article will take you through the steps of creating forms and all the form settings which would be applied to your form.

Create a form

1. To create a new form, go to Forms > Forms section of your account. Here you will be able to see all the forms you have already created, ordered by category.
2. Click on Create new form, then enter a name for the form, select a category and click on Save.

   

3. At the top of the form you can provide an intro text. You can format it with the text editor or the HTML Editor.

Add a field to a form

To start assembling your form, you can choose to Add a field or Add an editor field. Using the Add a field button you can add a new field for your contacts to fill in. Using the Add an editor field you can add an HTML Editor text block that you can use to insert texts, images or other elements in between your different questions.

When adding a new field, you will first need to add a field name. This is the label that will appear next to the field in your form. For every new field you can also add an explanation to provide additional information. For example, you can add the explanation “Multiple answers possible” to multiple choice questions.

Check the box Required when it is required that this field is filled in.

By clicking on the arrows you can reorder the fields by moving them up or down. By clicking the red cross you can remove a field.

Form field types

Next, select a field type from the drop-down menu. There are 9 possible form field types you will be able to choose between:

• Small text field
• Drop-down list
• Large text field
• Radio buttons
• Check boxes
• Date
• Time
• Date and time
• Disclaimer

Besides the 9 default form field types there is one extra payed option: File upload. With it you can have files uploaded by your contacts. For more information about this field type, please contact our sales team.

The different field types offer different options 

When adding a small or large text field you can set the maximum number of characters allowed. A character counter will be displayed.

For large text fields you can also set the maximum number of characters and the number of rows that someone can enter in the text field.

For small text fields you can also set an example value and validations by clicking on Select a filter and choosing the one you need. Flexmail will only accept an answer that complies with the filter. You can fill in an example value in the Preview box which will be shown to your contacts before they input their answer. If you choose My own filter you can set your your own filter.

When you choose a drop-down list, check boxes or radio buttons, you can add different options by clicking on Add an option.

If you add the disclaimer field type, you can determine whether checking the accompanying checkbox is mandatory and you can insert a link that will be placed on the disclaimer.

When you payed for the extra field type Upload files you can choose which extensions are required. Note that your contacts only can add one file per form. So if you want your contacts to upload more than one file, you need to insert multiple Upload files field types in your form.

For PRO and PREMIUM Flexmail accounts, there is an extra form events option available to the radio buttons and drop-down list form field types. Credit accounts can add it as an extra payed option. The form events option enables you to limit the number of registrations for a specific question in the form. You can use this option to plan a small event or offer some promotional content available to a number of people filling in your form, for example. When the limit you set is reached you can choose to:

• Not to show the question anymore
• Close the form
• Show a message on the form

For more information on this option, please contact our sales team.

Connect a form to the database

You can connect the form field to the content of your contact database by using the option Use database. For example, you can connect the field First name on your form to the field First name from your mailing list. Flexmail makes sure that the forms that you are sending are prefilled with the available information from your contact database.

Check the box Edit when you wish to overwrite the existing data in the database with the data entered in this field. 

Close a form

At the bottom of the form you can indicate what should happen when the recipient clicks on the Send button of the form.

• Option 1: A text is shown on the screen. You can edit this text with the text editor or the HTML Editor.
• Option 2: The users will be redirected to a landing page. Select one of your landing pages. 
• Option 3: The users will be redirected to a website. You can insert the URL of the website you want them to be redirected to.

Preview and Save

If you feel like you are almost finished, go ahead and Preview your form. Just navigate to the top right corner and click on Preview. The visualisation of the form will appear in a new tab in your browser. 

If you are happy with your design, now scroll all the way down and click Save one last time to make sure you are saving the final version. Ideally, you want to Save your form after every significant change you do to your form.

Form settings

After you have finished designing your form, you can further customise it and its layout by clicking on the gear icon next to the finished form and selecting Edit form settings.

Template

In the first section you can customise your form. Depending on the template, there are different styles for your fields, labels and the width of your form.

Layout

Besides using one of the default layouts you can also upload your own CSS files in this section. By doing so, you can download an example file that you can use as a starting point when making changes. After you have chosen a template or your own style sheet you can further personalise the chosen template with fonts, font sizes, colors, the width of your form and your own text for the submit button. 

Here you can also select the language of your form. The selected language will be used for texts in your form such as select, submit, ...

Banner

Next, you can upload a banner which will be shown at the top of your form. In case that you upload a banner that is larger, it will automatically be resized to the maximum size of the form. In case that you upload a banner that is smaller, then the banner remains unchanged. The banner needs to be with one of the following extensions: jpg, gif, png.

Close

In the next section, you can limit the access to the form. You can specify that your contacts can fill in the form only once. You can also close a form on a certain date and time or after a certain number of registrations. After the set limit, the form will no longer be available. You can display messages for both options.

Confirmation message

You can also send a follow-up message in order to confirm the subscription. Choose the message and insert the campaign data. Insert the subject and the point in time in which the mail should be sent. You need to tick either the Send after or Send on option and set a number of hours to wait or a specific time to send. In case you don't set a number of hours or a specific time, the email will be sent immediately after filling it in. If you wish to provide this confirmation email with the data from the filled in form, you can do so by placing the #formdata# tag in your message. The data from the form will be shown in the message.

You can also include an Outlook calendar invitation with your confirmation email. You can generate a .ics file in the settings. Add the title, location, description and start and ending time of your calendar item. It will be added as an attachment to your confirmation email.

Notification

In the last section of the form settings, you can indicate if you would like to receive a confirmation message after a form has been filled in.

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