If you don't know HTML, don't worry! You can add complex questions and inputs to your actions without writing a line of code using our visual form builder.
Click the blue "Edit Form" button on the create page to launch the visual form builder.
For most action types, in the pre-built questions section on the right, you will have the option to add basic fields like first name or address, or mobile number to the form. You will also see any pre-built questions that store data in custom fields that have already been made for your group. To create new pre-built questions you'd like to appear here, or edit existing questions, click the Edit button next to the Core and Custom Questions heading. Learn more about questions here.
To add a pre-built question to your form, click the dropdown to choose the question you want to add, then click and drag the question that pops up to the left, the "Your Form" section on the left.
As you drag a gray box will show you where your question will appear -- move your cursor up or down while dragging to place your question above, below, or in between other questions and get your order right. You can click and drag on a component on the left at any time to reorder it, or drag it out of the "Your Form" section to remove it. (Note that some default fields can't be removed, such as email address and country.)
If you have permissions, you can also add new questions to your form that you haven't created previously. To do that, choose a blank question type from the blank questions section on the left.
Just like pre-built questions, to add a blank question such as a text box or a checkbox, drag the question you want from the right side into the "Your Form" section on the left. As you drag a gray box will show you where your component will appear -- move your cursor up or down while dragging to place your question above, below, or in between other questions and get your order right. You can click and drag on a question on the left at any time to reorder it, or drag it out of the "Your Form" section to remove it.
After you've dropped and ordered your question, click on it to open up the details window and customize it. If it's a pre-built question, you'll have three options. First, you can make the question required, which will prevent an activist from submitting the form without answering the question. Next, you can set the question to always show, which will prevent the question from hiding if the activist has filled it out already in the past. (Note that some default fields, such as email address and country, cannot be made non-required or always shown.) If the question is a checkbox, you can also choose to make it pre-checked. Finally, you'll have the option to add validation to the field using regular expressions. This validation applies to this action only and will need to be manually added to each action in which the field requires validation.
Otherwise, here you can choose a name for your question or choose to make it a tag question, a label, and a placeholder that appears in the question for textareas and text inputs or a list of radio buttons, checkboxes, or dropdown menu options for those input types. You can also choose to create an action only field. Action only fields allows you to create fields that are only linked to the specific action it's added to. If you choose this option, data will not be added to the activist record. You'll be able to report on it from the Action Manage page. Click here to read more about how action only fields work and when you may want to use it.
The name is the custom field column heading that will store your user's data when they fill out this input. As explained in the custom HTML form input section, you can choose any name you want. As you enter a name, a drop down menu will appear of all existing custom fields in your group that match what you're typing. This will allow you to match this question's field name to an existing custom field to avoid duplicates and keep your data clean.
Using the same names on different pages will allow you to pull the same data across pages and will overwrite an activist's past answer stored in that form name. For example, if you use the question name "story" to collect people's stories on multiple pages, when you pull a report for the column name "story" you'll receive stories from every page using that question name unless you limit your targeting to one page or another, with the latest story per activist.
This means that you can collect standard information from activists by using the same form name every time. If you would like to make sure no overwriting occurs, use a unique form name on each page (like "social_security_story" instead of just "story").
Note: Activists may only have one value per custom field on their record. So if they enter data in a question again, it will overwrite any old data in that custom field.
Note that checkboxes use name differently, as you could potentially have more than one value for the same name because an activist checked more than one box. To avoid this, we append the checkbox's label to the end of the name you choose. (ex: If you chose the name "employed" and had checkboxes for "yes" and "no", then these boxes would be stored in the database under the names "employed_yes" and "employed_no.")
Also note that you can enter in a blank line for your select options to output a blank option -- useful when making a select box required but forcing your users to choose an option by making the top line blank.
Note: Field names must be 255 characters or less.
Note: If the custom field you are using has validation and the data an activist enters does not match the validation expression a red error will appear and the action will not be allowed to submit until the error is fixed. You should be sure to explain what format you require using the placeholder or label, so your activists know what to do when they see the red error.
You can also choose to make checkboxes, radio buttons, or dropdown menus tag activists instead of storing custom fields by clicking that link when you edit the question's details. If you do so, when an activist checks the box or chooses an option, the corresponding tag will be added to their record. Instead of names and values, you'll type the tag's name to add that tag to an activist's record. Tags need to be created before you can add them to activists. Read the question marks for how to format your input so you're adding the correct tags, and see here for more about tags.
Checkboxes, radios, and dropdowns also allow you to add an Other option. If you do add this, when people select Other, a text box will appear for activists to write their own repose. For radios and dropdowns, whatever they type will be stored as the value under the field name linked to this question. For checkboxes each checkbox is its own field, so you'll see the name of the checkbox group overall with _other appended to the end in reports.
Pre-built checkbox, radio, and dropdown questions can have an Other option added in the form builder. Drag the pre-built question into the form, click the question, and check the Add Other Option box to add this. For radios and dropdowns, whatever your activist types will appear under the field name. For checkboxes, this option will show the first field name for this question with _other appended at the end.
When you're done editing the details, click the "Save" button to save your details and see your changes in the "Your Form" section. Click on a question to open the editing screen again to make changes.
Note that you can scroll the visual form builder screen, in case your form gets too long and you need access to items lower on the page.
When you're completely finished, click the "Save Form" button to close the visual form builder and return to the create page. You'll see your the custom form questions you just built, showing you exactly what they will look like when you publish. Save your action to save your changes.
To edit your custom form questions at any time, click the "Edit Form" button to re-enter the visual form builder.
Note: If you change the sponsor of the action, all custom form questions you've created will be removed. You will be prompted to confirm your change before form questions are deleted.