Create Powerful Online Forms Without Any Programming Skills

July 31, 2013 - 3 minutes read

One of my great finds of 2012 was Formstack.com  – it’s such a powerful and easy tool that allows you to build your own highly sophisticated online forms for virtually any purpose you can think of.

Some of the basic field formats supported include:

  • Short Answer
  • Long Answer
  • Dropbown (Select) List
  • Radio Buttons
  • Checklist
  • Date/Time
  • Name
  • Email Address
  • Phone
  • Address
  • Matrix
  • Number
  • Credit Card
  • Description
  • Signature

But where Formstack really starts to shine is when you implement ‘Conditional Logic’. So you can show or hide parts of your form based on earlier questions, and get your respondent to answer only the questions that are relevant to them. They can also upload and attach files to their submission. And you can apply a whole range of logic to most fields, including making fields mandatory, randomizing the answers, reusing data from one question in a later part of the form, and even accepting input variables that are passed to the form when the user arrives there.

The data can be emailed through, and again the sophistication of the options is very impressive. You can apply ‘routing logic’ that will choose where to email results to based upon answers provided – so, for example, if a web site user had a product enquiry it could be routed to the most appropriate department according to the nature of the product. Or enquiries could be routed to sales, accounts, customer service, etc… Additionally, the data can be saved in Formstack and viewed online, and/or exported as a CSV or other form of data file.

Implementing your Online Forms

There are numerous ways to use your online forms – you can embed them into your existing web site using a variety of code snippets that are automatically generate and provided by Formstack, as Javascript, a Lightbox, or an iFrame. You can link people directly to a URL provided by Formstack. You can seamlessly integrate them into WordPress, Joomla or TypePad using the tools within Formstack. Or you can copy the provided HTML directly into your own brand new web page and host it on your current web site.

Formstack is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses large and small. Here’s some suggestions for how you might use it:

  • Basic Contact form
  • Customer Enquiry form
  • Product Order form
  • Customer Satisfaction Survey
  • Market Research Survey
  • New Customer Interview Form
  • Job Submission form (e.g. submit your details so we can prepare your tax return, or submit your requirements for a graphic design, print, or consulting project)
  • Event Registration Form
  • Email Marketing Sign-up Form

And bear in mind that it has numerous integrations with CRM, Paypal, MailChimp, Project Management, social media, and more.

Have you used Formstack or something similar before? Have you implemented it in a fresh and innovative way? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

 

 

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