Building a form

A form lets visitors write to your church, or sign up for your emails and texts, from a page on your website without you publishing an email address. You build the questions once under Website, then place the form on any page with a Contact form or Newsletter sign-up block.

Build a form

1. In the staff dashboard, open Website, then the Forms tab.
2. Choose Add form. Give it a Name: what staff call it, such as “Contact us” or “Text sign-up”. Visitors never see this name; they see the heading of the block the form sits in. Choose Add form again. HoW says “Form added” and opens the form.
3. Open the Questions tab. Fill in what you need:
   • Description: a note for staff. Visitors don’t see it.
   • What a visitor sees after sending: your thank-you line. If you leave it empty, visitors see “Thank you. Your message has been sent.”
   • Taking messages: on, the form is live. Off, it disappears from every page and takes nothing.
   • This form is for adults (18 and over): off unless you turn it on. Turn it on for a form only adults fill in, such as a parents’ sign-up or a pilot for staff. It decides whether a yes to texts is recorded the moment someone signs up (see “Consent boxes” below).
4. Choose Add question for each question. For each one, type the Question as visitors should read it, and choose the kind of Answer:
   • Short answer: one line, up to 300 characters.
   • Long answer: a message box, up to 4,000 characters.
   • Email address and Phone number: checked as an email or a phone number by the visitor’s browser.
   • Choose one: a drop-down list. Type the Choices separated by commas, such as “Sunday, Wednesday”.
   • Tick box: a box a visitor can tick, such as “I’d like a call from a pastor”.
   • Consent to be contacted: a box a visitor ticks to agree to hear from you. Choose what they agree to under Consent to receive: Email, Text message, Phone or Post. See “Consent boxes” below.
5. Tick A visitor must answer this on any question that can’t be left empty. On your website a required question is marked with an asterisk (*).
6. Use the up and down arrows to put the questions in order, and the bin to remove one.
7. Choose Save form. HoW says “Saved” and “The form is updated wherever it appears.”

Put the form on a page

1. Open Website, choose the page, and choose Add block.
2. Choose Contact form (a form visitors send to the church) or Newsletter sign-up (a sign-up for your emails). Both work with any form; they differ only in how they look.
3. Fill in the Heading visitors will see, an optional Introduction, and a Layout (Contact form: Standard or Beside the text; Newsletter sign-up: In the page or In a card).
4. Under Form, choose your form from the list. It says “No forms yet” until you have built one.
5. Choose Done, then Save changes and Publish. See Page editor.

The same form can sit on as many pages as you like. Everything sent through it arrives in one place: the form’s What people sent tab (see Form submissions).

Consent boxes

A Consent to be contacted question is how a visitor tells you they agree to hear from you. Their tick is kept with their message as evidence, and becomes their communication preference.

A form with a consent box adds people for you. When someone signs up, HoW looks for them among your people by email and mobile number. If it finds exactly one person and the form gives nothing their record doesn’t have, the sign-up is attached to them; if the form gives a new email or number, HoW first emails the address on their record and waits for them to confirm (Waiting to confirm), so nobody can add details to someone else’s record. If it finds nobody, it adds them as a new person. The boxes they ticked are recorded as their communication preferences, at once for a new person and once confirmed for someone you know. When it isn’t sure (two people match, or someone with the same name has other details), it changes nothing and marks the sign-up Needs you. See Form submissions. A form without a consent box doesn’t add anyone: its messages wait for you.

• Texts and children. Children are never texted, and a form doesn’t ask anyone’s age. So a yes to texts is recorded the moment someone signs up only when This form is for adults (18 and over) is on. When it is off, the person is still matched or added and their other boxes recorded, and you confirm the yes to texts on the sign-up once you know they are an adult.

• Never ticked in advance. The box always starts empty. An unticked box records nothing, not even a “no”.

• Text messages. On a box for Text message, HoW prints the wording mobile carriers require under your question, with your church’s name filled in. You don’t type it and can’t change it:

  By checking this box, you agree to receive text messages from [your church], such as event reminders, schedule changes, volunteer requests, and church news. Message frequency varies, typically 1 to 8 messages a month. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help. Consent is not a condition of any purchase, gift, or registration.

  It is followed by links to the SMS terms, the Privacy policy and the Terms of service.

• The button says “Sign me up”. A form with a text-message box ends with a Sign me up button, as carriers ask for clear wording. Every other form ends with Send.

• Email, phone and post. These boxes show your own question only, so write it plainly, for example “Yes, send me the church’s weekly email”.

• Ask for the number with the box. A yes to texts can be recorded only with a number, so a text sign-up form needs a Phone number question too. Add an Email address question to an email sign-up form for the same reason.

• Required or not. On a sign-up form whose whole purpose is texts, making the box required is reasonable. On a contact or prayer form, leave consent optional: the disclosure tells visitors their consent is not a condition.

Change or close a form

• To change it: open the form, change the Questions tab and choose Save form. Your website shows the change without publishing the page again.
• To pause it: switch Taking messages off and save. The form shows “Closed” in your list, and visitors see “This form is not taking messages at the moment.” Switch it back on to reopen.
• To delete it: open the form and choose Delete form, then Delete form again to confirm. It stops appearing on every page that uses it. What people already sent is kept.

Good to know

• Limits. Up to 30 questions per form. A form’s name and each question can be up to 120 characters; the description and the thank-you line up to 300. A Choose one question needs at least one choice.
• Name your questions so HoW can read them. When HoW adds someone from a form, it takes their name from questions called “First name” and “Last name”, or failing those from one called something like “Your name”. It takes the first Email address and the first Phone number question. Use those kinds of answer for email and phone, not Short answer.
• Rewording a question. Each question is stored under a short name made from its wording when you save. Two questions with the same wording can’t be saved together. If you reword a question after answers have arrived, older messages may show that answer under the question’s former short name.
• No birth date question. Forms don’t ask for a birth date, so someone added from a form is treated as an adult until you add one on their record. That is why texting consent waits for you unless the form is marked for adults.
• Ask for a full name. A new person needs a first and a last name. A form that asks only “Your name” works when people type both; a one-word name is left for you to finish.
• Protection from spam. A form must be filled in over more than a couple of seconds and sent within two hours of opening the page. One visitor can send the same form 5 times an hour. Automated senders are quietly turned away.
• Your plan. Forms are part of the website. If your plan doesn’t include the website, the Forms tab isn’t there.
• Who can do it. Owners, administrators and content editors, and any custom role with Website at Edit or above. Other staff don’t see the Forms tab. Everyone with access sees every form; there are no per-form collaborators.
• It is recorded. Creating, changing and deleting a form, and marking it for adults, are in your church’s audit log.

If something isn’t right

• “The form was not added. Check your access and try again.” Your role can’t manage forms, or your plan doesn’t include the website. Ask your church’s owner or administrator.
• “Not saved” followed by a reason, such as:
  • “a form has at most 30 fields”: remove a question.
  • “two fields share the key …”: two questions have the same wording. Reword one.
  • “a choice field needs options”: a Choose one question has no Choices.
  • “every field needs a label of up to 120 characters”: a question is empty or too long.
• Save form is greyed out: the form needs a Name, and every question needs wording.
• “No forms yet” in the block’s Form list: build the form under Website → Forms first, or ask someone who can manage forms to do it.
• Visitors see “This form is not taking messages at the moment.” The form is switched off or was deleted. Switch Taking messages back on, or choose another form in the block and publish the page.
• What visitors may see when sending:
  • “That took a while, so the form has been refreshed. Please send it again.” The page was open for over two hours.
  • “That is a lot of messages in a short time. Please try again later.” More than 5 sends in an hour.
  • “Something was missing or too long. Please check the form and send it again.”
  • “That message is too long.”
  • “Something went wrong at our end. Please try again.” If it keeps happening, contact DCX Logic support.

What DCX Logic support can do

Support can look at a form with you in a support session your church approves, check why it isn’t showing on a page, and explain the carrier wording on text sign-up forms. With a session that allows changes, support can fix a form or a block for you. Support cannot change the carrier wording for one church.

Coming from Planning Center

• Building. In Planning Center People you build a form by dragging fields in, and every form always collects first name, last name and email. In HoW you choose every question yourself; none are forced on you.
• Field types. Planning Center offers profile fields, workflow fields and basic fields, conditional fields, and file uploads. HoW forms have seven kinds of answer and none of those extras: no conditional questions, no file uploads, no date question, and no automations.
• Where it lives. A Planning Center form has its own public link and QR code in Church Center, and can be embedded. A HoW form lives on a page of your HoW website, in a block, so it looks like the rest of your site.
• Consent to text. Planning Center asks you to create a Yes/No custom field and paste the carriers’ paragraph into its description exactly as written. HoW has a consent question built in: the carrier wording, links and the Sign me up button are added for you.
• Settings. Planning Center forms can require Church Center login, email staff on a notification list, and send the submitter a copy. HoW has none of these yet: no login, no emails about new messages (the Forms list shows how many are unread), and no copy to the visitor. Both let you close a form; Planning Center also archives, and keeps a deleted form for 30 days, where HoW has no undelete.