A matrix is a way to show information in columns and rows, like a table or a spreadsheet. Matrix items are specialty items from Formsite that allow form builders to collect a large number of answers in a smaller area by combining questions in the columns or rows.

In addition to the various Matrix items, there are the specialty Multi-scale items and Star Rating item. These items have been designed to allow form builders to collect information in specific and unique ways.

Forms that collect many results from a wide group of visitors run the risk of receiving duplicate or incomplete results. For example, posting the form link on a website or social media site may drive lots of traffic that can be great for the form, but may generate these lower-quality results in some cases. To increase the quality of form results, steps can be taken to prevent multiple and incomplete results while still supporting a large group of visitors.

Many Formsite customers rely on their forms to serve a major role in day-to-day operations. Forms like order forms, registrations, contact forms, etc. are useful and sometimes essential parts of the process where the response time can affect the outcome. Today’s always-on society rewards fast responses, and many alternatives to email are needed to bypass the email clutter. One popular alternative is Slack, a communication application that serves as a hub for many organizations. Slack lets team members communicate with each other and monitor channels of all kinds for communications ranging from system status messages to personal direct messages. The primary notification method for Formsite forms is through email, but Slack users can use their forms’ Zapier integration to send instant notifications to their Slack channels, too.

A popular request we get is how to make an appointment scheduling form. The requirements include letting form visitors choose from available appointment times while also preventing double-booking the same time. Our Inventory feature is the essential part of this system and this article will explain the steps for making a smart appointment scheduling form.

The most important step in creating the appointment scheduling form is determining how many days to list. For example, I can list the current month plus the next month to give enough lead time for customers without making the process too difficult. That gives me around 45 business days to maintain at any given time (61 days - 16 weekend days).

Update: Send your results to Box as PDF or Word files along with attached files. A newly-added integration to Formsite accounts is the Box integration, which allows forms with File Upload items to send copies of all uploaded files to a Box account. This is useful for organizations with multiple recipients to access the uploaded files faster, for reducing the load on the email server, for setting up an automatic backup of all files uploaded, and lots more. The Box integration doesn't replace the normal file storage, but instead sends a copy of all uploaded files to the connected account. The files will still be saved in the Formsite results until either the files or results are manually deleted.

Box Integration

Box is a cloud service that enables sharing and editing files in multiple places with multiple people, and activating the Formsite integration allows for automatic copying of a form’s uploaded files to a Box account. The integration is triggered when the form is successfully submitted and anyone with permissions to access the location in the Box account will be able to see the uploaded files instantly.

Updated: Send files to Microsoft OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint document libraries. Formsite has recently added the Microsoft OneDrive integration to enable forms with File Upload items to send copies of all attachments to a OneDrive account. As a built-in feature of Windows 10, OneDrive is an easy way to share, edit, and store files received by form visitors. The Microsoft online forms integration is provided as a way to send file attachments to the OneDrive account in addition to saving them with the Formsite result. This integration doesn't replace the file storage, but copies the files in addition to the normal Formsite storage. Uses for the Microsoft OneDrive integration include automatically backing up files received as part of form results, sharing files with other OneDrive users, accessing shared files on mobile devices, and more.

Virtually all of the form items and settings use the text editor as a way to enter and format content for your form. This content can be either item questions, labels, or full blocks of text and images. The Formatted Text item lets form owners add content through the text editor in a custom-formatted style, along with links, images, varying fonts, sizes, and colors. The text editor is used in several different areas in the form and account including:

• Formatted Text item
• Item labels
• Notification email messages
• Success Pages
• Form header/footer

Many Formsite features are triggered when the forms are submitted and occasionally there’s a need to resend notifications, re-trigger integrations, or otherwise simulate the submission process again.

For example, if there is a Notification email set to send to a new email address or one that needs to be changed. The notification can be updated, then the most current result can be resent from the Results Table.

Another case is if an integration fails to complete due to a connection error or an expired token. Once the issue has been fixed, this method can be used to trigger the integration so that the data is sent as needed.

Formsite forms are instantly available as soon as the form is created, so the way to get the form in front of people is to share by linking to the form or embedding the form. Embedding is done by copy/pasting the embed code into the site code and is covered in detail in other articles.

This article covers the different links available when sharing Formsite forms, including:

• Form link
• Save & Return link
• Pre-populate link
• Printable link
• Sub-user link
• QR code

Since the forms are instantly available at their URLs as soon as they’re made, there is no draft or published setting for the forms. There are ways to open and close the form to control access, but that function is used after the form is ready for use.

Once the form is ready to share, one of the links is used to direct visitors to complete the form. Any future edits to the form are instantly applied and the links will always show the current form. There is no need to re-share or update the links.

Formsite is proud to announce Braintree as the newest addition to our payment integrations. The integration with Braintree allows form visitors to pay using a credit card without leaving the form, and the integration communicates the payment status instantly through the Results Table.

As with the other Formsite payment integrations, the Braintree payment integration allows form builders to enable payments without collecting the sensitive credit card information on the forms. The integration displays the Order Review page at the end of the form, and the visitor enters the payment information directly on the Order Review page where it is securely sent for authorization and completion.