Forms meant as lead generation tools often appear linked on social media sites. Each individual site has its own slightly different ways to do things, but some best-practices exist for all. Social media sharing can help generate high amounts of traffic, so follow these tips for maximum optimization:

• Create a compelling headline
• Use a custom and engaging preview image
• Include hashtags and other meta information
• Test the frequency and timing
• Add tracking links

The internet makes it easy to start an online business for virtually any product or service. Many people find affordable hosting and easy site builders to take part in the online economy, though collecting orders can still cause problems. Email-only processes are unreliable and collecting credit card information may drive away security-sensitive shoppers. Luckily Formsite has solutions to add ecommerce to most websites.

Embedding Formsite order forms makes online ecommerce easy for both store owners and shoppers. The process for most online shopping breaks down to a few steps:

• Collect order information
• Calculate order total
• Include extra fees or discounts
• Payment processing
• Order fulfillment

An update to our Google Drive integration now allows form owners a built-in way to save results as documents in Google Drive! This article explains how to use Formsite with Zapier, so this technique remains useful for other services.

Formsite’s file storage integrations allow form owners to save copies of uploaded files to an external place. Sending files to a cloud storage account makes for an efficient way to distribute and back up attachments. Currently they only save attached files, though, and not the actual result data. To save form results to a Google Drive account, we use Zapier.

Online forms with Zapier integration are a powerful connector between online services that lets Formsite form owners create custom integrations. Previous articles show how to send email Notifications using Gmail and how to trigger Slack messages with form submissions.

The method to save results to Google Drive uses the same steps:

1. Build the form
2. Go to Zapier to create the connection (the Zap)
3. Configure the Formsite trigger
4. Use the Google Drive action
5. Test the custom integration

Creating order forms with Formsite uses the payment integrations to allow form owners to collect payments. The status of each transaction shows with every result in the Results Table. Now using the payment status as a Results Filter for reports and exports is possible.

Results Filters can apply to many places in Formsite accounts, like:

• Results exporting
• Reports
• Integrations
• Scheduled exports
• Analytics

The Results Filters apply conditional logic to each result and return only those that match the conditions. A new option is available to also include the payment status as a condition. This allows form owners to trigger many account functions based on whether the payment is successful or not.

Make a Payment Status Filter

Creating a Results Filter starts on the form’s Results -> Results Filters page.

1. Click the New Results Filter button
2. Name the filter
3. Under Rules select ‘Payment status’ and either ‘is’ or ‘is not’ Paid
4. Click Save

Test the new Results Filter by going to the Results Table and selecting it from the Results Filter dropdown.

Using the Filter

Export only results with successful payments by selecting the filter on the Results -> Export page, then exporting using any other custom settings.

Create reports that show only paid results from the Results -> Reports page, then select the Results Filter when creating the report.

Notifications have had the ability to send only after successful payments by enabling the conditional logic settings and selecting the ‘Successful Payment’ option.

Integrations can use Results Filters to only trigger when the data matches the filter’s conditions, for example:

• Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive: Only send files for successful payments
• Google Sheets: Update spreadsheet with new results when the payment is successful
• Server Post, Zapier, MailChimp: Trigger the integration only after a successful payment

Scheduled exports can use the Results Filter to only send results with successful payments.

Analytics provide detailed analysis of a variety of form dimensions, and the payment status filters allow for more targeted reports.

Formsite form owners can send email notifications after every successful form submission. These emails are useful for keeping the owner updated and customer informed, but sometimes extra settings are desired.

For example, email providers require that all emails show the actual place where the messages originate. That means that Notification emails coming from Formsite always show ‘formsite.com’ in the From address. Some form owners prefer to send email notifications from their private or organization’s Gmail account instead.

Besides showing the organization’s identity, this method also retains a record of all emails sent. Viewing the Sent folder of the Gmail account shows every email sent using this system.

Luckily the Zapier integration has hundreds of Zap possibilities, including a Formsite to Gmail Zap.

Form owners frequently ask for ways to automate custom charts and graphs for reports. Formsite provides several analytics charts and graphs for built-in reporting and analysis. These charts allow owners to see how individual questions perform, as well as:

• Percentage of each answer
• Subsets of answers using Results Filters
• Drop-off rate (where visitors abandon the form)
• Cross-tabulation (compare 2 different items)
• Inventory reports

For those not included in the built-in analytics pages, the best option to automate custom charts comes from Google Sheets. Using the integration to send new submissions to Google Sheets can also automatically update any charts.

The rise of email and instant messaging with mobile devices has increased the speed of communication in today’s culture. Today we’re able to use images, emojis, and other custom settings to communicate faster and more completely.

In the early days, limiting messages to text could potentially miscommunicate the sender’s intent ? because the context of messages are easy to mistake without the benefit of body language. This need opened the door to the creation of emoticons and emojis.

Today, emojis appear in many places where extra information is useful, like a conversation shorthand. Using them in places like online forms can help generate interest and enhance organization.

Online forms provide useful solutions to all kinds of tasks, like order forms, registration forms, surveys, and lots more. From a personal perspective, forms make it easy to collect information using online tools that anyone can access. Business owners often need more than basic convenience to establish value, though. Considering the productivity enhancements of online forms can help when evaluating the service.

Examples of business productivity tools include:

• HR forms, like employment records and benefits tracking
• Workflow forms, like approvals and multi-step processes
• Timesheets & scheduling forms
• Inventory tracking
• Form & result access, like online forms with Sub-users and Results Reports
• Analytics

Many Formsite customers use online forms to collect payments. Registration forms, order forms, etc. use forms to allow their customers to pay securely and accurately. To help with credit card security and to reduce identity theft, credit card companies came up with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS, or just PCI). PCI compliance is a quick way to show form customers that their data is safe.

Questions to consider:

• What are the PCI standards?
• How to make a PCI compliant order form?
• What payment options are PCI compliant?

Formsite reaches 21 years in business! Founded in 1998, Formsite began with the goal of providing an easy way for non-programmers to make forms. Setting up a hosting environment and a website was—and still is—an unreasonable obstacle for most people. Choosing Formsite for online forms and surveys means:

• No complicated hosting setup or contracts
• System updates performed by someone else
• Security is top-notch and automatic
• Support is a click away

Over the last 21 years, the internet grew to become the primary communication, entertainment, and shopping tool for most of us. Through these changes, sites and companies have come and gone as technology evolves.