One of the ways Formsite helps form owners is by connecting to third-party services through integrations. The payment integrations, for example, allow form owners to collect payments from order forms by simply adding the merchant account information. Where we don't have a built-in integration, the Application Program Interface connects online services, or API for short.

The API for any service communicates with the service and passes data from one side to the other. This data transfer can either PUSH or PULL the data, depending on which side is making the request:

• Formsite can PUSH the data by triggering the Server Post integration when the form is submitted and sending the form result data to another system. Read more about using Server Post.
• An external system can PULL the data by connecting to Formsite using the API and receiving the information.

This summer marks the 20th anniversary of Formsite's founding. In 1998, Formsite began as the original form builder and continues to lead the industry through innovation and input from customers and partners.

Formsite thanks the customers and colleagues who have helped build the service over the years and we look forward to continuing to provide world-class online forms and surveys.

Take a trip through the early days of the internet to see Formsite's past:

Many customers ask if the online form is able to be printed. Reasons to print forms include for easier review among several internal departments, or for completing offline. Many features of online forms are difficult to see when printed, however, so this article contains some tips and methods for printing your forms successfully. Printing form results is a separate question than printing the blank form, yet many of the reasons and methods are the same.

A recurring topic that comes up is how to reduce the number of similar forms in a Formsite account. A related question is how to display different items on a form for different visitors. Both questions essentially ask the same thing: How to show conditional items on a form?

Some practical uses for this technique include:

• Create one order form with multiple pricing tiers
• Display only relevant questions based on the link used to reach the form
• Show approval items to qualified visitors
• Allow certain visitors only to see certain pages

Form owners can create all of these forms by using Hidden Field items and Rules.

Occasionally we get questions about making one-way forms, which are forms that only allow visitors to go forward. Viewing previous pages may be problematic or against the nature of the form, such as with quiz forms or forms that require registration to continue.

A previous article has tips on page management and this subject is introduced but not outlined specifically. The method to prevent viewing and modifying previous pages requires form owners to build the forms in such a way that the visitor doesn't have the ability to click the 'previous' button or the browser's 'back' button. Additionally, the previous forms' answers need to pass through all of the pages in order to contain the full complete score. Continue reading to learn all about using and creating one-way forms.

Data security is one of the most common topics for many organizations in the market for an online service provider. Formsite led the industry several years ago in the shift to secure forms for all services—including Free accounts. We are again at the front of the movement to provide encryption for all form data for all accounts. As privacy concerns escalate and more people rely on online services, the need to protect sensitive information has increased. PCI and HIPAA are established security protocols to protect credit card and health information, and Formsite believes that data falling outside of those categories must also be protected. Formsite has therefore taken the initiative to protect all form data for all customer accounts by applying encryption to all database information, including uploaded files.

Whether you want to add video responses to a simple questionnaire or collect open-ended qualitative video data, this tutorial will show you how to record video with your Formsite forms.

Pipe Video Recorder is a simple to use video recording platform with support for mobile and desktop browsers. By integrating Pipe and Formsite, you'll be able to collect rich compelling video content with your forms.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover creating a simple Formsite contact form with video recording powered by Pipe.

Form owners often ask about updating results and the circumstances vary depending on who is doing the updating:

• Can the form user update a previous result?
• Is there a way a supervisor can approve a result?
• How does the form owner update a result status?
• Can a Sub-user update a result?
• Can someone else update a result without accessing the account?

Each of these situations have different methods of updating the results based on the level of access for the person making the changes.

Building online forms just got easier with Formsite’s new help system. Current and new customers can use the new support area to locate documentation pages and how-to videos for all of Formsite’s features.

 

Current customers who rely on the documentation as a reference can use the search area to locate content or navigate through the new categories. Locate help files by:

• Browsing the support site at https://support.formsite.com
• From the Support page
• Clicking a Help link found on most form items and settings pages

Adding third party tracking to forms is a popular step for optimizing the forms’ performance. Being able to see the metrics for your form and visitors helps form owners and marketers improve the user experience and conversion rate, among many other things. Some key performance indicators for form performance include:

• Number of visitors
• Successful submissions
• Order quantities and amounts
• Time spent
• Incomplete forms
• Fall-off pages

While Formsite has some of these performance indicators built-in, many form owners choose to add third party tracking to forms and other places to trigger analytics scripts. Adding these triggers depends on what they’re tracking and choosing the correct scripts and placement is critical.