Form Builder

Oncord's Form Builder allows you to easily create simple web forms, with no coding required. You'll also find a library of pre-made form templates to help you get started.

In this article:

Adding a New Form.
Editing a Form.
Track the History of Form Submissions.
Automation with Form Submissions.
Configuring Form Workflow.

Adding a New Form

To get started, navigate to Dashboard > Website > Pages, and edit the page where the new form will reside.

With the page editor open, click the "INSERT" button, located in the left-hand toolbar.
The "form" element appears under the "Layout" heading. Drag-and-drop the form element onto the page, to place the basic foundations to start building your form.

Alternatively - get started with a form template:

Click the "INSERT" button, located in the left-hand toolbar.
Scroll down to the "TEMPLATES" section, and expand the "Forms" item.
You will find pre-built forms, including general contact forms, login forms, request a quote forms, and donation forms.

Editing a Form

To edit an existing form, navigate to Dashboard > Website > Pages, and edit the website page where the form resides. Click the existing form to select it, and you will notice a "Form" item appears in the left sidebar, which allows you to configure the form.

To ensure that your form works as intended:

Configure your form with a unique ID.
Add, remove or modify the fields that appear within the form.
Check the "On Form Submission" Settings, to confirm what should happen when the form is submitted.

Configure The Form With a Unique ID

Each form should be assigned a unique ID, which is used when referencing the form throughout Oncord. Avoid using spaces within an ID - it's good practice to use underscores _ instead.

To configure your form with an ID:

Click within the form to select it, and a "Form" button will appear in the left-hand toolbar.
Click the "Form" button in the left-hand toolbar to open the Form Properties panel.
Enter a unique ID in the "Form ID" field.

Add Form Fields

To add the fields that appear within the form to collect information:

Click within the form to select it, and a "Form" button will appear in the left-hand toolbar.
Click the "Form" button in the left-hand toolbar to open the Form Properties panel.
Click the "Add Form Fields" option within the Form Properties panel.
Drag and drop a new field element into the form.

Form Fields can also be reordered using drag-and-drop, either within the Form Properties panel, or within the visual page editor.

Important: Each field within the form should also have a unique ID set. This allows the system to save and display data correctly within other parts of the system.

There are two ways to manage the ID of a form field:

Select the field within the visual editor, and use its dropdown menu to edit its properties.
Or, select the field within the Form Properties panel.

Enter a unique field ID in the "Field ID" field. Avoid using spaces in the ID to prevent form errors.

"On Form Submission" Settings

The "On Form Submission" settings allow you to specify:

If and where to send the admin e-mail notification.
Whether a new contact record should be created by the form.
The success message shown to the user on form completion.
Whether submissions of the form should be recorded in the Dashboard, for use with Automation etc.

To change the "On Form Submission" settings:

Click within the form to select it, and a "Form" button will appear in the left-hand toolbar.
Click the "Form" button in the left-hand toolbar to open the Form Properties panel.
Click the "On Form Submission" button, located towards the bottom of the Form Properties panel.

Track the History of Form Submissions

Once you've finished building your form, it's a good idea to view the page and run a test submission, to ensure the form is working as intended.

If you have configured your form to record submissions in the Dashboard, submitting the form for the first time will also register the form in the system.

If you submit forms as a logged-in user, you may accidentally update the contact record associated with your admin login. So it's best to test forms by either logging out of Oncord entirely, or by opening a new Incognito / Private browsing window where you're not logged-in.

To view the history of submissions:

Navigate to Dashboard > Pages > Forms.
Click the form you'd like to view in the list.
Click the "Submissions" option to view/edit the content of a certain form submission.
You can also download the submission as PDF by click the "Download PDF" link at the bottom-right of the page.

Automation with Form Submissions

"Automation" is an automatic workflow completed by Oncord, which can be triggered by a form submission.

Popular uses include:

Adding contacts to specific groups after they submit a form.
Sending automatic welcome e-mails to customers after they submit a form.

In order for a form to trigger Automation, within the "On Submission Settings" for the form, the option "Record form submissions in Dashboard" must be selected. Review the instructions above to configure this setting.

You must also run a test submission of your form before configuring an automation, which will register the form within the system.

For more details about how to setup Automated workflows, please refer to our help article on Marketing Automation.

Note: You need to have Marketing Feature enabled in your Oncord plan, changing your plan is a simple and instant process. Please read our help article on Changing Your Oncord Plan.

Configuring Form Workflow

Oncord Form Workflow allows you to review the Form Status and create automation based on status changes. This is useful for membership associations to review, approve, or reject applications by changing the Form Workflow status, and then send an automated follow-up email.

The following example shows how to create a membership application form with three Form Workflow Statuses (Pending, Approved, Rejected) and configure automation with the Form Status.

Step 1: Create a Membership Application Form

Follow the instructions above to create a Membership Application Form using Oncord’s Form Builder.

Step 2: Configure Form Workflow

To configure the Form Workflow:

Navigate to Dashboard > Pages > Forms.
Click the three-dot button next to the Membership Application Form (remember to submit a test form first to get it recorded in the Oncord system).
Click the “Configure Workflow” option in the menu.
If the form has no configured workflow steps yet, click the “Click here to create one” option in the Workflow Steps column.
On the Workflow Steps configuration page, name the step “Pending,” select a color, and click the “Add Workflow Step” button.
Follow the same steps to create two more Workflow Steps: “Approved” and “Rejected”.

Note: When creating subsequent Workflow Steps, in the “New Step Position” section, ensure the “At the End” option is selected. This sets the status of new form submissions to “Pending” by default.

To change the Form Workflow status:

Navigate to Dashboard > Pages > Forms.
Click the Membership Application Form to view the submissions.
Click the specific submission record with a status of “Pending.”
In the “Workflow Step” section, change the status to “Approved” or “Rejected” from the drop-down menu.
Click the “Submit” button.

Step 3: Create an Automation with Form Status

After configuring the form workflow, you can create automation based on an event when the workflow status changes.

Navigate to Dashboard > Automation > New Automation.
In the “Upon Event” section, select “Forms - When a form’s workflow status is changed.”
Select the Membership Application Form.
Configure a workflow for when the form status changes to “Approved” or “Rejected.”

For more details on setting up Automated workflows, please refer to our help article on Marketing Automation.