Clover

Our forms feature gives you the ability to collect information through your Clover website. Clover has created an easy way for you to create a "form" your website visitors can fill out with information you want, and have it emailed directly to whoever you choose. You can either design a form from scratch in the Greenhouse, or start with preset forms such as a contact form, registration form, or mailing list sign up.

This walkthrough help article will take you step by step through adding and customizing your form page. If you run into any problems or have questions along the way, please don't hesitate to call us at 805-527-8900, or email us at support@cloversites.com.

ADDING A FORM TO YOUR SITE

Here's how to add a form page to your site:

1) Click the "Add a Page" button on the Site Editor panel.

2) Name the page, then choose "Form Page" as the page's type, and choose the page's layout.

3) Once you've placed your new form page into your over-all site's organization, click "Finished" in the bottom right.

STARTING WITH A PRESET FORM

Rather than starting from scratch to create your new form, you can choose a preset form to kick things off. After that, you'll still be able to edit everything and add additional items. Here's how to create and use a preset form:

1) On your form page you've added in the Greenhouse, click the "Edit Form" button at the bottom of the screen.

2) On the right side you can choose from the options provided. Once you've selected a preset, the appropriate form items will appear in the form on the left.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Starting from scratch is just like the steps above, but you'll begin with a completely blank form rather than a preset template.

CREATING YOUR FORM

You can now edit, change preferences, and add or delete items on your form. The box on the left is the form itself. The box on the right is a toolbox of items that you can add to your form.

To add a new item, you simply drag it from the toolbox and drop it on your form. Once it's there, you can give it a title, edit its options, and give it actual content for your visitors to click on.

To get the hang of things, let's start with a "Single-Line Text Box". Drag that item from the toolbox to the form. You'll see it created an item that has a text box and a place for a title above it. If you saved this form now, the visitors to your site would be able to fill in that text box with anything they typed, and then when they submitted the form, you'd get an email showing what they said.

In order for the form to be understandable to your visitors, you'll want to give that text box a good title. If you'd like them to fill in their name, you can make the title "Your Name". Or instead, you could make the title a question that you want your visitors to answer. So you could type "What are you interested in?" as the title.

As long as the end result is a form that is intuitive for someone who is seeing it for the first time, there's no wrong way to do things!

In addition to simple text boxes, there are several other types of form items that you can add. "Multiple Choice", "Check Box" and "Radio Button" all provide a set of options that your visitors can choose from (rather than a box where they can type anything).

Let's add a Check Box item to try it out. Again, just drag it over to the form. You'll see that you can put it above or below the Single-Line Text Box you already have. You can always reorder or delete items later, so for now, put the Check Box item anywhere you want.

You'll see that it has a title like last time, but instead of a blank text box, now it has a check box, initially called "Check Box 1". Let's say that we want to provide three options for your visitors to choose from. Make the title "What's your favorite band?" Then move your mouse over the area below the title and you'll see a dashed yellow boxed. Click on that and it will bring up a place for you to edit what check boxes will be displayed for your visitors. Change "Check Box 1" to "Billy Joel". Then click the "Add Another Item" button and change the new item's name to "Meatloaf". Finally, add another item and change it to "Band of Horses".

You should now see that your form has a question asking for your visitors' favorite band, with three options for them to check. If you saved this form and someone filled it out, you would see what band(s) they like.

If you're starting to get the hang of things, try creating some other form items and playing with them. For the most part, they work similarly to the two items we just created.

LAST STEPS

Besides adding form items, there are only a couple things you still need to do before you're finished.

The first one is quick. You should give your form itself a title. At the top of the screen, change "Form Title" to whatever is appropriate for your form. If you are making a form for your visitors to simply contact you, "Contact Us" might be all you need. But feel free to make it more specific, or even make it a call to action like "Sign Up For Our Advanced Gardening Class".

The last thing you need to do is set who the submitted form results will be emailed to, and what your visitors will see after they've successfully completed the form. Click the "Form Settings" button in the lower left corner.

By default, the form is set to be sent to the main contact on your website. That may be right, but if you need to change it, simply type a new email address in the field that says "Email address(es) to send the submitted form to". If you'd like to have the form results go to multiple people, you can add up to 50 email addresses here, separated by commas.

Below that text field is the option for what message to display to your visitors after the form has been submitted. By default it's simple, but you may want to provide your visitors with information about what to do next. Maybe a message saying that the form was successfully sent. Or maybe info about what to do now that they've registered for your upcoming event.

Once everything is set, click Finished in the settings screen, and Finished in the Form Creator screen. And of course, if you're ready for your visitors to fill out your form now, Publish your site, and you're done.

Now that your form is created, every time a visitor fills it out and submits it, you'll receive an email showing everything they typed and selected. You can test it out for yourself by clicking the "View Form" button in the Greenhouse, or by going to your live site and launching the form.

Congrats! You now know enough to stop reading this help article and to create a basic form.

There are lots of advanced options that you can set, though. So if you'd like to know more, check out the reference below that describes each option in detail!

REFERENCE FOR EACH FORM ITEM'S DETAILS AND OPTIONS

Single Line Text Box

Use this item when you need simple answers to questions. This item allows a visitor to type anything they want in a one-line text box.

Single Line Text Box Options:

To edit the options, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the item.

Include a title above this field: Use this item when you need simple answers to questions. This item allows a visitor to type anything they want in a one-line text box.

Required field: If you make a text box "required", then your visitors will have to enter something in it before they can submit the form.

Show instructions: By choosing this option, you will be able to have instructions shown inside the text box itself before someone clicks into it. This is particularly helpful if you have chosen to not show a title above this field, or you have a specific type of response you want. For example, you could say "enter a date (mm/dd/yyyy)".

What's allowed to be typed in this text field?: This option allows you to control the type of content you want in this field. This will prevent the visitor from submitting incorrect content to you. If there is an incorrect value in this field, the form can't be submitted, and it will show an error message instead.

Paragraph Box

This item is great for filling out longer information in paragraph form, such as feedback, notes or a comment.

Paragraph Box Options:

To edit the options, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the item.

Include a title above this field: Depending on how you want to design your form, you can either choose to have a title above the paragraph box or not.

Required field: If you make a paragraph box "required", then your visitors will have to enter something in it before they can submit the form.

Show instructions: By choosing this option, you will be able to have instructions shown inside the paragraph box itself before someone clicks into it. This is particularly helpful if you have chosen to not show a title above this field, or you have a specific type of response you want. For example, you could say "Share Your Feedback Here:".

Multiple Choice

This item creates a dropdown menu with specific choices for your visitors to fill out. This is useful when you need to provide a choice of several items and only one can be selected. Essentially, the Radio Button item accomplishes the same thing, but typically you would want to use radio buttons for a small number of choices, and multiple choice dropdowns for a large number of choices. Good examples are choosing from a list of days of the week, months of the year, states or countries, or a set of answers to a question like "how did you hear about us?"

Multiple Choice Options:

To edit the options, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the item.

Include a title above this field: Depending on how you want to design your form, you can either choose to have a title above the paragraph box or not.

Required field: If you make a paragraph box "required", then your visitors will have to enter something in it before they can submit the form.

Show instructions: By choosing this option, you will be able to have instructions shown inside the paragraph box itself before someone clicks into it. This is particularly helpful if you have chosen to not show a title above this field, or you have a specific type of response you want. For example, you could say "enter a date (mm/dd/yyyy)".

Make things easier on yourself. Start with a preset list: By selecting an item from the preset list, you will be able to automatically fill the multiple choice field with preset options, such as states, countries, dates, etc. Keep in mind that choosing one of these preset lists will clear out any existing items in this field, but will save you the time of entering each item one-by-one.

Check Box

This item lets you create a set of check boxes that your visitors can select or leave blank. It's similar to the Multiple Choice item and Radio Button item in that you can provide a choice of several items, but with check boxes your visitors can select as many as necessary. For example, "Select everything you'd like to bring" with options of "Entrée", "Side Dish", "Drink", and "Dessert".

Check Box Options:

To edit the options, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the item.

Include a title above this field: Depending on how you want to design your form, you can either choose to have a title above the check box field or not.

Required field: If you make a check box field "required", then your visitors will have to select at least one check box in it before they can submit the form.

List items horizontally: If you select this option, your check box items will be listed in rows from left to right.

List items vertically: If you select this option, your check box items will be listed in a single column from top to bottom.

Start with a box (or boxes) already checked: By choosing this option, you can select a box (or boxes) to be shown as already checked when your visitor starts the form. You would want to do this if you think that most people would want an item selected by default. And either way, they can still uncheck any boxes that start as checked.

Radio Button

This item is like the Multiple Choice item and the Check Box item because you can provide a choice of several items, but with radio buttons, only one can be selected. This is great for questions with a yes/no answer, or where you want to limit the answer to one specific value. For example, "Which type of computer do you use most?" with options of "PC", "Mac", "iPad", etc.

Radio Button Options:

To edit the options, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the item.

Include a title above this field: Depending on how you want to design your form, you can either choose to have a title above the radio button field or not.

Required field: If you make a radio button field "required", then your visitors will have to select a value before they can submit the form.

List items horizontally: If you select this option, your radio button items will be listed in rows from left to right.

List items vertically: If you select this option, your radio button items will be listed in a single column from top to bottom.

Start with an option already selected: By choosing this option, you can choose a radio button to be shown as already selected when your visitor starts the form. You would want to do this if you think that most people would want a a specific item selected by default. And either way, they can still select a different radio button than the one that starts as selected.

Note Item

The note item is an option for you to create a note to the visitors filling out your form. This is great for the introduction of the form, or for explaining additional information about an item, or even for marking separate sections of the form with titles. You can format the text with different font sizes, and basic formatting options.

Dividing Line

This item is used to create a visual line between items in your form. You can drag and drop this line anywhere within your form.

Space

The space option is used to create a visual space between items in your form. You can drag and drop the space item anywhere within your form, and you can stretch it to make it whatever size you'd like. (Click and drag the little triangle in the lower right corner to stretch the size).

Submit Form Button

You can change the submit button text to whatever you'd like it to say. If your language is set in the dashboard, it should default to "Submit Form" in your language!