Sign-ups and forms

A form collects sign-ups for a camp, a conference or a training day, or requests such as baptism. You get a link, you share it, and people fill it in without an account. Places, the waiting list and the answers are all in one spot.

You'll find it under People → Sign-ups & forms. It needs the People: Edit permission (e.g. Administrator). A Leader can only view people, so they don't see this menu item unless your church gives them more. Forms are created and managed in the browser. The phone apps don't have this screen, but anyone can open the link on a phone.

Create a form

1. Click New form, type the Form title and click Create. The form starts as a Draft, and the link doesn't work yet.
2. In Settings, fill in what you need:

• Description (shown on the form),
• Calendar event, if the form belongs to one,
• Capacity: empty means no limit,
• Places per submission: 1 means one person, more suits families,
• Waiting list when places run out: on by default. When it's off, the form stops taking submissions once it's full,
• Opens and Closes: the sign-up window,
• Message after signing up (on screen and in the e-mail),
• Keep submissions (months): 12 by default, 36 at most. After that, submissions are anonymized.

3. In Form fields, add questions with Add field:. The types are Short text, Long text, Single choice, Multiple choice, Number, Date, E-mail, Phone and Consent. Full name and email are always on the form, so don't add them. Each question can be Required.
4. Click Save changes, then Preview to see what people will see.
5. In Sign-up status, click Open sign-ups. Save your changes first, or the button stays inactive.
6. In Public link, click Copy link and share it.

Every new form already has the required field Consent to the processing of personal data. Keep it. Without a required consent, the form won't open.

Forms with money involved

Online payments aren't available today, so leave prices empty. A form with a price can't be opened. If people pay on site or by bank transfer, say so in the Description. The church keeps track of those payments outside the form.

Families and participants

If one person signs up several people, use Participant categories: click Add category, type a name (e.g. Adult, Child) and a Limit if you need one. Leave the price empty. Then:

• a signed-in member can tick people from their own family,
• a guest types each participant's name and category,
• a question with Ask about each participant appears once per person, e.g. T-shirt size,
• if one category is full, the whole submission goes on the waiting list, so a family stays together.

Add-ons work the same way, e.g. a camp T-shirt with a limit. Leave the price empty here too.

What people see

The form opens at a /f/… address. When it's sent, they see Submission received and get a confirmation email with your message. If the places have gone, they see You are on the waiting list. When sign-ups are closed, the link says so. Someone who already has an email in your directory is matched to their card, and you'll see an icon next to their name.

Submissions

Open the Submissions tab. Filter by All, Confirmed, Waiting list or Cancelled, and expand a row to read the answers.

• Move from waiting list: moving people up is always manual, so you can keep siblings together. Tick Send the “You have a place” e-mail if you want them told.
• Cancel submission: frees the places. People on the waiting list don't move up by themselves.
• Send confirmation: sends the email again.
• Export CSV: downloads the list. With categories, Export participants gives one row per person.
• Close registration: stops new submissions. You can reopen later.

Nobody is notified about a new submission, so look in here. If you want a task or an email each time, set up an automation in Settings → Automations with the trigger "someone submits a form".

Rooms, buses and attendance

These work on participants, so the form needs categories.

• Subgroups tab: choose Rooms, Buses, Workshop groups or Other, click Add group, and assign people by hand or with Distribute automatically. Only confirmed participants can be assigned.
• Attendance list at the top of the form: a phone-friendly list for the day, with Present and Absent buttons. Several people can use it at once. It needs People: Edit.

What to watch out for

• Sensitive data. Tick this for health, allergies, medication or diet for health reasons. Only people with the Pastoral & confidential notes permission see those answers. They aren't in the export, and they're removed 30 days after the event.
• Questions after the first submission. Questions can't be deleted any more, only retired with Retire. Existing answers stay.
• Deleting. A form with submissions can't be deleted, only archived with Archive.
• The link. New link replaces it, and the old one stops working at once. Turn off link disables it until you click Turn on link.
• Unverified church. Until your church is verified, it can send up to 30 emails a day, and that includes confirmations. Extra emails are skipped. See Church verification: why it exists and what it unlocks.

What's next

• Put the form on your site with the Sign-up form block: Your church website: pages and public address
• Tell people about it: Announcements and notifications: what reaches whom