The types of data you want to collect will determine the fields you need to use in your forms. Let me walk you through our advanced fields to help you make that call. We’ll also see the ways to adjust these fields to get you the right data with ease and precision. They are called advanced form fields because they allow fine tuning. To enter Field Settings, just click on the field you wish to adjust.
Each field has a unique set of values and options to choose from and they are all very simple and logical to set up. However, some customization options are common to all advanced fields, so I’ll cover these first.
Field Label will allow you to choose custom name for your field. It will show above the field box to explain what data needs to be inserted (e.g. Name, Your Address, How did you find us?).
In the Options section you can set a field to be Required and Masked to replace the data with asterisks (*) in the submission emails we send you. This data will still be viewable in your EmailMeForm account. You will choose No Duplicates for fields like Email or Username, when you don’t want duplicate registrations, applications, or memberships. As an admin, you can choose whether the data submitted through a field is visible to you only or all members of your team who have access to your form with Show Field to option.
Each advanced field can be left, center, or right aligned by selecting from the Cell Align dropdown. Then, there’s a custom Field Size setup which you can adjust by setting the number and percentage, with 80 for absolute size and 100% relative to form width.
If you’d like to provide more context to make your fields easier to understand — add Instructions for User that display explanation below the field input box.
Finally, the last option common to all advanced fields will let you set up Field ID value which you can use later as a Dynamic Token when creating your autoresponder emails.
Now, let’s get into the specifics of each form field to help you make the best of each.
Name
Name is the most simple field, but there are still options that you might not be aware of. For example, we allow you to choose Name Format as Normal, which will show First and Last fields or Extended for Prefix, First, Last, and Suffix.
Address
There are two options specifically related to the Address field:
By selecting a Predefined Country value, the country field will be pre-populated with the selection you make when a user visits your form.
We suggest you to Hide Address Line2 if you don’t need it. This will save your form fillers time.
In addition to standard settings, you can add Confirm Email field and ask your form fillers to insert their email again in order to validate. This will reduce typos and spam. In the text field, you can edit the confirmation text (Default label: Confirm).
Phone
To collect international phone numbers from your clients, we advise that you Add Extension. You can also choose between American and International Phone Format from the drop-down menu.
Date Time
If you need to know when your form gets submitted — add Date Time field. Choose between American and European Date Format and set Range that limits the values that users can choose from.
Website
Nothing special to add about this field, just standard adjustments already mentioned above.
File Upload
Add File Upload field if you need your form fillers to send you files.
In this field you can Limit File Types that your users can upload with their forms. The uploaded files will be stored in your EmailMeForm account and you can have them delivered to your inbox together with form entries as attachments.
If you need higher level of protection — we suggest Encrypted File Storage* activation which will encrypt photos, videos, documents and other files you collect via forms.
To Allow Multiple Uploads* for a maximum of 20MB per form and up to 10MB per single file, you can enable this option in the field’s settings. Standard max file size for Basic plan users is 2MB.
Image *
By far our most loved field! Can you guys guess why? Because, of course, every form strives to be beautiful and the best way to achieve this is with images! You can showcase your brand, products, and services by adding images to your forms.
There are many things you can do with images once you add them to your forms. For example, you can add metadata to make them SEO optimized. By metadata, I mean Alt Text, Image Url, Source (where the image is stored), and Caption to show below the image. These come in handy to help Google drive traffic to your forms.
The easiest way to actually add images to your forms is to upload them to your EmailMeForm account.
Multiple Select
Multiple Select is convenient for forms where form takers may choose more than one answer to your question. This field is often used in checkout forms. It allows your customers to add more items to their purchase on your website or social profile, where your form is embedded.
Then you can set up Selected by Default, Alphabetize Choices, Randomize Choices, Import Predefined Choices and Score. Pretty cool stuff for one field, right?
Price *
Let your customers enter a price when filling in your form. This field works well for donations. You can choose the currency, but bare in mind that it needs to be approved by your payment provider.
To enable payments on your forms, connect them with payment systems like PayPal, Braintree, Stripe, and more.
*Plus and higher plans feature.
Hidden Field
This field is used internally by your team for classification and administration of forms. Users will not see this field when filling in your form, yet you’ll see it in form submissions. It is often used by users who have more than one form with the same name embedded on different websites. Should help you track from which website or social network the submission is coming from.
Unique ID
This field generates unique identification code for every new form submission. Your users won’t see this field, but you can use it for tracking and identification of submissions.
If you have event registration form, for example, you can use Unique ID as Dynamic Token when setting up your confirmation emails. This way, your users will get confirmation email with a code which they can use to enter your events.
To make this work, set up the Prefix, for example: FUNDRAISER DINNER, ORDER, GUEST… Then make sure you set up Current Index — count starts from this number, and Number Length — the number of digits. For example, if you set maximum Number Length to be 5 and your Current Index starts from 1, zeros will be added: 00001. So, together with the Prefix your code will look this: ORDER-00001.
Section Break
Used for dividing forms into sections and providing textual explanations to help form fillers understand each section.
Page Break
Used in long and demanding forms to break them into multiple pages and make them look less cumbersome to take. The progress bar will be shown on top of a form for form takers to know how many more pages to go. This feature goes well with Save & Resume, which allows form takers to pause their work and come back later, if they get interrupted or need more time.
Signature
Our users love this field because it allows them to collect digital signatures from their clients for various documents, registrations, contracts, leases, loans, and so on. Form takers can provide a signature with their finger and digital pen on touchscreens, or mouse on desktop computers.
Pro Advice: For keeping your clients’ signatures safe, we suggest you Encrypt this field.
Sorry for the long article everyone. :) There’s just so much to talk about in these fields and I wanted to give you a full overview of each and every one of them, so that you can really understand and use them to build powerful forms that appeal to your audience and get you more submissions.
Good luck!
Jovana Milankovic
Jovana is a content creator and marketing manager at EmailMeForm. Her job is to curate our software to the world and make it more human for our users.
