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Forms

Forms gives your church one place to create flexible forms, share them, and coordinate what happens after someone responds. Use Forms for connection cards, ministry interest, membership next steps, feedback, pastoral requests, internal requests, and other church workflows that do not belong to a specialized product. Each response stays attached to the exact version of the form that the person completed. Your team can assign an owner, set a due date and priority, add private notes, and keep an activity history without moving the response into a separate spreadsheet.

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Before You Start

Make sure that:

• At least one administrator has permission to manage Forms.
• Staff who will review responses have response access.
• Sensitive or restricted forms have named form managers.
• The church’s privacy wording and follow-up owner are agreed before publishing.
• Any custom domain you want to use is already connected in TheFaithApp.

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Open Forms

1. Open the main product menu in the admin sidebar.
2. Select Forms.
3. Choose All Forms, Responses, or Templates.

Forms is a top-level product. Donor Forms remains inside Outreach Campaigns and is a separate fundraising workflow.

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Create a Form

From All Forms, select Create form to start with an empty form, or select Browse templates to start with reviewed questions and settings for a common church workflow. The template catalog includes starting points for:

• General contact and connection cards.
• Baptism and membership interest.
• Volunteer interest and applications.
• Small-group interest.
• Child dedication and pastoral appointments.
• Prayer requests and praise reports.
• Event feedback and facility requests.
• Annual member-information review.
• Communication preferences and testimony submissions.

Templates are editable starting points. Review every question, privacy notice, access choice, sensitivity, and manager before publishing.

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Build the Form

The builder has three working areas: available blocks on the left, the form canvas in the middle, and settings for the selected block on the right.

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Add Questions

Select a block to add it to the form:

• Short answer for a name or brief response.
• Long answer for a message, story, or explanation.
• Email address and Phone number for contact details.
• Number and Date for structured values.
• Single choice, Multiple choice, and Dropdown for defined options.
• Consent for a clear acknowledgement or permission choice.

Use Heading, Paragraph, Divider, and Section to organize longer forms without collecting an answer.

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Configure a Question

Select a question on the canvas, then review its settings. Depending on the question type, you can:

• Change the label, help text, and placeholder.
• Make the question required.
• Set minimum or maximum limits.
• Add a custom validation message.
• Mark the answer as standard, sensitive, or restricted.
• Map an eligible answer to a member-profile field for staff review.
• Choose whether the answer may appear on the confirmation screen.

Drag blocks to reorder them, or use the up and down controls for keyboard reordering. Duplicate a block when several questions need similar settings. Profile mapping never silently replaces a member’s saved details. A matching response can create a proposed change for an authorized staff member to review. For a consent question that asks for a reply, enable Require an email or phone number when checked and include at least one email or phone question. The connection-card template enables this automatically. Visitors can leave contact details blank when they do not request a reply; asking for contact requires a usable reply channel. When contact details are missing, the form highlights a contact field and brings it into view so the visitor can correct it.

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Configure Access, Privacy, and Managers

Select Settings in the builder.

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Choose Who Can Open the Form

• Public allows anyone with the link to respond.
• Member aware remains public and can safely prefill verified member details after sign-in.
• Member only requires a verified church member.
• Invite only requires a valid invitation.
• Restricted is intended for tightly managed or sensitive collection.

You can also decide whether a verified member may respond for themselves, an authorized adult in their household, or a child in their household. Child responses require guardian attestation and restricted handling.

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Review Form Settings

The settings dialog also controls:

• Overall sensitivity.
• Whether one person may respond more than once.
• Privacy and confirmation wording.
• Opening and closing times.
• A total response limit.
• Form color and the message shown after closure.
• The staff members or permission groups responsible for the form.

Restricted forms should always have explicit managers. Managers can be used to limit response access and receive response notifications without opening the answers to every administrator. A standard public form can be saved without selecting a manager. Settings and manager choices save together; if something needs correction, the settings dialog shows the error and keeps your choices available.

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Preview and Publish

Changes save to the current draft while you work.

1. Select Preview to review the draft without accepting a submission.
2. Check required questions, choice options, privacy wording, and confirmation text.
3. Select Publish or Publish update.
4. Confirm the version that will become public.

Publishing creates an immutable version. Later edits create a new draft, while the public form continues using the last published version. Select Versions to review the version history. This keeps older responses understandable after a question is renamed, reordered, or removed.

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Share the Form

Select Share after publishing. You can:

• Copy the public link.
• Download a QR code.
• Copy website embed code.
• Open the form in a new tab.
• Share the form through WhatsApp.

When the church has a connected custom domain, the public link, QR code, WhatsApp link, and embed code use it automatically.

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Embed a Form on a Website

1. Copy Website embed.
2. Paste the complete code into a website block that accepts custom HTML or an iframe.
3. Publish the website page.
4. Test the page on a phone and computer.
5. Submit one test response and confirm that it appears in Responses.

Do not change the address inside the supplied iframe. If the form is long, the website manager can increase the iframe height while keeping the form address unchanged.

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Check the Public Experience

Open the public link before sending it to anyone. Confirm that:

• The church name, form title, description, and color are correct.
• Required questions and validation messages are clear.
• The privacy notice explains how the answers will be used.
• The form works at phone and desktop widths.
• The confirmation message gives the respondent a useful next step.
• Scheduled opening, closing, and response limits behave as expected.

Public submissions include duplicate and spam protections. If a connection is interrupted, the respondent can retry safely without creating an extra response from the same submission attempt.

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Deliver Forms in the Member App

Select Delivery to manage invitations, app placements, and connected product actions.

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App Placements

A published form can be placed in a reviewed area of the member app through App Customization. Members see the same published questions and validation rules as the web form.

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Invitations and Reminders

Invite a member when the form should be delivered directly rather than shared as a general public link. The delivery record shows whether the invitation was queued, sent, opened, started, submitted, declined, or expired. Reminders use the original delivery channel and respect the member’s messaging preferences. Avoid repeatedly reminding someone about a sensitive form.

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Review Responses

Open Forms → Responses for the global inbox, or open a form and choose its responses view. Use the inbox to:

• Search respondents and answers.
• Filter by form, status, priority, owner, and submission date. Use Submitted from and Submitted to for the start and end dates.
• Show current or historical answer columns.
• Choose visible columns.
• Save a useful filter as a view. Give it a View name, then select Save view or press Enter. The view restores your filters and visible columns.
• Export the authorized view to CSV.

On phones, each response appears as a readable card with its submitted time, status, priority, form, respondent, owner, and selected answer columns. Select a card to open the full follow-up view. On larger screens, the same information is available in the response table. One row is always one submission. Repeated responses from the same person stay separate instead of being merged. Sensitive answers are hidden or redacted for staff who do not have permission to see them. Export uses the same access rules as the inbox.

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Assign and Complete Follow-Up

Select a response row or mobile card to open its details. From the response details, authorized staff can:

• Change the workflow status.
• Set normal, high, or urgent priority.
• Set Assigned to and Follow-up due, then select Save follow-up.
• Review the answers against the submitted version.
• Add private staff notes.
• Review the activity history.
• Review a proposed member-profile change.
• See whether a connected product action completed or needs attention.

Use the owner and due date to make the next responsibility clear. Notes and activity are internal and are not shown to the respondent.

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Connect a Response to Other Products

Forms can start reviewed actions for supported workflows such as visitor follow-up, member journeys, events, volunteer coordination, Community Groups, prayer requests, or an Outreach Campaign review reference. Configure actions from Delivery and review the target before activating them. Each action is recorded against the response so staff can see whether it completed, failed, or is waiting for review. A failed action does not remove the original response. Forms does not copy submissions into the legacy Donor Forms tables. A future fundraising or donor-data transfer must be separately reviewed and explicitly configured.

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Close, Archive, Restore, or Delete

• Close form stops new responses while keeping the form and its history.
• Reopen form returns a closed form to its published state.
• Archive removes the form from the active workflow without deleting its history.
• Restore returns an archived form.
• Delete draft is available only when a draft can be safely removed.
• Moving a response to trash is recoverable by an authorized manager.

Do not delete or archive a form simply to hide sensitive data. Follow the church’s retention and safeguarding policy.

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Permissions and Privacy

Guest responses can display a supplied name when the name question is mapped to Name and you have permission to see that answer. A guest is not linked to a member automatically. Responses with no visible name or contact details retain the anonymous label; sensitive answers remain protected. Forms separates permission to build forms from permission to review responses. Sensitive-answer access and form-manager restrictions narrow access further. Recommended practice:

• Give form-building access only to staff who design church workflows.
• Give response access only to staff who own follow-up.
• Name managers for pastoral, child, safeguarding, or other restricted forms.
• Avoid collecting financial card data, passwords, government identifiers, or information that belongs in a specialized product.
• Review CSV exports before sharing or storing them outside TheFaithApp.
• Confirm consent before sending reminders or starting a connected action.

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Launch Checklist

Before sharing a new form:

• Preview every question and content block.
• Confirm access mode, sensitivity, and managers.
• Review privacy and confirmation wording.
• Publish the intended version.
• Open the public or member-app form yourself.
• Test phone and desktop layouts.
• Submit a test response.
• Confirm ownership, priority, due date, and notifications.
• Confirm any connected action reaches the expected product.
• Remove or complete the test response according to your retention policy.

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Current Limitations

The current release does not yet include nested conditional logic, multi-page branching, partial submissions, file uploads, electronic signatures, payments, calculations, webhooks, or direct spreadsheet integrations. Use the existing specialized Giving, Events, Prayer Requests, Visitor, and Outreach Campaign workflows when they already match the church’s need.

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Common Questions

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Are Forms and Donor Forms the same?

No. Forms is a general church workflow product. Donor Forms remains part of Outreach Campaigns and uses separate data and fundraising workflows.

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Does editing a form change old responses?

No. Each response stays attached to the published version that was submitted.

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Can a form use our custom domain?

Yes. Once the domain is connected, generated public and embed links use it automatically.

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Can someone submit without an account?

Yes, when the access mode is Public or Member aware. Member-only, invite-only, and restricted forms apply their selected access checks.

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Does profile mapping immediately update a member?

No. Eligible changes are presented for authorized staff review.

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Can every administrator see sensitive answers?

No. Response permission, answer sensitivity, and form-manager restrictions are enforced separately.