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Creating forms

We can create surveys, polls and other types of forms at feedback.hetnieuweinstituut.nl.

Creating a new form​

Visit feedback.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/wp-admin/ to log in to the Wordpress admin interface. If you need an account, send an email to webredactie@hetnieuweinstituut.nl.

Then, 1) click WPforms to go to the overview page where you will find existing forms you can 2) edit, or 3) Create a new form.

When you create a new form, 1) give it a name and choose the type of form you want to create. If you are unsure, just choose 2) a blank form. Or choose 3) a Survey form if that's the type of form you want to create.

Adding and editing fields​

When you have created a form, you can add and edit fields.

1) You are currently on this page, where you can add and edit fields 2) You can configure your form here. 3) Here, you can setup a connection to Mailchimp. 4) Currently, this view is visible, where you can add additional fields to your form. 5) Click here to edit a specific field.

Using multiple choice and checkboxes​

This is something you need to know:

  • a multiple choice field has (round) radio buttons and allows only one answer.
  • A checkboxes field has square checkboxes where users are allowed to choose more than one answer.

Displaying content without a form field​

If you want to display some text without an associated field (as an introduction to a set of questions, or perhaps as feedback to a certain answer, if you want to display this field conditionally), choose an 'HTML' field:

Then, if you 1) select the field, you will be able to 2) type in some content that will be displayed.

Showing fields conditionally​

You can show fields conditionally, based on earlier responses. For example, if a user picks Other in a radio buttons field, you may want to add a 'paragraph' field to ask them to elaborate. You can do that this way:

  1. Add a paragraph field below the multiple choice field and click on it to configure it.
  2. Click 'Advanced options'
  3. Tick the 'Enable conditional logic' field
  4. Configure the condition. In this case, if the user picks the Other option in the Multiple choice field, you want to show this paragraph field.
  5. You can add additional conditional rules here that also have to apply.
  6. Click this if you want to use or rules, to make the field appear if at least one of the conditional rules apply.

Publishing a form on a page​

In the WordPress wp-admin environment, head over to 1) Pages -> 2) Add New to create a new page.

Then:

  1. Give your page a title.
  2. Add some introductory text and hit 'Enter'
  3. Click the + box to add a special page element such as an image or a form.
  4. Choose 'WPForms' to add a pre-existing form to a page.

Then:

  1. Click the 'Select a Form' bar...
  2. ... to select the form you want to display.

If you click on the form, click 1) the three dots and 2) choose 'show more settings', you will see a settings screen on the right side;

There, you will be able to toggle the visibility of the Title and Description:

Are you done? Click 'Publish' to publish your page:

You will then be given the link to your page.

Typeform-like conversational forms​

We can create 'conversational forms' that provide a very nice user experience, very similar to Typeform.

To do this,

  1. Click Settings
  2. Click on 'Conversational Forms'
  3. Check the box Conversational Form Mode
  4. Give your form a title.
  5. Type an introductory message.
  6. Enter a slug. This will be part of the permalink. Note: you cannot embed this type of form in a WordPress post or page you can edit outside of the forms configuration system, it will get its own page.
  7. Tick this box. We paid for this stuff, no need to advertise.
  8. This is deactivated, the text is black on white.

Configure email notifications​

At Settings -> Notifications, you can configure email notifications, both to yourself or to the user submitting a form. You can use 'smart tags' in order to dynamically insert the information a user has entered into the email.

  1. Choose 'Settings'
  2. Choose 'Notifications'
  3. You can send a notification to yourself, but also to the user. Enter the email address here;
  4. If you want to send an email to the user submitting the form, choose 'Show smart tags'. Note: your form has to include a special 'Email' field. If it does, it will show up in a dropdown list here if you click this.

You can use other smart tags as well, for example in the body of the email.

Exporting entries and analyzing results​

On the 1) Entries page, you will find an overview of all forms and 'entries' (form submissions by users), which you can click to inspect or export. Click the 2) number of entries in the 'All Time' column to view the entries that are associated with a specific form.

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On an entries page, you will have the option to 1) download all entries as a .CSV file which you will be able top open or import into a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel for further analysis. You will also see 2) some visual analysis of survey fields if you used those in this specific form (for more information on Surveys, look down), and 3) an overview of all individual entries, including the option to 4) view an individual submission.

If you choose to export your entries, you will be able to 1) check if you selected the correct form, and you may 2) uncheck any questions to prevent their corresponding answers from being included;

If you scroll down, you will see additional options:

  1. Check one of the these buttons if relevant.
  2. Check this to allow for easier importing into Excel.
  3. Pick a date range if necessary.
  4. Write your own conditionals, for example if you want to export only submissions of people who did not enter 'Rotterdam' as their place of residence.
  5. Download the export file.

Setting up a survey with results​

If you want to set up a survey, first check the box 'enable survey reporting' in the form settings:

Then, on the Forms overview page, you can mouse-over the forms and visit the results page of a form:

Then, you can 1) edit the visualization types for each field, 2) export results for individual fields in various formats, 3) create a PDF report for the entire survey, and/or 4) export the data (if you want to process these data in other applications).