May 10, 2011

How to create a Form

How to create a form in LiveWhale.
From the LiveWhale interface, click the “Forms” tab. (If the Forms tab does not appear, the administrator has not assigned the forms module to you.)

If you are adding a form, click “Add a New Form”, otherwise find the form you wish to edit and click it.

Whether adding or editing a form:

Fill out the form with the relevant information for your form.

  • Enter the title of the form.
  • If this content is especially important and you wish to flag it as such on your web site, click the star in the section labeled “Star content” in order to highlight it. By default this content will be shareable. If you wish to make it non-shareable, click the globe labeled “Share content” to un-highlight it.
  • Enter a brief introductory text, perhaps containing instructions to the user about what the form is and how to fill it out.
  • Enter a thank you text, visible to the user upon submitting the form.
  • Under the section labeled “Form action”, choose a destination for the data submitted by users. You have the option of storing it in the database, e-mailing it, or both. If you choose to have it e-mailed, you will be presented with an additional field for e-mail address(es), which can be comma-separated.
  • Under the section labeled “Form elements”, you may construct the form by adding as many form elements as you like. To add a new element, click “Add another element”. To reorder elements, drag an element by the crosshairs icon to a new position in the list. For each element, you will be able to set the element’s label, type, whether or not it is required, and a list of possible options if appropriate for the element type.
  • If this form should be secured using SSL (HTTPS), check the box labeled “This is a secure form”. This only needs to be used if sensitive data is being transmitted to the server by visitors to the site. Your server must have a valid site certificate in order to use this feature.
  • Tag the form with any relevant tags. Tags help sort and classify forms so that they can be directed to the proper location on your web site. You can click in the field labeled “Tags” and type a keyword; tags will be suggested to you. If you are unsure what tags are available in your group, click “Show all tags” to display them all and select the relevant ones.
  • Scroll back up and find the status menu at the top righthand corner of the screen. Choose the status for this form. “Live” will publish the form immediately. “Hidden” will hide it from the web site until you are ready to publish it.
  • If you are editing an existing form, you will also see a “Delete” link next to the status, allowing you to delete this form. (See “Deleting a form” for more information.)

When done, click the “Save this form” button.