Help Center

Collect form submissions on a public page

A public form lets anyone send you information without signing in: a contact form, a quote request, an RSVP or a job application. Each submission becomes a record in one of your tables. Public forms need the Starter plan or above.

Create a form

Ask the assistant and describe the fields. For example:

"Create a public quote request form with name, email, phone, the service they need and a message. Save submissions to a new table called Quote Requests."

The assistant:

• Creates the table for the submissions, or uses one you name.
• Builds the page with the form and sets it to show on your website.
• Sets the table's public access so the form can add records.

Open Tools and choose Website to see the form in your website preview.

How it works

A public form needs a table whose public access is Public Write. That setting lets anyone add a record, but not read the records that are there. Visitors can submit the form and cannot see what other people submitted.

To check or change the setting, open Tools, choose Data & API, open the table on the Tables tab and use the public access menu in the table's header.

A public page can read and add records. It cannot update or delete them, and it cannot upload files. If you need customers to edit what they sent or attach documents, put the form in the portal, where they sign in.

What is saved with each submission

Along with the fields the visitor filled in, each submission records:

• _submitted_at: when it was sent.
• _ip_address: the visitor's IP address.
• _source: set to public_form.

Use these to sort submissions by time and to tell form submissions apart from records your team added.

Do something when a form is submitted

Because a submission is a new record, it can start an automation. Ask the assistant, for example:

• "When a quote request is submitted, email it to me and notify the sales team."
• "When someone submits the contact form, send them a thank-you email."

The automation uses the On record created trigger on the submissions table. Automations need the Starter plan or above. See Automation triggers.

Review submissions

Submissions are ordinary records. Open the table from Data & API, or ask the assistant to build a team page that lists them with a status, so someone can mark each one as handled.

Protect against abuse

• Each visitor can submit at most 20 times a minute.
• Only ask for what you need. A shorter form gets more answers and collects less personal information.
• Give the form its own table. Do not point a public form at a table that also holds private records.

Share the form

The form lives on your website address. Open it there, copy the link from your browser and put it on your site, in an email or behind a QR code. To give it a clean title and description when the link is shared, see Search and sharing settings for your website.