Building a form

Click on the Forms menu and select Create.

You will be presented with various sample templates to choose from, such as RSVPs for birthday parties, guest lists, fundraising, employee leave requests, timesheets, registration forms, evaluations, newsletter subscriptions, medical forms, parental consent forms, membership applications, ticket sales, surveys, and more.

If you prefer to start with a blank form, select the "Create from scratch" option. You will then be prompted to choose the type of form you want to create:

  • Form: A basic form.
  • Evaluation Form: For collecting evaluations.
  • Payment Form: Includes payment elements.
  • Registration Form: For course registrations.
  • Registration with Ticketing Form: For ticket sales.
  • Marketing Forms: For newsletter subscriptions.

Use the Form option to have the most flexibility.

# Designing Your Form

Click on the Forms tab to design your form. A form contains several questions arranged vertically.

You can choose whether to display your organization's header.

A form always includes a Respondent question (also known as Account owner).

By clicking on the three dots to the right of the respondent, you can customize their information section by selecting the fields you need.

You can add questions to your form by clicking the ''+'' at the bottom of the form or by clicking the three dots to the right of an existing question to add a new block before or after it.

# Question types

Activity Messenger provides you with many types of questions including input boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, electronic signature, etc. There are also Person and Children questions to capture information about participants, members or patrons.

# Standards questions 

Yes/No: A question where the respondent can choose between yes or no, with the option to add fields for specific written responses.

­Input: Allows the respondent to provide a response in the form of a sentence or word.

Number: You can set a minimum or maximum for numeric responses.

Rating: Allows respondents to rate a question on a defined number of stars.

Notification Based on selection: Controls notification recipients based on responses. For example, you can send notifications to specific administrators based on respondents' choices.

Many inputs on the Same Line: Allows displaying different types of fields and questions on a single line.

Conditional branching: Creates dynamic form behavior based on previous responses, showing or hiding questions accordingly.

Dropdown : Creates a question with predefined answers in a dropdown menu.

Radio Buttons: Allows the respondent to select a single option from multiple choices.

Radio Grid: Allows the respondent to select one option per column, with the option to add multiple columns.

Checkboxes: Allows the respondent to select multiple options.

Checkbox Grid: Allows the respondent to select multiple options per column, with the option to add multiple columns.

Number Grids: Limits responses to numeric values only.

Ranking: Allows the respondent to rank multiple options in order of preference.

Page Break: Divides the form into multiple pages to facilitate navigation, allowing respondents to move to the next page as needed.

# Content

Text Block: Allows you to add custom text of your choice.

Image: Create images with Canva or upload them from your computer.

Spacer: Add empty spaces for layout and structuring your form.

Video: Integrate videos into your form by connecting to YouTube or uploading videos from your computer.

# Registration

Class: Allows registration for a class you have previously created, with or without payment depending on the type of form selected.

Multiple Classes: Allows registration for multiple classes you have created, with the option to choose a form with or without payment.

# Date/Time

This section is generally relevant for staff-related forms.

Date/Time: Allows the user to choose a specific date and time from a calendar.

Time range: Allows the user to select a defined time period with a start and end.

Time Selection: Provides the user with a choice of predefined times.

Check in / out: Allows an employee to mark their arrival and departure.

Date Selection: Enables the user to choose one or more predefined dates.

Date Range Selection: Allows the user to select one or more predefined time periods.

Time Track: Ideal for recording employee work hours. Employees can specify the date, start time, and end time. You can also configure settings such as rounding to a minimum duration or subtracting a defined break.

Week Availability: Allows an employee to specify their availability.

# People

You have the option to add an additional participant to your form, an emergency contact, an additional child, a second parent, an age category, or a company name.

# Upload

Activity Messenger allows you to send a form via text message. From their smartphone, a parent can both fill out the form and take a photo of the document. It’s that simple.

You can ask respondents to upload images. For example a photo of a document.

If you have auditions, you can ask respondents to upload a video. As for images, videos can be filmed and uploaded directly from a smartphone.

# Electronic Signature

You can request the respondent’s signature, add your own signature as an administrator, or include a checkbox for risk acceptance or specific conditions, for example.

# Expense claim

Ideal for expenses, you can add fields based on the type of refund required.

# Encrypted

When you need to collect confidential information, the responses will be encrypted and accessible only to users with the 'Account Manager' permission.

# Hidden

These questions will be visible only to administrators and not to clients, making them useful for tracking internal processes.

# Samples

If you have custom questions that you use frequently, you can save them as samples for easy reuse in your future forms. They will be organized in this category for quick access.

# Create Custom Merge Fields from Your Form Questions

Activity Messenger forms act as mini-databases. Each question becomes a column in this database.

You can then perform mail merges using these merge fields. To create a custom merge field from a question, edit the question and assign it a custom merge field.

Merge fields will then be available when composing an email, text message, or template. Click the button to insert a merge field. They will be accessible in the Forms section.

# Confirmation

The Confirmation tab allows you to configure the message shown to the respondent once the form is filled. Activity Messenger provides a default message. You can customize it.

You can even replace your organization logo with an image.

Click on the edit icon to customize the message. You can even insert links to other forms or PDF documents you have uploaded. You can use this option to invite the respondent to fill in another form or go elsewhere to complete a registration process.

# Options

The Options tab allows you to configure PDF generation, language preference, email confirmation and staff notifications.

After the respondent fills the form, they will receive an email. If you toggled the PDF generation, the form they have filled will be attached as a PDF. They can keep that for their records.

If you have bilingual forms, create two versions. For example one in French and another in English. In the communication section, set the form language. Make sure to update the confirmation email to the proper language as well.

You and your colleagues can get notified by email when a form is filled. You can specify the users that will receive the notification. The email will contain the PDF as attachment (if it was generated).

# Sharing the form

Click on Share the form. A popup will appear give you 4 options. You can copy the unique and shareable link of the form to put on your website. You can send the form by email and/or text message. You can embed it on your website. Finally you can print a QR code and post it on a wall for people to fill in the form in person.

If you choose to embed on your website, you can either place the form on a page using an IFRAME, or you can embed a button that opens the form in a popup. Copy the respective HTML code to embed on on your website.

To embed this form on your website you must first set the URL of your organization. Click on the organization menu () and Modify information. Your website must be secured and start with https.

The button with popup option requires JavaScript. Some sites like Wix do not allow that. Embed directly in the page using an IFRAME if that's the case.

# Testing the form

Click on Visit the form. It will open in another browser tab. You can fill in the form. After submission, you will receive a copy of the PDF by email. Go to the Respondents tab and click on Refresh (). You will see yourself in the list. Click on the row to view the questions and answers, and even download the PDF document.

# Reporting

Filled forms are reported on screen under the Respondents tab. You can also download the list of respondents to Excel.

Note: Activity Messenger uses the email address to identify a respondent.

Click on a respondent to obtain details of the filled form(s). A popup will show you questions and answers. You can also download the PDF if it was generated.

Click on a respondent to obtain details of the filled form(s). A popup will show you questions and answers. You can also download the PDF if it was generated.

# Download to Excel

Click on the Excel button to download an Excel file with all respondents. Choose columns to export by selecting questions from your form.

# Bulk download to PDF (ZIP file)

If you are running a camp or a field trip, Activity Messenger allows you to easily print off emergency contact and medical information in bulk.

Select one or multiple respondents. Click on the Download button to obtain a ZIP file of all PDFs for selected respondents. You can download the complete PDFs, or only answers to specific questions.