Guide to using the form view

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Overview

Airtable forms let you collect information from anyone and save it automatically to an Airtable base. They're perfect for logging expenses, collecting RSVPs, creating polls and quizzes, collecting customer information, and many other purposes. Airtable forms support file attachments, work beautifully on mobile devices, and connect to the Airtable API.

Unlike other products, which require you to build a form from scratch, Airtable forms are automatically generated from your existing table and then give you the ability to rearrange and remove fields.

If your workspace is on a Plus or Pro plan, you can customize your forms by adding a cover image and logo, customizing the form submission button, and (optionally) removing the Airtable branding from the form. Read this article for more information about upgrading to a premium plan or visit our pricing page.

Creating a form

To create a new form view, start by going to the table where you'll be collecting your new data. Open the view sidebar, then underneath the "Create" heading click the "Form" option. If your view creation section is collapsed, you will need to first expand it.

This will bring up the form builder, which you can use to put together your perfect form before sharing it with others. You can give your form a title and description by clicking in the header section.

Adding, removing, and reordering form fields

The fields on your form are automatically populated based on all of the fields in your grid view.

To change the order of the fields on your form, click on a field and drag the field using its drag handle.

To hide a field from the form, you can either click the hide button in the top right corner of the field you wish to hide, or drag and then drop the field on the left side of the screen.

To add a field to the form, drag it from the left side back onto the form.

If, after creating your form, you realize that you want to add a field to your form that doesn't yet exist in your table, you can click the + Add a field to this table button in the Fields sidebar.

Additionally, you can customize your fields' settings by clicking on a field, clicking the dropdown arrow next to the name of the field, and selecting the Customize field type option from the dropdown menu. This will bring up the same field customization menu that you see when you customize fields in grid view.

Form field display settings

In addition to customizing which fields will appear on your form and their order, you can also adjust how a field will display to the end-user.

Clicking on any of the fields in the form builder will bring up a number of display options. For all field types, you can change the field's name as it will appear on the form and a subtitle to add some helpful context. You can also check the "Required?" box to make a field required in order for a form to be successfully submitted. (If you make a checkbox field required, the box will have to be checked in order for the form to be submitted.)

Certain field types offer additional display settings options. 

Show field as dropdown or list

Single select, multiple select, and collaborator fields offer the option of showing the field options as a dropdown or as a list.

For single-select and single collaborator fields, showing the field as a list will cause the options to display as radio buttons; for multiple select and multiple collaborator fields, showing the field as a list will cause the options to display as checkboxes.

Limit selection to specific options

For single select, multiple select, and collaborator fields, you have the option of limiting the available options on the form so that not all options will be visible to the person filling out the form.

To do this, click the Limit selection to specific options toggle. This will bring up a dialog window in which you can pick which options will be available for the people filling out the form. Click the Use selected options button to save your selections.

If you've decided to "Limit selection to specific options", the form builder will show the number of options that have been selected. You can alter which options have been selected by clicking the Change selected options button.

Limit linked record selection to a view

For linked record fields, you can use filtered views to control which linked records can be selected by the people filling out your form. To do this, click on the Limit record selection to a view toggle. This will bring up a dropdown menu showing all of the different views in the table to which the linked record field is linked. (If you don't have the filtered view that you need, you'll need to go to the appropriate table and make one.)

By selecting a view from this dropdown, the people filling out the form will only be able to select the linked records available in the specified view.

If you try and change the filters for a view that's being used to limit record selection in a form elsewhere, you'll see a notice telling you which form from which table is using this view's filters.

If you've already limited a linked record field's selection to a view from the view's configuration menu, you can override that limitation and limit linked record selection to a different view.

Post-submission customization options

After customizing your form's fields, you can customize what will happen after a form has been submitted.

Redirect to URL after the form is submitted

If you check the Redirect to URL after the form is submitted toggle, a prompt will appear for you to enter the redirect URL.

You can choose to include the ID of the record that will be created by the form in the redirect URL by including the variable {record_id}. You can use this to redirect the submitter of the form to the record that they've just created (assuming that the form submitter has access to the base).

If you choose to have a redirect URL, the options to customize the post-submission message, show a "Submit another response button," and show a new blank form will be disabled.

Show this message

If you don't have a redirect URL, you can customize the message that will be shown once a form has been submitted by typing it in the Show this message box.

Show a "Submit another response" button

If you don't have a redirect URL, toggle this option to show a button after a form has been submitted that will allow the user to submit the form again.

Show a new blank form after 5 seconds

If you don't have a redirect URL, toggling this option will make it so that after a form is submitted, the submitter will automatically be redirected to the form page after five seconds of waiting.

Post-submission email notifications

Regardless of whether you have a redirect URL set up or not, you can also choose whether or not to have email notifications sent to you after a form has been submitted.

Note that the email address to which the notifications will be sent is determined by which user is looking at the form—more than one user can go into the form and check the appropriate box in order to get notifications sent to the email address associated with their Airtable account.

Sharing a form

Once you're done building your form, you can click the share form button in the view bar. This will give you a link that you can copy and paste. Clicking the preview button will also bring you directly to the page with your form.

Data from completed, and submitted, forms will automatically show up as a new record in your table.

You can embed a form on a webpage by clicking on the option to "Embed this form on your site" from the "Share form" menu:

This will take you to a page where you can view the code necessary to embed your form on a website, and see a preview of what the embedded form will look like in both desktop and mobile formats. 

To learn more about the process of using an iframe to embed a form view on a webpage, please see this support article.

Disabling a form link or generating a new form link

If you need to disable the form link, click on the Share form button and then the X Disable shared view link option.

Alternatively, you can regenerate the form link by click on the refresh button next to the URL.

Stop accepting new form responses

To stop accepting new form submissions you can toggle the "Stop accepting new responses" option on. This differs from disabling the form as it will keep the current form share link active in case you want to open the form again at a later time.

You can then type in a custom message that will show if someone attempts to access the form while it is in a non-response mode. By default, a "This form is not accepting responses." message will appear. If you later want to open the form again, simply toggle this option off. 

Delete a form

To delete a form view, click the view menu button (...) and then select "Delete view" at the bottom of the dropdown menu that appears—you'll see a trashcan icon, too.

Premium form features

If your workspace is on the Plus, Pro, or Enterprise plans, then you have access to more form customization options.

To add a logo, click on the Add a logo option and upload the desired image.

To add a cover image, click anywhere in the gray region where it says Add a cover image and upload the desired image. You can also crop or rotate the image in the file picker. As a note, the area of the form cover image is always 240px tall, and the width is the width of your browser window. It’s best to use the cover image for background graphics and adding a fun touch to your form, rather than for important information which may potentially get clipped out.

To customize the form submission button, double-click the Submit button, add the text of your choice, and press return/enter.

To add or remove Airtable branding from the form, click the Show Airtable branding button, located at the bottom of the form builder.

FAQs

Where does form data go?

Submissions via forms will show up as a new record at the bottom of a grid view so long as the grid view is not filtering or grouping the records in some way that would cause the submission to be hidden or show up in a different order.

Can I create forms on a mobile version of Airtable?

At the moment, mobile versions of Airtable do not allow you to create or view in the native Airtable app. In order to submit a form, you must use a share link in your device's browser.

Can forms be used to update records?

Forms do not natively support the ability to update records. However, a workaround using linked records as well as our Automations feature can be used to create a workflow that will update records.

Can forms be split into multiple pages or sections?

No, currently Airtable forms cannot be split or paginated.

Can I remove all Airtable branding from my form?

You can remove the Airtable label from forms on our Airtable Plus or Pro plans, but it isn't currently possible to remove all Airtable branding or add your own custom branding within the Airtable UI.

Can I create section headers for my forms?

We do not currently support creating custom sections, or headers, within the form view. However here is a workaround suggested by the Airtable Community, where you can create a visual difference in a form by creating a single select field with no options, then adding it to a form as a list: