Forms FAQ: notifications, cloning, checkboxes, custom fields, and contacts
This article answers the questions we hear most often about forms: how notifications work, what to review after cloning a form, why a checkbox or radio button may not work, where to find and edit custom fields, how to add past submitters to a new workflow or tag, and why a submission created a new or nearly blank contact.
How do form notifications work?
Every form has notification settings that send an alert to your team on each submission and an optional confirmation email to the person who submitted. Both are configured in the builder's Notifications tab; in an older layout, a bell icon in the upper-left corner opens the same settings.
Email notification (your team): set the Subject (it defaults to the form name), the recipients in Email (To), the Reply-to-email, and the Sender name (it defaults to your organization's name). Optionally select Send form submission as a PDF to attach a copy of the submission.
Auto responder (the submitter): set a Subject, Reply-to-email, Sender name, and the optional PDF attachment, just like the team notification.
For full setup steps and limitations, see Email notifications in forms and surveys.
Always check these settings after cloning a form. When you duplicate a form, the bell notification settings are copied along with it, so notifications may still go to the previous team, the auto responder may contain outdated information, and PDF copies may be sent to the wrong recipients. Review and update the notification settings before publishing the new form.
What should I check after cloning a form?
Cloning copies more than the visible fields, so review the settings the new form inherited before you publish it.
Notifications. Any notifications on the Notifications tab in the form editor carry over to the cloned form, including team recipients, the auto responder message, and PDF recipients. Update them so alerts and confirmations match the new form's purpose.
Field labels versus underlying fields. Changing the visible label on a form does not necessarily change the underlying field it writes to. Open each field and confirm it still maps to the contact field you expect, especially if you renamed anything to match the new form. See Use existing contact fields instead of creating new ones.
Payment settings. Verify whether the payment element is in Test Mode or Live Mode before sharing the form. See Add products to a form for the mode steps.
Dates and years. Forms built for a specific event or program year carry their old dates and years into the clone. Update them before the form goes live.
Workflows. Confirm which workflows should run for submissions to the new form, and turn off or adjust anything that should apply only to the original.
Other inherited configuration. Conditional logic, options, and form-level settings all come over from the original. Give the clone a full read-through as if you had built it yourself.
The Common Form Mistakes checklist covers these items and more.
Why isn't my checkbox or radio button working?
When checkbox or radio options are hard to see, blend into the background, or don't respond the way you expect, the cause is usually the form's styling rather than the field itself.
Select the checkbox or radio field in the form builder and check its Options tab in the right sidebar to confirm the choices are set up correctly. The Style option offers Bubble, which changes only the visual appearance of the choices.
Open Styles & Options and review the Styles tab. Under Colors & Background, check the background and theme; a theme can include a default background image that changes the contrast of your form.
Check the Primary Color setting. It controls the interactive states of checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdowns, and other selection elements.
Review the Advanced tab for Input Field, Label, and Custom CSS controls if custom styles were applied to the form.
Submit a test response and confirm the options display and can be selected. See Right sidebar in the form and survey builder for where each control lives.
If the options still don't display or respond after checking these settings, contact support so we can take a closer look.
How do I find and edit custom fields?
Custom fields are managed from Settings > Custom Fields. Use the Fields tab to view and manage fields and the Folders tab to organize them. Forms use Contact fields, so select Contacts in the object selector.
To find a specific field:
In the form builder, use Add Object Fields to browse or search the available fields while building.
On a contact record, use the Search Fields box at the top of the left panel to locate a field by name.
To edit a field's options, select the field in the form builder and use General Settings and Advanced Settings. Dropdown, radio, and checkbox options can be edited, reordered, and deleted. After the form is saved, the field name and unique key are locked in the builder and can be edited from the Custom Fields section instead.
To reorder how fields appear, drag and drop fields in the Fields tab, or drag and drop folders in the Folders tab. These organization changes affect the Contact Record for all administrators. See Managing custom fields in contact records and Create custom contact fields.
How do I add existing form submitters to a new workflow or tag?
When a form launched before its automation was in place, export the earlier submissions and update those contacts in bulk so they receive the same follow-up as new submitters.
Go to Standard Site Options > Forms, open the form, and select Submissions.
Use the Date Filter to widen the range so older submissions appear, then click Export to download the submissions as a CSV file. You can also select specific submissions to download.
Go to Contacts and choose Import Contacts.
Upload the CSV file and choose how to import contacts. To update existing contacts with the submitted values, use the update option, and map the CSV columns to the standard or custom fields they belong to.
Select Don't update Empty Values so blank cells in the file don't overwrite information already on the contacts.
Track the import under Bulk Actions and use Show Stats to review the results.
Once the contacts are updated, add the tag or enroll them in the workflow:
To add a tag: select the contacts in Contacts, click Add Tag, complete Action Name and Tags, then click Add Tags.
To add a workflow: build a Smart List with the appropriate advanced filters, select the contacts, choose Trigger automation, set Automation Type to Workflow, select a published workflow, and click Add to Automation. See Add contacts in bulk to a workflow.
Why did a form create a new or nearly blank contact?
Every form submission is linked to a contact record. JourneyCARE matches the submission to a contact using the contact's email address: if a match is found, the submission is added to that person's existing record; if no match is found, a new contact is created.
This explains the two most common surprises:
A new record appeared for someone who already exists. If the submitter mistyped their email or used a different one than the contact record holds, no match is found and a new contact is created. The matching behavior is controlled by your deduplication settings under Settings > Business Profile > Contact Deduplication Preferences: Allow Duplicate Contact decides whether a matching submission updates an existing contact or creates another record, Find Existing Contacts Based On sets the primary matching field (Email by default, or Phone), and Second Preferences for Search (Optional) adds a secondary field.
A contact appeared with no name or email address. If a form collects neither a name nor an email address, the submission still creates a contact, and that contact has no name or email address on it.
See How forms update contact records for how submissions match and update contacts, and Why are there blank contacts in my database? for other sources of sparse records.