Building Forms
Form settings
The settings panel (gear icon) has six tabs: General, Public link access, Submissions, Emails, Integrations, and Danger zone. This page covers the first four.
General
Three options that apply to the form as a whole. Changes are saved with the dialog’s Save changes button.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Form name | Internal name shown in your workspace and dashboard — respondents never see it |
| Form language | Default language for labels, buttons, validation messages, and other chrome. It does not translate your questions. A respondent who picks another language in the form switcher gets that one instead; this is the fallback when no interface bundle ships for it |
| Show formbase branding | Turning it off requires Pro or Business |
For source language, browser matching, and localized links, see Language setting. For translating questions, options, and descriptions into other languages, see Translating form content.
Public link access
Public link access decides who can open and submit the form through its public link. A one-line summary at the top of the tab says who can open it as the switches stand, and whether spam checks run. A request is addressed to one person and opens from a signed link, so it skips these gates.
Require sign-in
People sign in before they submit, so each person submits once across devices. Someone who has already submitted is blocked on every device, so this is the strongest way to keep one response per person.
Password
Turn on Password and type one in the field that appears under the switch. People enter it before the form opens. If you leave the switch on without typing a password, publishing warns you and turns the gate off rather than locking everyone out.
Spam protection
A Cloudflare Turnstile check runs before each submission: invisible bot detection that blocks automated submissions, with a quick interactive check in rare cases. It’s always on for free forms and can’t be turned off; on Pro the switch is yours per form. On a custom domain it uses your workspace Turnstile keys, and the row says so. See Bot protection (Turnstile) for details.
Submissions
The Submissions tab covers when the form accepts answers, what happens after someone submits, and how long you keep responses. Rows that only apply to people who arrive through a share link say Public link only; a request already knows its recipient and is completed once.
Accepting submissions
Three states: Open, Until a date, or Closed. Until a date shows a date picker; the form stops taking answers at the start of that day and shows a “Form closed” message after it. Closed stops new responses right away, and pending requests expire with the form. The row’s description always tells you which state the form is in.
Delete submissions (Business)
Never, On a date, or After a number of days. After deletes each response once it is that old; On a date deletes everything daily once that date passes, including responses that arrive afterwards. Picking one clears the other, and the earliest date you can pick is tomorrow.
Setting or changing a retention rule requires Business. A rule already stored keeps running after a plan change — retention is a promise to your respondents, not a perk — and you can clear it on any plan. See Submission retention.
After someone submits
One choice of three; picking one clears the others.
Show thank-you page — the ending you built in the editor. The default.
Offer another response — public link only. Shows a “Submit again” button on the thank-you page, which loops the respondent back to a fresh form. Maximum responses per respondent appears once it is chosen and accepts 2 to 1000; leave it empty for unlimited. For signed-in respondents it is enforced on the server; for anonymous respondents it is a soft limit held in the browser.
Go to a web page — send respondents to a URL instead of the thank-you page. Type the address in the Web page field, then add Redirect URL query parameters that pass answers along. A URL that is not a valid web address is cleared at publish with a warning. See Redirect after submit for the full guide.
Let people change their answers
Public link only. Shows an “Edit your response” link on the thank-you page. The form reopens pre-filled with their answers, and formbase updates the submission when they resubmit. Pick 1, 2 or 3 edits next to the switch — there is no unlimited.
A form with a Payment, Signature, or Schedule appointment question cannot support editing after submission; publishing warns you and turns the setting off.
Pair with the submission confirmation
Include the edit link in the submission confirmation email so they can find it later. Set this up in the Submission confirmation section below.
Auto-save and drafts
There is nothing to turn on. formbase creates a draft when the respondent answers their first question, saves every change in the background, and restores the progress if they come back. On submit, the draft becomes the completed response.
Where the draft lives depends on your plan — not on who the respondent is:
Free — share-link drafts stay in the respondent’s browser. Clearing site data or switching devices loses them, and no reminder can bring them back.
Pro and Business — share-link drafts are saved on the server, so the reminder email can carry a resume link that restores progress even on another browser.
Requests — a request’s draft is always saved on the server, on every plan. The request link is the resume link.
Emails
One list of every email the form sends: New submission alert, Request invitation, Submission confirmation, and Reminders. Each row shows who receives it and when, with a switch to turn it on or off — the invitation is always on. Click a row to unfold its editor in place: a Write view with the To, Subject and Message fields, and a Preview view that renders the email with sample answers. All of them take a custom subject and body with @ variables.
Sender (Pro)
The line under the tab title names the address every email on this form is sent from — noreply@formbase.so until you pick a
verified domain of your own. One setting covers every email in the list. Domains are managed for the whole workspace — follow
Use your domain to add and verify one, then any form in the workspace can pick it.
New submission alert
Sends an email to you or your team whenever a response comes in. Leave the subject and body empty and formbase sends its own template.
The default alert to the workspace owner’s address works on Free. Adding other recipients, attaching the PDF, or customizing the subject, the body, or the “View Submission” button, requires Pro or Business.
To — type an address and press Enter, pick a workspace member, or insert a form value so the alert follows the answer
Attach submission PDF — include a PDF copy of the response
Show ‘View Submission’ button — links straight to the response in formbase
Submission confirmation (Pro)
Sends a confirmation to the respondent right after they submit. Pick the email question that holds their address in the To row; leaving it empty is a publish warning and the confirmation is switched off. If the form asks for no address at all, the confirmation still goes to a request’s recipient — public-link responses get none.
To — the email question to send to
Attach submission PDF — send respondents a PDF copy of their answers
Reminders (Pro)
One switch, one schedule, two kinds of target: a share-link respondent sitting on an unfinished draft, and a request recipient who has not completed. They get the same email, and the row shows the schedule at a glance.
Reminder schedule — add steps from 12 hours, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, and 2 weeks. Each step is an idle offset counted from the person’s last activity, and new activity restarts the schedule. Reminders stop when they finish, or after 8 emails
Public-link drafts → To — a draft has no address until the respondent types one, so name the email question that holds it. Leaving it empty is a publish warning and reminders are switched off. Requests already know their recipient
Wait for — a draft is only chased once the To field and these fields are filled. Leave it empty to chase any draft that has an address
Request invitation
Sent once, when a request is created with email delivery. Its recipient is set on each request, so you only author the copy, and there is no switch: the row reads Always on. Nothing here affects the public link. See The request invitation.
Template variables
Every email above takes the same @ variables. Type @ in the subject or body to open the mention menu. See Answer piping → Metadata variables for the full reference.
Emails go out in the language the form is shown in. Respondents reading the form in another language get formbase’s localized default unless you translate your copy — the note under the list links straight to Translate emails.
Field reference validation
If you delete a form field that an email template still references, formbase warns you in the publish indicator before you publish. The same check covers translated email templates and integration message templates.
Integrations and Danger Zone
The remaining two tabs in the settings panel link out to dedicated features:
Integrations — grouped by category. Spreadsheets & databases: Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion. Chat & notifications: Slack, Discord. Project management: Linear, GitHub Issues. Developer: Webhook. Zapier and Make are listed under Automation and marked Coming soon. The tab also holds Analytics streaming — whether this form forwards its view, engaged, and submit events to a workspace GA4 or Axiom destination, and (Axiom only) whether it streams answers. Cal.com is connected on the Schedule appointment question itself. See Integrations overview.
Danger Zone — three destructive actions: Delete all submissions, Delete analytics data, and Delete form. The first two are permanent and only unlock once the form has been published. A deleted form goes to Trash and can be restored within 30 days.