Pro feature
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Submissions & Analytics
Respondent notifications
Send respondents a confirmation email after they submit. Recap their answers, share next steps, or attach a PDF copy of their response.
How it works
Respondent notifications send a personalized email to the person who filled out your form. In the To field you pick which Email field supplies the address, then customize the subject and body with piped answers. Optionally attach a PDF of the full submission.
Turn on Send confirmation to respondent in Form settings → E-mail Notifications. It needs a Pro or Business plan.
If your form asks for no email address at all, the confirmation still goes to the recipient a request names — public link responses get none.
For the full setup — recipient field, custom templates, template variables, and custom email domains — see Form settings → Respondent confirmation.
Use cases
- Application receipt — confirm the submission was received and outline next steps.
- Booking confirmation — restate the selected date and time so the respondent has a record.
- Quote delivery — pipe a calculated price into the email body and attach the full quote as a PDF.
- Edit reminder — if edit after submit is enabled, mention that respondents can return to the confirmation screen to edit their answers.
- Event registration — summarize event details, location, and ticket information.
- Reference number — use
@metadata.pin6as a support ticket or booking reference the respondent can quote back.
PDF attachment
Turn on Attach submission PDF under Send confirmation to respondent to send the respondent a PDF copy of their answers. formbase generates and stores the PDF the moment they submit, then attaches it to the confirmation email.
The attached PDF uses a snapshot of your published form frozen at submission time. See Exporting submissions → Per-submission PDF for full details on what it includes.
Deliverability
For best deliverability, set up a custom email domain. Emails arrive from your own address so they don’t land in spam, and replies go to your inbox instead of bouncing.
Field reference checks
If you delete a form field that your confirmation email still references, formbase warns you in the publish indicator before you publish. See Answer piping → Deleting a piped field.
Reminders
The same E-mail Notifications section has a separate Send reminders switch. One schedule, one email, two kinds of target: a public-link respondent sitting on an unfinished draft, and a request recipient who hasn’t completed. It needs a Pro or Business plan.
- Reminder schedule — an ordered list of idle steps: 12 hours, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks. At most five steps; the default is a single step at 1 day.
- Counted from last activity, which restarts the schedule. Reminders stop when the person finishes, and in any case after 8 emails.
- Wait for — name the fields that must be filled before a draft is worth chasing. Leave it empty to chase any draft that has an address.
- Public-link drafts — a draft has no address until the respondent types one, so you also pick the field that holds it. A request already knows its recipient.
It uses its own subject and body, edited in the same way as the confirmation email above.