Creating a Form

This guide covers everything you need to know about creating forms in Formspace.

If you are evaluating Formspace before signing up, the public AI form builder and online form builder pages summarize the main product workflows.

Opening the form builder

From your dashboard, click New Form in the top-right corner of the forms list. This opens the form builder where you can design, preview, and configure your form.

You can also create a new form by duplicating an existing one — click the ⋯ menu on any form card and select Duplicate. This copies the form including all fields and uploaded files, and opens the duplicate in the designer.

The form builder tabs

The form builder is organized into several tabs along the top:

Tab	Purpose
Designer	Add and arrange fields, configure validation, and set up form logic.
Preview	See exactly how your form will look and behave for respondents.
Theme	Customize colors, fonts, and styling to match your brand.
Translation	Add translations to make your form available in multiple languages.
Publish	Manage publishing, sharing, access controls, and form settings.
Workflows	Build and publish approval, email, Power Automate, and webhook automations.
Submissions	View and manage responses directly within the builder.

The Preview tab is an interactive test environment. Completing the form there does not create a submission or add a row to Submissions. To test response collection, publish the form and open its live link.

After completing the preview, click Save as PDF to download the PDF that a submission with those answers would get, using the form’s saved PDF Settings. Images and signatures uploaded in the preview are included; other uploaded files are listed by name. Like submission PDFs, it uses the form’s default language, whichever language the preview shows.

Adding fields

In the Designer tab, use the toolbox on the left to add fields to your form. Drag and drop fields onto the canvas to add them, and drag existing fields to reorder them.

The form builder supports a wide variety of field types:

• Text — Short or long text input.
• Multiple Choice — Single or multi-select options.
• Dropdown — A compact select menu.
• Rating — Star or number scale ratings.
• Date — Date picker input.
• File Upload — Allow respondents to attach files.
• Signature — Capture a drawn signature.
• Matrix — Grid of questions with rows and columns.
• Dynamic Panel — Repeatable groups of fields that respondents can add or remove.
• Ranking — Drag-and-drop ranking of items.
• Boolean — Yes/no or true/false toggle.
• Image Picker — Select from a set of images.
• Expression — Calculated values based on other fields.

Click any field on the canvas to select it and edit its properties in the panel on the right.

Configuring fields

When you select a field, the properties panel lets you configure:

• Title — The label shown to respondents.
• Description — Helper text displayed below the field.
• Placeholder — Hint text shown inside empty inputs.
• Default value — A pre-filled value.
• Required — Whether the field must be completed.
• Visibility — Conditionally show or hide the field based on other answers.

Validation rules

Each field type supports relevant validation options:

Rule	Description
Required	The respondent must fill in this field.
Min / Max length	Set character limits for text fields.
Min / Max value	Set numeric bounds for number fields.
Pattern	Validate against a custom regex pattern.
Email / URL	Built-in validators for common formats.

Multi-page forms

You can organize your form into multiple pages. Click Add Page at the bottom of the canvas to create a new page. Respondents will navigate between pages using Next and Previous buttons.

Each page can have its own title and description, and you can use visibility conditions to skip pages based on earlier answers.

Enable Internal use on a page, panel, or individual question when its fields should be visible only to Formspace team members in the dashboard. Internal content is marked in the designer, excluded from the published respondent form, and can be filled or edited later from the response detail view.

Internal fields aren’t in the form respondents fill in, so your team fills them in. The designer doesn’t offer default values or correct answers for them, since a default would never fill one in and quizzes are graded on the form respondents see, and Set value rules on them run as your team edits a response but can’t be relied on when it’s submitted. To fill in an internal field automatically when a response is submitted, use an Expression field. It’s worked out from the answers and saved with the response, such as {respondentEmail} to record who submitted, or 'REQ-' + {responseNumber} for a reference. Expression fields can’t be edited, so use a regular field for anything your team changes, such as a status.

Form logic

The form builder supports conditional logic to create dynamic, personalized forms:

• Visibility conditions — Show or hide fields and pages based on responses.
• Skip logic — Jump to a specific page based on answers.
• Calculated values — Compute values from other fields using expressions.
• Default value expressions — Set dynamic defaults.

For a product overview of this capability, see conditional logic forms.

Response number

Each submitted response gets a number within its form, which forms can show as {responseNumber}, for example as a reference on the thank-you page: Your reference is #{responseNumber}. It also works in the redirect URL, such as https://example.com/thanks?ref={responseNumber}, and in HTML, conditions, and calculated values.

The number is empty while the respondent fills in the form. It has a value on the thank-you page, in the dashboard’s response view and editor, in My Submissions, and in the response PDF. To show a reference only once a response has one, give the field the visibility condition {responseNumber} notempty.

To keep a reference such as REF-42 with each response, add an Expression field with the expression 'REF-' + {responseNumber} and the same visibility condition. Its value is saved with the response, so it is also a column in the submissions table and exports.

Quizzes have score variables that work the same way: see Quizzes and Scoring.

Respondent’s email and name

When respondents sign in to your form, {respondentEmail} holds their verified email address and {respondentName} the name from their Microsoft or Google sign-in. To fill in an Email question for them, set its Default value expression to {respondentEmail}; to lock it once it’s filled in, set Enable if to {respondentEmail} empty. You can also greet respondents with Hi {respondentName} in HTML or on the thank-you page. Both are empty for anonymous respondents, and the name is empty for email code sign-ins. See Respondent Variables.

Customizing appearance

Switch to the Theme tab to customize how your form looks:

• Choose from built-in theme presets as a starting point.
• Adjust primary and background colors.
• Customize fonts and font sizes.
• Modify corner radius, spacing, and other layout options.
• Preview your changes in real-time as you adjust settings.

Theme changes are saved automatically as part of your form.

Translations

The Translation tab lets you add translations for every piece of text in your form. Add new languages and provide translations for field labels, descriptions, choices, and button text.

File uploads

When you add a File Upload field, respondents can attach files to their submission. Uploaded files are stored securely and accessible from the response detail view.

Tip

Save your form at least once before adding images or file uploads to the designer. The form needs to be persisted before files can be stored.

Auto-saving

The form builder auto-saves your changes as you work. You’ll see a save indicator in the toolbar — there’s no need to manually save.

While the AI Assistant is replying, the builder is read-only and shows each change the assistant makes. Your changes are saved before the assistant starts, so it always works from them.

If the form changes elsewhere while you’re editing, for example in another browser tab or by a teammate, the builder doesn’t save over that change. It loads the current version and tells you that your latest change wasn’t saved.

After making changes, your form enters a Draft Changes state. These changes are not visible to respondents until you publish them.

Form history

Formspace periodically captures autosaved draft snapshots, and every publish creates a numbered version. Click the History button (clock icon) in the toolbar while using the Designer, Preview, or Theme tab to open the history panel.

From here you can:

• Browse previous versions of your form with timestamps and author information.
• See a live preview of any historical version.
• Restore a previous version if you need to roll back changes.

Published versions are clearly labeled with version numbers (e.g. v1, v2), so you can always find and return to a specific release.

Note

Restoring a version replaces your current draft. Your previous draft may still appear in the history if it was auto-saved before the restore.

Tip

How far back you can restore version history depends on your subscription plan — from 1 day on the Free plan up to 365 days on Premium. See Subscription & Billing for details.

What’s next?

Once your form is ready, head over to Publishing & Sharing to make it live and start collecting responses.