Building Your Own Contact Forms

Every IndieMade shop comes with a contact form that asks for a name, an email address and a message. The Contact Form Builder lets you change that form and build more of your own. Make a "Request a Custom Order" form, a "Wholesale Inquiry" form, or anything else your shop needs.

Each form gets its own page on your site, its own questions and its own menu link. Every message from every form lands in your Contacts list.

Turning it on

The Contact Form Builder is switched on by IndieMade support. Send us a message and ask for it. Once it is on, you will see a Form Builder tab under Dashboard → Contacts.

Your list of forms

Go to Dashboard → Contacts → Form Builder. You see every form you have, with its page address and how many messages it has received.

Your Contact form is always first. It is your main form and it cannot be deleted.

Making a new form

  1. Go to Dashboard → Contacts → Form Builder.
  2. Click New form.
  3. Type a Page Title, for example "Request a Custom Order". Shoppers see this at the top of the page.
  4. Leave Provide a menu link ticked if you want the form in your main menu.
  5. Click Create Page.

Your new form starts with Name, Email and Message. Its page address comes from the title, so "Request a Custom Order" lives at /request-a-custom-order. Now add the questions you need.

Editing a form

Click Edit next to a form. The editor works like editing a page. From top to bottom:

  • Page Title: the name of the form and its page.
  • Page text: shown above the form. Tell shoppers what the form is for.
  • The fields: the questions on the form. See below.
  • Thank-you message: what shoppers see after they send the form.
  • URL: the page address, like /wholesale.
  • Provide a menu link: show the form in your main menu.
  • Notify me by email: get an email for each message. The email subject says which form it came from.
  • Published: untick to take the form offline.

Click Save Page when you are done. Your Contact form has the same editor, but its title and address stay as they are.

Adding a field

  1. In the form editor, click Add Field.
  2. Give the field a label. This is the question your visitor reads, so write it the way you would ask it out loud.
  3. Choose the kind of answer you want.
  4. Click Save Page.

Test it by visiting the form's page.

The kinds of answer you can ask for

  • Text Field: one line. Good for a phone number, a date or a city.
  • Text Area: a bigger box for a longer answer.
  • Select List: a dropdown. The visitor picks one of your choices.
  • Checkboxes: the visitor can tick more than one.
  • Radio Buttons: the visitor picks exactly one, and all the choices stay visible.

Select List, Checkboxes and Radio Buttons need you to type the choices you want to offer. Add one per line.

Changing the fields you already have

  • Rename: "Message" can become "Tell me about your project".
  • Required: tick this and nobody can send the form without answering.
  • Reorder: drag a field up or down.
  • Turn off: hide a field without losing it. Switch it back on any time.

Putting two fields side by side

Set two fields in a row to Half Width and they sit next to each other, which suits First Name and Last Name. On a phone they stack one above the other, so the form stays easy to fill in.

Seeing the answers in your Contacts list

Tick Display in submissions table on a field, then click Save Page. Its answers now show as a column in Dashboard → Contacts, so you can scan them without opening every message. When you have more than one form, the Contacts list also has a Form column that says which form each message came from.

Publishing and unpublishing

A form works like a page. Untick Published and click Save Page. The form's page closes and its menu link goes away. Tick it again to bring both back. Your messages are kept either way.

Deleting a form

  1. Go to Dashboard → Contacts → Form Builder.
  2. Click Delete next to the form.
  3. Read the warning and click Delete form.

This removes the page, its menu link and every message sent with that form. It cannot be undone. If you only want to hide the form for a while, unpublish it instead.

A few things worth knowing

  • Every form has the same spam protection as your Contact form.
  • Give each field a different label. Two fields with the same label are hard to tell apart.
  • Ask for as little as you can. Every extra question is one more reason for someone to give up before sending.
  • Save "required" for the answers you cannot reply without.