Logic & Advanced Notifications
Last edited 2/17/2023
Form Builder allows you to add five categories of logic rules to your forms:
- Enable Rules to Show/Hide Fields - based on data entered in form fields.
- Enable Rules to Skip Pages - commonly called page branching, have different types of users go to different pages. Used for allowing offline payments.
- Enable Rules to Send Notification Emails - send custom email confirmations based on user entries.
- Enable Rules to Send Form Data to Another Website - used infrequently, this will send data to email services.
- Enable Rules to Display Success Page - set custom success messages or URL redirects after submission based on user entries.
The first three categories are the most commonly used, but the rules themselves are all structured in a similar manner. To get started with logic, click on your form's name in Form Manager, then click "Logic." You will enter a new page with five checkboxes corresponding to the five categories of logic rules.
Rules to Show/Hide Fields
Show/Hide rules are the most frequently used logic in Form Builder. Almost every form can make use of them to visually streamline the form and guide users by only presenting a new field (or group of fields) after previous fields have responses. These rules facilitate product sales, allow a form to ask for the appropriate number of participant names, and have countless other uses.
Once you check "Enable Rules to Show/Hide Fields" in the logic builder, a dropdown will appear. Select the name of the field you would like to selectively show or hide, and a rule will be created for that field. For example, consider a registration that allows optional donations. Such a form might have a multiple choice field with the label, "Would you like to include a donation?" with choices of "$5," "$10," "$25," and "Other;" choosing "Other" would trigger the price field labeled "Donation Amount" for the user to enter a custom donation amount. In this example, "Donation Amount" would be chosen from the "Select a Field to Show/Hide" dropdown.
By default, the created rule will show the form field only when conditions are met. If you need your rule to specify when the field is hidden instead, change "Show" to "Hide" in the first new dropdown.
On the condition line, the first dropdown selects the form field your rule is dependent upon. In the donation example above, "Would you like to include a donation?" would be chosen here. The remaining two dropdowns complete the sentence of your condition.
When working with fields that take text input, such as "name," you can check for user input by selecting "is not" and leaving the third part empty. The condition will then be satisfied with any response entered by the user.
Multiple Conditions
To create multiple conditions for your rules, click on the blue plus-sign in the bottom right of the rule box. For rules with multiple conditions, you can designate if ALL of the conditions must match (a AND b) or of ANY of them must match (a OR b).
- Example of ALL: "Show [Email] if ALL of the following conditions match: [Name - Last] is [entered] AND [Phone] is entered."
- Example of ANY: "Show [Email] if ANY of the following conditions match: [Name - Last] is [entered] OR [Phone] is entered."
Create additional rules by selecting another field from the "Show/Hide" dropdown.
Rules to Skip Pages
Page skips work similarly to show/hide, but apply to entire pages instead of a single field. These rules are very useful for handling different kinds of registrants (e.g. youth, adults, siblings), from whom you need different details. Form Builder also allows the option to skip online payment entirely by skipping to the success page, allowing offline payments and the freedom to waive fees for specific users.
The first step in creating a rule to skip pages is to select the page you want the form to skip to from the "Select Destination Page" dropdown. Otherwise, rules work exactly the same as with Show/Hide.
Rules to Send Notification Emails
Logic-based notifications allow your form to send out as many specialized emails as you wish. They work well for sending follow-up instructions for offline payment methods, or notifying specific staff of t-shirt orders.
Check the green "Enable Rules to Send Notifications Emails" in the logic builder, and a first email rule will be created. Assigning conditions is the same as for rules in show/hide logic discussed above, but each rule creates a specific notification.
"Send email to" allows you to choose the user email from a form field, or to "Set Custom Address" and enter a council email.
From the "Using email template:" dropdown, select "Custom," which will allow you to specify all elements of your email.
From name, reply-to email, and from email should be entered as you would for basic notifications. You can customize the subject and content of the email by adding Merge Tags, which populate data from your form fields like name and amount due. Click the button below to learn more.
Merge Tags Lookup
Merge Tags allow you to insert form data into the subject line and content of emails to customize your message to the user. For example, "Dear (user's first name), we will have your (entered size) shirt awaiting you at the (event name)."
To use merge tags, click on one of the "merge tags" links at the bottom of either notification box. A pop-up will appear with a dropdown listing all of your form's fields. Select the name of the field you want to use, and its tag will appear after "Merge Tag -->." Copy the tag, including both curly brackets, and paste it wherever you want it to appear in your notification.
For example: "Dear {element_2_1}, we will have your {element_32} shirt awaiting you at {form_name}."
Each message in the logic-based notifications settings will allow you to indicate if you would like to delay notifications until paid. This is handy for notifications being sent when online payment is optional - see the offline payment methods page for details.
Rules to Display Success Page
Rules effecting the Success Page are useful for giving special follow-up instructions to users based upon their entries. For example, units registering for a single day may not need to review all the policies that apply to units registering for an entire weekend. Conditional success pages can also direct specific users to expect an invoice or mail a check (see Setting up Offline Payments).
By default, users will see a form's standard success page (set up in Advanced Form Settings) upon submission. Success page rules create variations that users see instead of the default when conditions apply. The conditions themselves work as described above in "Rules to Show/Hide fields." Success messages can include HTML and JavaScript code, and use merge tags as described in "Rules to Send Notification Emails." An external website can also be used by selecting "Redirect to Page" and entering a web address.