Online forms are a wonderful way of collecting information: from potential adopters and volunteers, from community members who want help from your organization, or really, any purpose for which you need to gather contact information and other data. Online forms (primarily adoption forms) can save you enormous amounts of time over using paper forms or sending forms in an email. They enable your visitors to fill out the form and submit it to you without a phone call or email asking for a form, thus eliminating a step in the process and making it easier to adopt. You can set alerts to inform you when a form is completed, so you can immediately respond.

Using the Online Forms service, you can create custom online forms such as adoption, volunteer, and foster home applications. You can export a form as a PDF, and easily review forms submitted to you. 

You can view a video introduction to our Online Forms service:

Where do I find it?

From the top menu bar of your account interface, go to Features > Online Forms.



On this page:

Related pages:

The following table lists the actions available for Online Forms, along with the level of service where the actions are available and the associated user roles:

Admin

  • Sets up and configures online forms
  • Manages online forms questions
  • Manages steps for a submitted form
  • Can view all submitted forms
  • Can view all comments on submitted forms
  • Can comment on submitted forms
  • Can assign a submitted form
  • Can change submitted form status
  • Can contact applicant through form
  • Can complete a form for a contact
  • Can create, edit and run Online Forms reports with the Website Service
  • Can share blank PDF of online forms
  • Can edit submitted form answers

Manager

  • Can view all submitted forms
  • Can view all comments on submitted forms
  • Can comment on submitted forms
  • Can assign a submitted form
  • Can change submitted form status
  • Can contact applicant through form
  • Can complete a form for a contact
  • Can change Pass/Fail status of step
  • Can run reports with the Website Service

Online Form Reviewer

  • Can view all submitted forms
  • Can view all comments on submitted forms
  • Can comment on submitted forms
  • Can assign a submitted form
  • Can change submitted form status
  • Can contact applicant through form
  • Can run reports with the Website Service

Online Form User

  • Can view all submitted forms
  • Can view all comments on submitted forms
  • Can comment on submitted forms
  • Can assign a submitted form
  • Can change submitted form status
  • Can contact applicant through form
  • Can complete a form for a contact
  • Can change Pass/Fail status of step
  • Can run reports with the Website Service



Where to Start

We recommend these steps before you begin setting up your service:

  1. Review the Getting started with RescueGroups.org guide.
  2. Review this Getting started with Online Forms section.
  3. Review your organization's contact information for accuracy and as a refresher to you.
  4. Add your animals. For more information about adding animals, see the Animals section of this guide.
  5. Enable exports.
  6. Add volunteers.

Don't worry.  If this is all overwhelming, we're here for you!  You can open a support ticket with us at any time.

Introduction to Online Forms

Check it out

One of the nice features of our online forms is that if you require visitors to register on your website before filling out the form, certain information can automatically be captured for you, without you even asking your visitors the questions! These include their name, address, email address, and telephone number.

If you don't require visitors to register before filling out a form, no problem, we add all those contact information questions to the form for you.

Below is the information that you can collect from your visitors without even adding the questions to your forms.

Notice that you can check Collect to add the information to your form, or you can check Required to require your visitor to complete the field without moving on to the next question. Any of these fields will be added to your form automatically once you've checked them off. However, if you have selected Collect, the visitor is not required to complete that field. Any of the fields that you do not check as collected or required are not added to your forms.

We will walk you through the creation of your first online form, and then give you more details to customize your forms.

Need help creating your online forms?

If you would prefer to have us create your Online Forms, please open a support ticket, include your forms, and we will give you a quote.





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