What this tab controls
Seven groups: Marking, General, Confirmation, Collection, Access and tracking, Clinical measure and Danger zone. Clinical measure is explained in Scored measures. Every control saves on its own — there is no Save button on this tab, and the save state in the top bar tells you when it landed. Collection is the exception: a change to the window is an act you confirm, because it changes what a person following your link meets.General
How a link knows who is answering. With Collect email addresses or Limit to one response per person on, somebody who opens the form’s link is asked for Your email address at the top of the form, unless the form already has an email question — then that question is the one they answer. The form cannot be sent without an address, and a temporary inbox is not accepted. The address is kept with their answers. Somebody you sent the form to by invite is never asked: the invite already says who they are.
One response per person means one per email address. Nobody is sent a code to prove the address is theirs, so a person determined to answer twice can type a second address. When you need to be sure who answered, send the form by invite instead — see Send a form. Someone who tries a second time with the same address is told a response has already been recorded for it, and to contact your practice if something needs to change.
A copy goes out only when the respondent ticks the box, and only to the address they typed into the form’s first email question. It carries no score. After they submit, the confirmation says whether the copy was sent. To keep a particular answer out of copies, see Build a form.
Confirmation
Collection
When the form collects, and what happens to a late answer.
Close, Reopen, Schedule and Extend deadline each ask you to confirm, and the confirmation names the effect rather than describing it in general — “Close now — 3 invites are still open; their links will show the closed message”. The numbers are counted before you are asked.
Reopening a form that closed on its deadline asks whether the deadline moves too, because otherwise it closes again on the next submission.
Close now and Open for responses on a scheduled form take it off its schedule. The confirmation says so first, and the button reads Take off schedule and close or Take off schedule and open.
The badge at the top of Collection shows the form’s real state, including At plan limit and Paused · unusual traffic, which depend on your plan and on recent traffic rather than on the dates you set.
Invitations follow the close date. On a scheduled form, an invitation’s link stops working when the form closes, even if it was sent with a longer life. Move Closes later, or switch the form back to open-until-you-close-it, and those links get their own expiry back. With no deadline set, an invitation and its reminders name the close date as the day to answer by.
Access and tracking
Patients only offers the form to every patient of your practice who signs in to the patient portal, while the form is open. With One response per person on, it leaves a patient’s list once they have answered it. With it off, the form stays on their list after they answer — showing when they last did — so they can fill it in again, up to any limit on attempts you set. To ask one person rather than everyone, send it to them — see Send a form.
Marking
Appears once the form has questions carrying marks. It holds the pass mark, when marks are released, how much of the marking the respondent sees, the time limit, and Attempts allowed. Attempts allowed is how many times one person may answer. Every attempt is kept as its own response — a later one never replaces an earlier one, and nothing is deleted. When somebody takes it more than once, count decides which attempt stands for that person in the results: Their latest attempt (the default), Their best attempt, or The average of their attempts. It changes the score spread and the pass rate on Summary, not the responses themselves. Two things switch it off, and the tab says so where you set it:- Limit to one response per person in General is stricter and wins outright.
- A form that does not know who is answering cannot count anybody. Turn on Collect email addresses — somebody opening the link is then asked for their address — or send the form by invite. We will not identify people by their connection to enforce a limit.
Danger zone
Last on the tab, and it holds one action. Archive stops the link opening and takes the form out of the list. Responses already collected are kept and stay exportable, and Restore brings the form back as a draft. Answers are never deleted. They are clinical records and are held for seven years. The clinic owner can remove an archived form that nobody has answered and nothing uses — no invites, no uploaded files, no notes, not sent with appointments — with Delete forever in its three-dot menu on the Forms page. A form with any of those stays archived, and you are told why. See Delete a form for good.While the clinic is out of office
An Out of Office block for the whole clinic has an Online forms during this time setting that applies to every public form and web inquiry form:- Keep accepting responses (the default) keeps forms open and shows a notice at the top, for example: “The clinic is away and back on Mon, Oct 12. You can still send this form, and it will be reviewed when they are back. If this is urgent or an emergency, call the clinic or your local emergency number.”
- Close online forms stops new responses until the block ends. Opening a form shows This form is closed while the clinic is away, with the day you are back. Someone already filling one in when the block starts sees “This form stopped accepting responses while the clinic is away”, with the day you are back and the urgent-care line, and keeps what they typed.
Set it up
1
Open the Settings tab
From the forms list, open the form, then select Settings in the tab strip.
2
Decide how respondents are identified
In General, turn on Collect email addresses if you need to know who answered, and Limit to one response per person if one answer each is the rule. Allow editing after submitting lets someone come back and correct what they sent.
3
Write the two messages
Under Confirmation, put your own wording in What the respondent sees after submitting — a next step is more use than “thank you”. Then write What it says once it stops accepting responses, which is what a late arrival reads.
4
Set your own cap, if you want one
Stop after this many responses takes a whole number. Clear the box to remove your cap.
5
Check what is recorded
Leave Require a bot check on unless you have a reason not to — on a Public or Patients only form it cannot be turned off. Record the sender’s IP address is on and Record an approximate location is off — turn the second on only if where an answer came from actually matters to you. Both location settings are on the Essential plan and above.
6
Decide whether to ask for an exact location
Leave Ask for an exact location off unless you genuinely need it. If you turn it on, write Why you are asking — nothing is asked until you do. Respondents see your reason and a button on the last page, above Send; their browser asks their permission, and refusing changes nothing about the form. An exact location is kept with the response for 90 days and then removed automatically.
7
Put the form on your own website, if you want to
Add each website’s address to Allowed embed domains, one per line —
*.example.com covers subdomains but not example.com itself. Then select Share in the top bar and choose how it appears — In the page, or Floating button with its Position, Button text and Button colour — and copy the snippet under Embed on your website into your site. An in-page form appears where you paste the snippet; a floating button appears in the corner you chose on every page that carries it. The snippet grows the form to fit as people answer it. If your website will not run scripts, open If your website will not run scripts for a plain version — that one is a fixed height, so set it tall enough that the Send button is never cut off.Embedding is on the Team plan and above.8
Watch the save state
The top bar goes Saving… and then Saved. If it says Not saved, the reason is beside it and in a banner under the tabs.
What changes once you save
- These settings belong to the form, not the practice. Changing them on one form changes nothing on another, and nothing in Notifications or any other practice setting.
- They apply the moment they save, on a published form as well as a draft. The questions are frozen into a version when you publish; these settings are not, so you do not have to publish again to change one. See Publish a form for what publishing does freeze.
- Show a progress bar is the one you can see straight away: open Preview on a form with more than one section and the bar is there or not.
- Stop after this many responses is your own cap and is separate from your plan’s. On the Free plan, a form also stops at 100 responses — see Change your plan.
- Nothing here changes who on your team can open the form. That is role and permission — see Staff permissions.
Check it worked
Leave the tab and come back to it. Every switch is where you left it, the two message boxes hold your wording, and the top bar reads Saved. Open Preview on a form with more than one section to see the progress bar setting take effect.Common issues
A respondent is told a response has already been recorded for their email address
A respondent is told a response has already been recorded for their email address
Limit to one response per person is on, and a response with that address is already in. If they need to change an answer, turn on Allow editing after submitting so future respondents get a link back to theirs — or, for this person, correct it together with them. If two people genuinely share an address, send each of them the form by invite.
The link asks for an email address I did not add
The link asks for an email address I did not add
Collect email addresses or Limit to one response per person is on, and the form has no email question of its own. Add an email question if you want the address asked as part of the form, or turn both off if you do not need to know who answered.
Every control is greyed out
Every control is greyed out
Either you have read-only access to this form — the banner reads “You can look at this form but not change it” — or the form is archived, which cannot be edited at all. Changing settings needs the Create and edit forms permission.
Not saved, with a message under the tabs
Not saved, with a message under the tabs
A settings change is saved with the rest of the form, so a problem anywhere in the form stops it. The banner names the first problem. Fix it on the Questions tab and the state returns to Saved.
I cleared Stop after this many responses and want to be sure
I cleared Stop after this many responses and want to be sure
An empty box means no cap of your own, not a cap of zero. It cannot be set to zero.
I wrote a confirmation message but the default one still shows
I wrote a confirmation message but the default one still shows
Check the save state first — an unsaved box has not reached the form yet. An empty What the respondent sees after submitting falls back to “Thanks — your response has been recorded.”, and an empty closed message falls back to “This form is no longer accepting responses.”
I cannot find logic, marking or design
I cannot find logic, marking or design
Logic and Automation are tabs of their own in the tab strip. Design is the paint button in the top bar. Marking is a group on this tab, and it appears once the form has questions carrying marks.
The two location switches are off and greyed out
The two location switches are off and greyed out
Recording where a response came from — approximately or exactly — is on the Essential plan and above, and the line under each switch says which plan your practice is on. A form that had either switch on before a plan change keeps the setting, but no location is recorded with its responses until the plan includes it again. See Change your plan.
A form stopped collecting on its own
A form stopped collecting on its own
It received an unusual burst of submissions in a short time, so it paused itself rather than keep accepting them. Your practice gets a notification naming the form. Look through the latest responses first — a burst is often automated — then open the form’s Settings and select Reopen. If the burst was genuine, turn on Keep collecting through a burst of submissions for that form.
A form says it cannot accept files right now
A form says it cannot accept files right now
Your clinic has used its storage for files attached to forms and signature requests. The allowance is 1 GB on Free, 50 GB on Essential and 250 GB on Team; Enterprise has no limit. You get a notification when 80% is used and again when it is full. The person filling in the form is only told the form cannot take files right now and to contact you — never anything about your plan. Upgrading raises the allowance at once, and an owner or manager can instead buy a storage pack from the Forms page, which adds more for a month without changing the plan. See Storage and envelope packs and Change your plan.
I turned on Ask for an exact location and nobody is being asked
I turned on Ask for an exact location and nobody is being asked
Write Why you are asking. Nothing is asked until you do — respondents read your sentence in the moment they decide whether to share, so it is the whole request as far as they are concerned, and a request with no reason is one nobody can agree to.
A respondent says they were never asked for their location
A respondent says they were never asked for their location
Their browser may not be able to answer. A page opened inside another app, or one not served over a secure connection, has no location to give, and the request is hidden rather than shown as a button that cannot work. If they refused once, their browser remembers — only they can change that, in their own browser settings.
My embedded form shows a refusal instead of the questions
My embedded form shows a refusal instead of the questions
The website is not on the form’s Allowed embed domains list. Add its address here, exactly as it appears in the browser’s address bar, and reload the page. An empty list means the form cannot be embedded anywhere, which is the setting’s starting point on purpose.
The embedded form has its own scrollbar and I cannot see Send
The embedded form has its own scrollbar and I cannot see Send
You are using the plain version, which is a fixed height. Either raise its height, or use the snippet Share offers first — that one grows the form to fit as people answer it.