What forms are for

Forms let you collect information from people: a registration, an application, a survey, or feedback after an event. You build the questions once, share a link, and every answer collects in one place.

Two ways to use a form

A form can either belong to an event or stand on its own.

• An event form is linked to an event. Everyone who registers for the event fills it out as a required step before their registration goes through, so you can ask what you need up front.
• A standalone form is not tied to any event. Use it for a call for speakers, a membership application, or a general survey. You create it from the community admin panel: open Forms under the Communication group and press Create form.

The event a form is linked to is decided when the form is created and never changes after that: you can't add an event later, and you can't move the link to a different event. If you need a different link, create a new form.

Your plan caps how many standalone forms you can keep, and drafts count toward that number. Forms linked to an event are unlimited on every plan. The Forms page tells you when you're close to the cap or have reached it.

Adding a form to an event

In the event's admin panel, open the Event form page under the Registrations group. If the event has no form yet, the starting points are listed right there on the page:

• Copy one of your forms: pick one of your community's forms and press Use. The questions, texts and theme come along; the closing date doesn't. The copy is named "{event name} event form", which you can change.
• Create from a template: pick one of the templates below, or Blank.

The editor opens as soon as you choose, with the event already set as the form's link. A form created here can't be saved as a draft; once you publish it, it becomes this event's form.

When the event has a form, the page shows a card with the form's title, description and its list of questions. Below it are the Edit form and Open public form buttons. In the Responses section under the card you read the answers that came in; the details are in Reading form responses.

For an event that sells tickets, the form is filled on the event page while getting a ticket: once per attendee, before payment. That's why the form's own link takes people to the event's ticket page, and the button reads Open the event’s ticket page.

Start from a template

When you create a form you can start from a ready-made template or from blank. If your community already has other forms, a Copy an existing form list appears at the top as well. The templates are:

• Basic attendee info: name, email, phone, and consent.
• Workshop / session: adds experience level and dietary restrictions.
• Networking event: adds company, role, and LinkedIn.
• Call for speakers: talk title, abstract, format, and speaker bio.
• Call for sponsors: company, package, budget, and goals.
• Marketing-friendly: a "how did you hear about us?" question and a marketing consent.
• Post-event feedback: a rating plus open questions on what worked and what to improve.
• Blank: start from scratch.

Whatever you pick, you can change every question afterward. The details are in Building a form.

The Forms page

The top of the Forms page shows four figures: total forms, those accepting responses, those linked to an event, and Drafts. That last one counts saved drafts together with copies kept in this browser that haven't been saved yet. Below them are two tabs: Live for published forms and Drafts for those not published yet. Once you have more than one form, you can search the list by name, filter it by status and by event, and sort it by name or by last change.

Each row says which event the form is linked to, with its date, or that it is a Standalone form. On the right of each row you'll find:

• how many answers came in, and a switch that turns the form on or off,
• a Share form button that gives you the link and a QR code,
• a menu with View form, Edit form, Duplicate form and Delete form.

Clicking a row opens the form's responses. Clicking a draft opens it in the editor instead; a draft's menu has Publish in place of View form.

Sharing it and how people fill it out

Every form has its own public link. With Share form you copy the link or download its QR code. The share window also says who can open the form and who can answer it.

Opening a form doesn't require an account: anyone who clicks the link sees the questions and can start filling them in. An account is only needed to send it, so that there is a real person behind every answer. The top of the form shows whose form it is (a community or a venue), how many questions it has and, when it can be estimated, roughly how long it takes, plus the deadline if it has a closing date.

Someone who isn't signed in reaches the end of the form and finds the Google and email sign-in options where the submit button would be. Google keeps the page alive, so the form sends itself once the session lands. Email sign-in leaves the page, but what they typed isn't lost: the answers are kept on that device and come back to the form on the way in. The sign-in screen says so too.

The same saved copy helps if something goes wrong: if the tab is closed by accident or the browser crashes, the half-filled form comes back. To start over, press Clear form; you're asked to tap once more so nothing is wiped by accident.

On a shared computer, what one account left behind stays with that account: once it signs out or its session ends, or someone else signs in on that browser, the answers it kept there are cleared rather than shown to the next person.

If the form is split into pages, people move between them with Back and Next. If a page is set so it can't be left until its required questions are answered, Next stays disabled until they are.

When the link belongs to an event's form, the event is shown above the form and the person is asked to confirm they want to register for it when sending. Sending also registers them for the event, and the thank-you screen says You’re registered for the event!

After sending, the person sees a thank-you screen with a recap of their answers, so they know it went through.

Your details, filled in for you

When you're signed in, the form writes your first name, last name, email and phone from your account into the matching questions. Those fields carry a Filled in from your account note.

If you've filled in forms on Gathin before, the same questions are filled with your earlier answers and marked Filled in from an earlier answer of yours. For a question that asks about the same thing in different words, the answer isn't written in; it's offered under the empty field after From an earlier answer:, and a tap puts it in. None of this overwrites what you typed, and you can change all of it before sending.

If you've filled in a form before, the form tells you; sending it again saves a new answer. View my answers shows your earlier one. If the form allows one submission per person, it can't be sent a second time and shows You have already filled out this form.

My form answers

Every form you've filled in stays in your account. Open Settings from the user menu and choose My form answers. Each row shows the form's name, the date you sent it and how many questions it had; a form that no longer takes answers is marked Closed, and a deleted one Form deleted.

Clicking a row opens every question and answer from that submission in a side panel. If the form is still open, Open form at the bottom takes you back to it. If the list is long, Show More loads older ones.

Closing a form

You can close a form to new answers by switching it off, which sets it to Passive. Its public link then shows a "no longer accepting submissions" notice. If you gave it a closing date, the form closes itself when that time comes.

A form that is linked to an event keeps working inside that event's registration flow even while its public link is closed. The list shows this as Closed to its link · open in the ticket flow.