Form Page Follow-up
It has really been amazing to see how much this feature has been used (and commented on) already. During the first three days (two of which were over the weekend), you guys created over 1000 forms! To be honest, we didn’t realize how much demand was out there for this.
Because of that, and because of your vocal responses, we decided to start working on a reports feature right now. We planned out the details this morning and I think it’s going to be a really nice additional feature. It’ll give you an excel spreadsheet of all the submissions that will be accessible at any time.
Next to the reports feature, the most requested thing by far is the ability to add a form without having to devote a whole page to it. This is a bit embarrassing to say, but we actually never thought about that until now. We’ve been giving it some thought, and we have a couple good ways we could do this, but either way will take some serious work to implement. We hear you loud and clear about how useful this would be, so we’ll keep considering how and when to do this.
As far as the other questions go, as usual, anything that we can do quickly, we’ll try to knock out asap. We already fixed the issue with the enter key inadvertently submitting the form, and we’ve made about a dozen other small fixes, too. There’s nothing like having 1000 people test out a product in three days.
For things like hidden/hard-coded text, rules that show/hide other form items, etc, we’d love to be able to add functionality like that, but it’s probably not something we’re going to do in the near future.
Payment processing is definitely something we would love to add. As always, if/when we add it, we want to get it right, rather than just adding a crappy quick fix. It’s not something we’re going to be able to do immediately, but we may tackle it in the future.
The truth with all the possible features is that we can only do so much at one time. The photo album feature is the next thing on the dock, so the more we go back and try to perfect the form page, the more the photo albums (and everything else) gets pushed back.
The good news is, though, that our development team is getting better and faster all the time. As we speak (or as you read?) we’re working on several projects at the same time, and as usual, we’ll show them to you as soon as we can!
Thanks for being such great fans and customers.
Posted on May 3rd, 2011 under Company News by Ben with 73 comments.
73 Comments
Form feature is a GREAT add!!! Thank you so much.
We’ve already added a few forms to our brand new site. Thanks for such a great feature!
We are loving the Form Page! We already have 2 up and are planning on transitioning to 100% online sign-ups for our events, etc. by the beginning of 2012. Thanks for making a great product–and for being in-tune with how you can make it better!
The form is working great! We just launched our new site yesterday and it works wonderfully. I’m excited for the other changes you are talking about with the forms, we use googledocs right now and it works fine but i would love to have it within our Cloversite.
Thanks for all the hard work! Picture pages will be awesome,
Love the Form Page! Do like the idea of not having a entire page devoted. We had been using Google to create forms which does have the report feature. Can’t wait to see the reports feature added. Thanks so much for listening and working to make improvements!
Ditto on the not having to require a whole page thingy, but hey, I’m still ecstatic about what you did give us!!
It worked GREAT for creating a “Personal Readiness” customer survey for getting a picture of one’s skill sets, experience, goals, self evaluation AND we managed to have a little fun in the process! Clover Peeps Rock!
Now, about that photo album… ((our twins are amateur photographers in Maui and after they saw what a Clover site can do, this is all I hear now!… “Pops! When’s the photo thingy comin’ out?”))
Guys, I love it! And it is perfect timing to get children registered for VBS this summer. Thanks for fixing the return key glitch.
Looking forward to the next feature, the photo album. That’s something we just discussed doing.
Praise God for how he is using you all at Clover.
Luv the Forms Page! Great Job! I’ve already added a couple forms to replace an email link. I am now excited about adding online VBS registration and volunteering! Thanks for all your hard work!
Love being able to creat forms, BUT I have two comments about how this is working that I wish you would address.
1) Creating a form means I must dedicate a whole page for this link. Being limited to 8 x 10 is cramping our style. I wish we could create forms and add them to whatever page we like.
2) When we create a form on a dedicated page, the form link ALWAYS appears at the bottom. I can’t adjust it to be anywhere else on the page. I find that people who have to scroll to find something, often don’t find the link to open the form.
Thank you SO much for adding this feature.
Have you figured out how to let us add multiple links to a single graphich when we’re using a large graphic on our home page?
I can dream can’t I?
Thanks Clover, you are doing great work. I’m happy to hear that there will be a report feature. Any possibility of being able to embed things on pages soon (i.e. like button, video)?
Hey John,
If your particular design has a layout option of text over an image, you can definitely do this! Absolutely. If not, for now, the one link per image will need to do:)
Hi Evan,
We don’t have any plans to change things where buttons and video are concerned, but you never know! We always take your ideas into consideration with our development.
Hopefully the ways things are now will continue to work out for you for awhile.
it is always good to work with a company like yours… one that listens. above all of your creative people… its that that makes you a company that stands out. thanks!
Aw, thanks John. What a great encouragement! We appreciate the feedback.
Love the forms. I had a comment by some folks in my church that the font is too small for them to read. Is there currently a way to enlarge the fonts? If not, will this be something you will be working on in the future? Thank you again for making our site great!
Great job! Keep up the good work
It’s great to be involved with a company that actually listens, so thank you.
Sure appreciate the forms option. We have an upcoming event that I added an attendance form to and have added a prayer request form. You make my job easier, thanks so much!
I love that you created this. We had already been using a third party form group and it was nice to know that we could streamline our forms with clover. I love that the forms will be hidden in the future so we don’t have to dedicate an entire page to them. All I have to say is good work and I can’t wait to see what you all roll out next!
Thanks for providing this. It really helps a lot. In addition to the spreadsheet download it would be good if the email contact is turned off if that is used. Also a cool feature would be to be able to lay out the fields like this reply paragraph is which is to the side of other fields. Or can it do that and I’m missing something?
Hey Matt,
We agree with you on the font size issue. I’m not sure exactly when this will be added, but it most likely will! Thanks for the suggestion.
You’re right Peter, this isn’t something you can do right now, and probably won’t be a feature we’ll be adding. Definitely feel free to use another resource for the forms you really need this though! That is always still a possibility.
Apreciate the note!
We are new to Clover, and need a form for our website so your addition is great! The reporting feature will be extremely useful as it will save us a step. One suggestion would be to be able to copy a form field and it’s contents, for example I have a multiple-choice field with 48 schools to choose from and I need this same field to appear 3 times on the form. Thanks for your hard work!
Thanks for the suggestion Amy! Not sure when this could be added but we think it sounds like a great idea too! Still trying to navigate just how many features to add and when, but we will definitely keep this in mind as we go! Thanks for the idea:)
Ben – so many ideas for uses flying around my head… having an option to include an image with text in a form would be SO cool. Any chance that could be considered for a forthcoming update?
We would love to be able to have forms that do not appear at all in the navigation. (I believe some call them “invisible pages”) Some forms we want to have people fill out, without having the general public have access to them.
Thanks so much! Loving the new stuff guys! We are recommending you to people all the time. Keep it coming!
Love the Form – SSSSSO Easy!! I can see our church using it for many event registrations – just put together our VBS registration form…it was a snap!! Thanks so much!!
From a highly conservative and reserved pastor: you guys freaking rock! (Ok, I’m not so conservative – LOL). You all need to know we almost spent extra money on a service that connects event forms, etc. to our clover site. This is a Godsend. And yes, once the financialart is connected it will be even more perfect. Thank you again for constant development. From a small church and a bivocational pastor who does a lot – like website ministry – this is a HUGE help and blessing.
Love the Form feature and all the information in this followup to the release. Keep up the great work!
Love the forms. Already started using them for online registration for my trips. I know payment processing is a hard thing to tackle, but I’m so glad it’s on your mind. If that functionality were added to the forms feature, and coupled with the ability to require payment when a form is submitted, I’d be able to handle all event registration and payment in just one click.
Thank you for being so awesome! You make my life tons easier!
Hey Jeff,
We like your idea (for the option of an image) but don’t know for sure that we would get to that any time soon. We are already working on the Photo Gallery feature and then some Form updates. . . but you never know!
Thanks for the idea though ~
Hey Travis,
We’ve actually had a lot of suggestions for invisible pages, so who knows! You may see this somewhere down the road with Clover. Don’t go holding your breath though, okay?
You guys rock! We have already added three forms and are thrilled that you are working on a reporting feature. It’s great to hear my boss tell me (several times now): “I can’t believe it took me 3 years to agree to go with Clover; I love our website and everything about it!”
Thanks Lynne. Glad you’re such a good influence on your boss!
Love the forms ability. Good idea to have capability of not having to devote a full page! Reports would be fabulous. Would love to have contribution capabilities. You guys do a great job, thank you!
Just want to say you guys are doing a fantastic job. That’s all.
Love the form feature! As always, you guys are the greatest!
Thanks Ella! So happy you’re using the new feature! You’re amazing:)
LOVE Clover! Thanks for listening to your clients…keeping us posted…and working hard to make a great product…we couldn’t be happier about clover and I recommend it to everyone I meet who wants a website
Also loving the forms – we added three the day you announced! Here’s another vote for:
– invisible pages (this is huge for us – not just with forms, either!)
- the ability to save a page when you’re done with it to use later (saving our Easter banner, for example)
Thanks again for all you do!
Thanks for the form Feature! We Want the Photo Album feature ASAP!
Form is working great! Any plans to make it available on mobile devices?
Well… you’ve outdone yourself yet again! The form pages are FANTASTIC! I got the e-mail announcing them and immediately created several for our site. Thanks so much!
I tell you… it’s great to know that if I ever have questions, I can call you and speak with an actual person! Above any features you offer, never lose that!
Thanks to Clover, we’ve seen a DOUBLING of site traffic to our church’s site. Thanks for making the Greenhouse so easy to edit!
Thank you for adding the forms, just what I needed! I was having to link to Google docs and I’m excited to do everything “in house”!
Looking forward to the photo albums!
Hey Adam,
Not really sure if that is in the plans, but now the developers have seen your suggestion! You never know:)
Looking forward to the photo album feature – very much so!!! Would love to have the option of adding more photos without having to do slideshows, changing from landscape to portrait layouts, etc. Can’t wait! And I love my forms!!
PLEASE – the option to insert PICTURES into the form. Many uses and likely many users…
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for the suggestion! Can’t promise anything on this one, but our developers have now seen your idea!
I can’t wait for a photo album feature and a payment processing feature… those both would be hugely helpful and awesome!
This Great. It would be very helpful is to be able for us to open up submitted forms and edit and print as needed.
Hey Kevin,
Once the forms are submitted, you can print them (and even edit them if you like). When it arrives as an email to you, you can print it, and if you need to edit something, simply ‘forward’ it to yourself and change the entries as needed!
Maybe that helps?
Luke rocks.
LOVE the form option! We’ve already used it twice in one week! Was wondering if you guys could add a duplicate box feature. I needed to re-type each choice in the pull down menu in order to have 8 of the same options available. It would have been GREAT to click on “copy” option so I wouldn’t have to duplicate it by hand. All in all, very easy to use and a great added feature to our site option! Thank you!
Hey PCJC,
Thanks for the idea. You’re not alone in your suggestion! We will definitely keep it in mind for the future upgrades!
Very excited about the forms!!! I concur with many others that I would LOVE to be able to have a form not eat up a whole page…and would also love to be able to repeat a box in the form… Would also love to be able to put two (or three) boxes side-by-side. But I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining!!
WE LOVE THE FORMS!!!!!!
You rock guys !!! We love it !!!
From France…
Cheers !!!
It would be awesome to link to a form from the calendar – as in, yes, I’d like to attend that function on that day, I’ll fill out the form that we’ll be there right from this calendar.
Hi Lori,
Nice idea! Can’t say for sure on that one, but I will most definitely pass it along.
I was very excited about the forms feature as we have been paying for third party programs. Some suggestions include many that have been listed above:
1 – not having to have a dedicated page – or allowing the page to be invisible
2 – having the ability to save a page or form and not have it published on the site all the time (right now, we’d have to create the form or page when we need it and then delete it when we don’t and then re-create it again the next time we needed that same form) this is kind of cumbersome
3 – would be nice to control where the link to the form is versus it being at the bottom of the page
4 – side by side fields would definately be nice
5 – ability to print forms and reports also a necessity.
Thanks so much for listening to all the suggestions.
One other suggestion or maybe question:
Can the form be emailed out to more than one person? A lot of our forms need to be sent to multiple ministry leaders.
Thanks!
Hi Sabrina! Yes, in your Settings you can add more email addresses if you like! The Settings button is in the bottom left corner when you’re editing a Form.
And we are definitely considering your other comments Sabrina. One thing that you might like . . . you can actually place the button for your Form (or Media Player, Calendar, or List) anywhere in your text box! Simply type in (button), click Publish, and the button will appear right where you placed it! You can even place it mid sentence if you like:)
Love the forms feature, is there any definitive eta for the forms being a “link” instead of having to dedicate an entire page? Just trying to plan how much time I should invest now, if the change is coming in the near future.
Love everything so far! Can’t wait until the photo album comes out!
Hey Nathan,
No ETA yet for our Forms feature being a link rather than a page, but we are definitely considering this option! We do agree it’s a great idea and we’re talking it through a bit. . . . we really don’t have any specifics on when (or if) this might be implemented though.
If it is an encouragement to you, please know that our heart is to transition things as smoothly as possible when adding new features. This would also prove true if we changed the Forms feature to a simple link down the road. We would do our best to make the change as seamless as we could (and hopefully transition forms you’ve already created if at all possible). Hopefully this helps you with your decisions.
Thanks for your excitement about it!
Hey guys,
First, thanks for the form pages, I’m currently making our first “foray” into these and the set-up is really sweet! About the only thing I wish is that we could adjust the size of fields and have them side-by-side. Lets put it this way, it’s kind of a bummer to set up an address field to have to have a dedicated line for City, State, and Zip Code, when all these could be easily added into one line.
Along those lines, maybe you guys could set up, in the custom form page an “address block” that would have a line (text box) for the street address, and then a second line containing a text box for city, a multiple choice for the states, and a 5 number text box for the zip? Just an idea…
Thanks for all the awesome work you guys do. We absolutely love our Clover Site!!!
This may have been mentioned already, but what is the possibility of being able to deactivate a form (and still save it for later) without having to actually delete it?
Hey Mary Beth,
We like this idea! Not sure when we might be able to get to this, but we do agree it would be a great feature.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi Josh,
We couldn’t agree with you more! We love your idea and hope to be able to add at least a part of this at some point soon. We’re definitely thinking an address block would be huge, and hopefully that won’t be too far down the road.
The side by side feature surprisingly enough is a bit more complicated that you might think. It really increases the complexity of the feature, so we’re not sure about that one. Great suggestion though.
Keep an eye on the blog and we will keep you posted!
The form page was a great addition. We are extremely happy with our Clover Site.
Any chance of the forms being usable on a mobile device? I can see some great benefits to that. For example, rather than filling out an attendance/communication card by hand at a church service each week, an attendee could just scan a QR code, be taken straight to the form, and fill it out online from their mobile device. It could improve sign-ups for different events such as small groups, because people would have one more easy access point through which to connect.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we’ve now launched the reporting feature. You can activate it in the settings screen of any of your form pages.
We’ll be working on other requested features as soon as we can. You can read about the newest things we launched here: http://www.speakingofclover.com/2011/06/two-new-features-social-links-and-form-reporting/
Any chance the submission emails being generated could come from the administrative email address on our site, rather than a don-not-reply Clover addy?
And when a visitor uses our contact form and includes their email, perhaps even says they would like to be contacted via email, why wouldn’t that form submission come from their actual email address?
These things are easy to do with PHP. I think they would improve the communication workflow for a lot of your customers…
Hey Nathan,
We almost did both of these things you’re asking about! We decided against them in the final stages but we most definitely will consider making the change down the road. Thanks for suggesting it!