Build a custom form

This guide shows you how to build a form — a volunteer signup, a committee application, a contact form, or a survey — by adding the fields you need, then publish it for people to fill out.

Who can do this: Admins with the Web Editor role (the website:edit permission). Without it, the New form button won’t appear.

Before you start

Decide what you want to collect — a name and email, a few questions, maybe a file.
You don’t need anything ready in advance. You can add and edit fields as you go.

Steps

In the left sidebar, select Website, then Forms.
Select New form. MapleGather creates a draft form and opens the form builder.
In Form name, type a name for your form — for example, “Volunteer Interest Form”.
In the Fields section, select Add field.
Choose a field type: Text, Long answer, Dropdown, Multiple choice, Checkboxes, Multi-select, Date, File upload, or Signature.
In the field’s Field label, type the question you want to ask.
To make an answer mandatory, turn on Required.
For a Dropdown, Multiple choice, or Multi-select field, select Add option once for each choice you want to offer.
To reorder your fields, drag a field by its handle or use the Reorder field control.
Repeat steps 4–9 for each field you want. To remove a field, select Delete field.
In Form settings, type the Confirmation message people see right after they submit.
(Optional) In Send a lifecycle email on submission, pick an email to send each person who responds, or leave it set to None.
Leave Require bot check turned on so a security check blocks spam on your public form.
Select Save.
When the form is ready to go live, select Publish.

Select Save as you work. The builder also keeps a local backup of your form every few seconds, so if your browser closes, crashes, or the network drops mid-build, you won’t lose your fields.

Each response also adds or updates a contact in your members list (matched by email), so responses flow straight into your database — you’ll see this on the submissions screen.

Every form has its own web address (a short name called its slug, shown under Form settings). You can share that address directly, or add the form inside a page — open the page editor and choose the Form block. See Create a web page with blocks.

When you’re finished with a form

You have two choices, and neither one loses the responses you’ve collected.

Archive a form you’re retiring for good. On the Forms list, open the form’s menu and select Archive, then select Archive form to confirm. The form comes off your website and stops accepting new responses, and everything it already collected stays available under View submissions. The form keeps its place in your Forms list with an Archived badge; set the list’s Status filter to Archived to find archived forms quickly.

Unpublish a form you only want to pause. Open the form in the form builder and select Unpublish at the top of the page. The form comes off your website and goes back to Draft, ready to publish again.

To bring an archived form back, open it from the Forms list (select Edit in its menu), change Status under Form settings to Draft or Published, and select Save. An archived form has no Publish button at the top of the builder — the Status setting is how you restore it.

Forms can’t be deleted. Archiving is the way to retire one, so the answers people gave you are never thrown away by tidying up your forms list.

Verify

You’ll know it worked when the form’s status changes to Published and the form appears in your Forms list with a Published badge. Open its web address in a new tab to see the form the way a visitor will.

If something goes wrong

“Restored unsaved changes from …” appears when you reopen the form — this is your local backup after an interrupted session. Select Keep to bring those edits back, or Discard to reload your last saved version.
“Another form already uses this address” — a form’s web address (slug) must be unique. Change it under Form settings and select Save again. Your other edits are kept.
“Couldn’t save — your edits are still here” — a save didn’t go through, but nothing is lost. Wait a moment and select Save again.
“This form has no fields yet” — you tried to publish an empty form. Add at least one field first.
The security check still shows after you turn off Require bot check — a form with a File upload or Signature field always shows the check, because file uploads are protected either way. This is expected.
The builder is read-only on your phone — form building needs a larger screen. Open the form on a tablet or desktop to add, reorder, or edit fields.