There are many different reasons you might want to create an event form to gather data from potential attendees. A fellowship potluck meal is a good example. It's always useful to have an idea of how many plan to attend, but a form can allow you to collect far more information than that, including:
- Name of respondent
- Contact information
- An RSVP
- How many people is this person RSVPing for?
- What they intend to bring
- Whether they can help with set up and/or cleanup before and after the event
Below is an example of how you might set up a form for this kind of event.
First, make sure the event is on your calendar. For help with this, see Adding Events.
Next,
- Click the Forms
Icon to go to the Event Forms view.
- At the top of the page, click Add Form.
- You will get a list of existing events for which you can create a form, along with a calendar to select the date or date range for the event you are looking for.
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Select the event you want to create a form for, then type the name of the form you want to create at the top of the page, and click Submit.
- This will open the Edit Event Form view. It will fill in certain information by default.
- In the Header section, this includes:
- Form Name: the name you typed before clicking Submit.
- Event: The name and date of the event in question.
- Below that, two form fields are included by default:
- Name: Where the respondent can enter their name.
- Contact information: Where they can indicate how and where they prefer to be contacted about the event.
- In the Header section, this includes:
- You can then modify the form to customize it to your needs. In the Header section, click the Pencil in the upper-right corner to edit this section. You can change the Form Name here if desired, and:
- Fill in a Description with additional information about the event and/or the form.
- Click the calendar icon under "Expires After" to set an expiration date for the form, so it will not be available after the date of the event (or the cut-off date for a sign up/RSVP, for example).
- To collect the information listed above for a Potluck event, you can add, in addition to the default Name and Contact Information fields:
- An RSVP field.
- Click Add Field at the bottom of the list of fields.
- Select Rsvp
- Set the Label to RSVP
- Set the Prompt to "Do you plan to attend?"
- You may want to check the box to make this a required field.
- Click Save.
- A Headcount field.
- Click Add Field at the bottom of the list of fields.
- Select Headcount
- Set the Label to "Number attending"
- Set the Prompt to "How many will be attending?"
- You may want to check the box to make this a required field.
- Click Save.
- A field for what they will bring.
- Click Add Field at the bottom of the list of fields.
- Select Text or Rich Text.
- Set the Label to something like, "Bringing?"
- Set the Prompt to something like, "What will you bring (i.e. Entree, Side Dish, Dessert or Donation)?"
- You may want to check the box to make this a required field.
- Click Save.
- A field or fields for volunteers for setup and/or cleanup (you could create two yes/no fields, one for each option):
- Click Add Field at the bottom of the list of fields.
- Select Yes/No
- Set the Label to "Set up" (or "Clean up")
- Set the Prompt to something like, "I/we will help with setup" (or cleanup).
- Click Save.
- An RSVP field.
- You may want to add other fields as needed, and/or rearrange the order of the fields on the form. To do this, use the arrows to the far-right of each field's entry to move it up or down until everything is in the order you need.
- Once you've added and arranged all the fields as desired, you can click "Back to form" and copy the link to share so people can access and fill out the form.