What form builder can build forms with 50-60 form fields?
Day later EDIT: Consensus seems to be that there isn't a turnkey solution. Right now I'm busy writing a simple HTML page styled with bootstrap. I'm trying to get it looking as close to my spreadsheet as possible. Someone should sell this as a plugin too google sheets. Provide a Google Sheets plugin that takes you through a wizard to control which columns/rows in the google sheet map to which fields in a form. Use the Bootstrap extensive horizontal form/inline form controls Bootstrap 4 provides. I'm using the hell out of documentation here: https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/components/forms/.
Yes, I know, all of them. But which ones do it gracefully?
My service requires users to give me ~30 numeric clothing measurements and a matching tolerance value. That's ~60 values they have to provide. That's actually not to bad if presented in a spreadsheet, but it's (visually atleast) daunting if presented in a Typeform/Google Form style one by one question/answer format. Think about it: 60 questions. I'm good at spreadsheets so I built one that would do what I want in google sheets. This will all make more sense if you see this screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/wvwzvbx.png
But the process to fill that out and get me a copy is awful:
go to link
sign in to google account (can't copy the sheet without a google account)
File -> Copy
Enter their own values into the duplicate
Hope they know how to share a google sheet/have them download the sheet as a PDF/CSV
Email me the sheet
Typeform can handle that many questions, but who wants to fill out that many questions in a one by one fashion? DEFINITELY not my users. Earlier today I talked to a potential customer on the phone and his number one issue was time. Totally price insensitive (on the order of 5-20/mo). Really interested in my product. Hell, he asked to call me instead of email because he didn't have more than 20 minutes today.
I need to get this entry + submission process down to 5-7 minutes. My potential users would know the measurements I'm asking for (I know that's odd, but they do.).
I don't have a site up. My thing generates digests of clothing items that match certain measurement criteria. The plan was to get ~5 users initially, generate the reports on my computer, and mail them manually. I haven't deployed a real program/server before so I know that whole process will take 10-30 hours. I don't want to wait another 10-30 hours to validate if 5 people care about my emails in the first place.
I know this can be solved with a custom HTML5 form, but that will take me ~6-10 hours to develop/get hosted, and it will look gross (I'm not a design guy). Is this something Airtable can handle? I got a feeling it could do what I'm looking for but I couldn't find something similar to my use case in their template gallery.
As a side observation, if this doesn't exist, please go off and make this. I would pay for it. Effectively I'm looking for a way to publically host a damn google spreadsheet (no google log in) with a 'SUBMIT' button.
I was looking around, and apparently there are not so many options to handle custom form post requests. Maybe a good SaaS idea for anybody in here?
You can check this two:
https://formspree.io/ <- They are also open source, https://github.com/formspree/formspree
https://formsapi.jabwn.com/ <- Never tried them; I am very skeptical of people offering things for free
https://formden.com/ <- Never tried them, but they also offer to store the data, not only forward to your e-mail
So, I would try to build a form that looks like a spreadsheet and then submit to a form backed. I assume you don't have your own backed, right?
Right. No backend yet. I haven't deployed something before so I'm trying to put that off for as long as possible.
I really like formspree and I think I'll be using that today with a quick form hosted on a github page or something.
It seems https://www.rowshare.com/ is what you are looking for. A sharable spreadsheet with forms.
You should be able to do this with Google Sheets and some scripting that sends the data as an email:
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/articles/sending_emails
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/send-email-google-sheet-google-scripts/
Good links! I didn't know emailing a sheet was doable with only that much javascript. Do you know if, with some scripting, I can make an editable sheet public? With the sheet remaining blank after every use (so, basically, a form)? For example, I send a link to my blank sheet and a user can fill it in and email it to me WITHOUT having a google account or logging in?
I don't really know much about scripting in Google Sheets, sorry. But it seems reasonable that you could remove the spreadsheet data after sending the form via email.
Customers don't need a Google account to edit your Google Sheets. You just send them the share link and make sure to set the permissions for that link (via the sharing icon in the top right corner of your spreadsheet). You would probably need to write some code to prevent them from messing things up.
Do you have to accept all or one specific type of dress type. If it's a single cloth type then a custom form designed like wizard would be great bet. Also can any of the measurements be derived of the other ones ?
The value of my thing doesn't show up until most of those fields are filled out. But some of them can be assumed based on others. The green fields in that spreadsheet get populated when others are filled in, for instance. The user is allowed to overwrite them if they wish.
Ok. How about having the user interface designed in a wizard like model having a stye by step to get the input ?
So, a form that does several fields on the same page? 'Let's input your measurements for a suit, now let's do your measurements for a dress shirt..." etc, with a submit button at the end?
What form builder does that? Is there a web wizard creation tool like that? I really like that idea, but I wanted to get there without 8-15 hours of coding. (Not afraid of front end coding, but I'd rather spend it on backend functionality.)
There are jQuery libraries that can do this for you.
https://www.sitepoint.com/jquery-form-wizard-plugins/
However it does require some coding. I will search around and update you.
This comment was deleted 8 years ago
Hi,
I have a completely different idea. Forms are soooo yesterday, and you are correct that the experience is awful. So don't use forms. Why not build a little chatbot to ask the questions, get the answers, and store them in a back end spreadsheet? So many options to build a chatbot....try googling "chatbot is the new UI" and I'll bet you find something.
Actually I think the experience is pretty great if it's a questionnaire, just not a 60 question ...questionnaire. Chat bots reek of new-thing hype, to me, but I do like that idea. I'll look into it tomorrow!
Chatbots have a natural conversational flow and make it easier to ask your clients a set of questions, but that really doesn't apply to filling in a spreadsheet.
Only applies when your questions can be put in a format where you're having a "conversation".
Have you tried google forms? It’s really easy to use and the data can populate a google sheet for you and they don’t need to login.
I haven't seen a way to keep it from being one by one entry? I went to google forms first and was wholely unimpressed by how it looked to answer 60 questions. But yes, directionally correct. No more have-a-google account/copy/send to me shennanigans.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
I feel this way EXACTLY.
I am serious about it but I have more time than money. Thanks for the offer. I was thinking about designing a form as a spreadsheet while driving back home after posting this. I think your post put me over the edge.