Building a form
Creating one
Choose New form, give it a Form name, and choose what New contacts become: a Lead or a Client. Then choose Create.
Lead is right for almost everything. Use Client only for a form that goes to people you're already working with.
The name is for you, not the person filling it in. It also becomes the subject of the conversation each submission opens, so make it recognisable in Messages.
CoreHue opens the new form in the builder with five fields already in place: First name, Last name, Email, Phone number and Message.
What the builder holds
The form page is one card with three parts.
Form description. A line or two shown above the questions, to tell visitors what to expect. Optional, and worth writing.
Fields. The questions, in order.
Confirmation message. What replaces the form once they've sent it.
Changes don't save as you type. A bar appears at the bottom as soon as something changes, with Save and Discard. The form's name and the contact type live elsewhere. Change them with Edit form on the intake forms list.
The fields you can't remove
Every form collects First name, Last name and Email. Each carries a Required badge with a small lock, and hovering the badge explains why: "Always collected, so it cannot be removed or made optional." Without them a submission is an anonymous message you can't reply to.
Adding your own questions
Add item, the dashed button under the field list, offers three groups.
Contact information holds ready-made fields whose answers land on the contact record itself:
| Field | Saves to |
|---|---|
| Contact phone | Their phone number |
| Company | Their business |
| Street address, City, State or region, ZIP or postal code, Country | Their address |
| Message | The body of the conversation their submission opens |
Each of these can be added once, and drops out of the menu after that. Fields added this way show a Contact field badge, and their type is fixed.
This is the part worth understanding, because it saves you retyping. A Contact phone field means the contact arrives with their phone number already filled in. A plain Phone question from the Response fields group gives you the answer in the conversation. It leaves the contact record's phone empty.
Response fields are the plain question types:
| Type | Good for |
|---|---|
| Short text | A venue, a one-line answer |
| Long text | "Tell me about your day" |
| Single choice | Session type, budget band |
| Multiple choice | Which services they're interested in |
| Date | Their event date |
| Email, Phone, URL | Formatted answers, checked before the form sends |
| Number | Guest count |
| Yes / No | A straight question |
Content holds two blocks that aren't questions at all: Section heading to break a long form up, and Instruction text to explain something.
An intake form has no file upload. If you need pictures or documents, ask in your reply once the conversation is open.
Editing a field
Click a field to open it. You get:
- Question, the label the visitor reads. On a content block it reads Text
- Helper text underneath it
- Placeholder inside the box
- Options, on single and multiple choice
- Required, a switch
- Display logic
Reorder fields by dragging them, or with Move up and Move down in the field's menu. Delete is there too, on anything that isn't locked.
A form needs at least three fields and can hold up to 100. In practice, short forms get filled in and long ones get abandoned.
Display logic
Any question can be hidden until an earlier answer calls for it. Open the field, and under Display logic pick a Source question from the ones above it, a Rule, and a Value.
The rules on offer depend on the source question. A Multiple choice source offers Includes. A Single choice, Yes / No, Date or Number source offers Is and Is not. Every other source offers Is exactly, Is not and Contains. A line under the three fields spells the finished rule back to you in words.
A field with logic on it carries a Conditional badge in the list. Clear removes the rule and makes the field always visible.
Use it to keep the form short: ask "which venue?" only of the people who said they have one.
Your confirmation message
What someone sees after submitting, under the heading "Your form has been submitted!". Write something specific: when you'll reply, and what happens next.
The box takes formatting. The toolbar above the box has bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, lists, a link and a Variables menu. Client's first name drops their first name in where the cursor is, so it reads properly. See Filling in names automatically.
The default is polite but generic. Replacing it is five minutes well spent, because it's the first thing anyone experiences of how you work.
Keeping it short
The most common mistake is asking everything you'd like to know instead of what you need to start a conversation.
You don't need their full brief on the form. You need enough to reply intelligently. Ask for the rest once they're talking to you, which is easier for both of you.