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Feature Guides

Forms

April 2022 Update: Due to recent attempts to hack the site through the Brightspot forms, please make sure to add CAPTCHA to all forms that are created OR put the form behind CAS authentication.

A form is a content type built-in directly to Brightspot. Forms are useful for signing people up for an event, collecting a survey, or automatically setting up an event with the Event Forms.

Setting up a Form

A form must be setup on a page. To find the form, scroll down on the right side till you see Content. Click on Add button underneath content and then in the window that comes up, find the three form tabs.

Brightspot by default gives default forms to start out with and customization can be made after. There are two types of default forms, Contact Form and Event Form.

Contact Form

A screenshot the default contact form

This is the default contact form that Brightspot gives you. As seen you can have a form for whatever text you would like. Contact forms are most useful for general information. For example, a sign-up page or a place where someone can contact a department head.

Event Form

A screenshot of the event form

Event forms are more useful for planning events that are being used as a survey of some sort. If you would like something along these lines, use the event form as it will give you more relevant choices by default.

Form Details

While there are a few different form default options to choose from, all forms can use the same text boxes, checkboxes, long answer fields, and a few more.

Text Boxes

Screenshot of the text options

Text fields give a few options to choose from.

Date Field: This will give an option for the user to put in a date. When the box is clicked a calendar will drop down and the user can select a specific date.

Email: The user will be required to put in an email address. If an email address is not written, the user will not be able to submit and an error will come up.

Long Text: This is used for short answer questions or paragraphs that the user needs to type out.

Phone Number: Similar to the email box, a user will need to enter a phone number before they can submit the form.

Short Text: This is the default option that will be for most basic forms.

Multiple Choice Boxes

Another option to have on the form is a multiple-choice box. There are a few options for this as well.

Screenshot of the multiple choice boxes

Checkboxes: These will allow the user to select multiple options when given a question. You just need to set up what the options are.

Dropdown: Dropdowns will give the user a dropdown option to select from a list of options that is dropped down for them.

Radio Buttons: Unlike checkboxes, these will allow the user to only choose one option out of the ones given.

Advanced Options

There are a few more options that forms give you to add to the form.

A screenshot of the form options specific for the boxes

Captcha Field: A Captcha prevents bots or scripts from running through and filling out a survey multiple times automatically without being stopped. It verifies that a human user is actually the one filling out the survey. Brightspot supports Captcha and it's possible to add, however, you or someone in the department must have a Google Rechapta account and have the key setup in Admin -> Sites & Settings -> Front-End -> Captcha. Without this account, it will not work!

File Upload Field: This will allow a user to upload a file and attach it to their form. You may choose the file type they should upload, as well as if they can upload a single file or multiple files.

Group: A group will look similar to the actual form itself, but it allows for more organization throughout the form. You can give the group a name and organize questions within that particular group to help the form flow smoother.

Actions

A list of the actions within the form that can be added

Actions are what the form will do once it is completed by the user. Brightspot gives you four actions that can be taken.

Data Collection Action: This is one that is usually good to have defaulted. All the information can be saved on a single CSV file. This will simply save the results of all users who complete the form to the CSV file which can be found in the submissions tab in the form content.

A list of the email options you have under the send email action option in form

Email Action: Email action will send an email to anyone and can be modified to include the form information. This can be a little tricky. When creating the body you can use the results from the form to populate information. For example, in a survey, I have someone fill out their first name, and the text box is called "First Name". Brightspot will change that internally to a parameter called "first-name" (as will be seen in each forms item header). In my body I can say "Hello ${first-name}" and whatever the user typed for "First Name" in my form will be replaced by the parameter code ("${first-name}") e.g "Hello Susan". This can be used for all text boxes that were given in the form.

Employee Auto Action: Employee and Email actions are nearly identical. If Brightspot detects that a user is logged in, it will detect their email automatically and send the email you created to the connected email. Hence, that spot does not need to be filled out.

External Submit Action: This one is only applicable if there is another way your department collects data. It either will be through another source or an API. This is uncommon.

Create Event: Create Event will only show up on event forms but it will create an event instantly using the information provided.

Receiving Data

Once your form is set up and published on your site, Brightspot will automatically save the results of the form for you as a CVS file that you can download directly from your page.

Screenshot of the submissions part of a form

To find and export this data go to the form in your page content. Side scroll until the Submissions option comes up. Under the submission tab, there will be an Export CSV option. This will download a CSV file (similar to a spreadsheet) on your computer to see all data that was taken from the form that was created, assuming your data collection was turned on (as mentioned above)