The form builder starts from what you need to know, not from input boxes. Every question you add already knows where its answer is stored in your Hive, so you don’t map fields once the form is built.

For the input types a question can use, see Form field types. To change a form that is already live, see Edit a published form.

Open the forms list

Click Engage in the sidebar to see all your forms. Each form shows its name, status (Draft, Published, or Archived), and what it records. Use Submissions to review its responses. Creating/editing forms and reading submissions require separate access permissions.

Create a form

1. Click New Form.

2. On What is this form for?, pick the closest fit:

   Starting point	What the form starts by asking
   Blank form	Nothing. You choose every question yourself
   Recruit regular givers	Name, email, postal address, a monthly amount, Gift Aid and marketing permission
   Take donations	A one-off gift, with the amount up to the supporter and Gift Aid offered
   Sign up volunteers	Name, email, phone, and a message
   Take event bookings	Name, email, and a message you can reword for booking details
   Newsletter sign-ups	Name, email and a clear permission to email them
   Membership sign-up	Personal details, postal address and an annual payment
   Contact us / enquiry	Name, email and their message, logged on their timeline
   Update supporter details	Name, email, address, and permission questions; contact matching uses the submitted email

3. Click Continue with (your choice). The form is created as a draft and opens in the builder.

The starting point only decides what the form begins with. You can change everything afterwards. These are question presets: Take event bookings does not create a booking in Events, and Membership sign-up does not issue a Memberships record. Check What gets recorded for the records your form will actually create.

The donations preset offers Gift Aid but does not initially ask for an address; add the address before publishing. Consent presets still need you to choose your organisation’s purposes. The regular-giver preset offers both Card and Direct Debit, so either complete both provider connections or remove the method you will not use.

Find your way around the builder

• Across the top: the form’s name, its status, and the Save draft and Publish buttons. Once a form is published you also get Embed and Archive.
• Five panes: Questions, Money, Permission, Style and After submission. Money and Permission can show an amber dot for unresolved setup; the Publish dialog lists the full set of checks.
• On the right: a live preview. It uses the same renderer as the published form and updates as you edit.

Note: Your content edits stay in the builder until Save draft succeeds or you confirm publication in the Publish dialog. Opening that dialog alone does not save. Renaming the form is saved separately. If you leave before saving, unsaved content edits are lost.

Name the form

Click the form’s name at the top of the builder to rename it. The name identifies the form in the forms list and is normally its public heading. Older forms with a separate title show that title instead. Renaming does not change an existing web address.

Choose what the form asks (Questions)

To add questions:

1. Click Choose what you need to know (on an empty form) or Add something you need to know.
2. In What do you need to know?, search (try “birthday” or “where they work”) or browse the groups: About the person, How to reach them, Where they work or volunteer, About this interaction, The gift, and Permission. Suggested for this form lists the likely next choices, and anything already on the form is marked Already asked.
3. Tick everything you want and click Add to the form.

Some choices add more than one box. Their name adds first and last name, and Where they live adds a single address block of four boxes.

The list only offers things your Hive can store, so no answer gets collected and thrown away. Custom fields aren’t offered yet, because form submissions can’t be written to them.

To change a question: click it. The side panel lets you set:

• What you’re asking: the wording the supporter reads. Change it to sound like you.
• Placeholder: faint example text inside the box (optional).
• Options: for a dropdown, one option per line, in the order they appear.
• Must be answered: whether the supporter has to fill it in.
• Where the answer goes: the record and field the answer is written to. Each field can only be fed by one question, so fields already in use aren’t offered again.

Each question also shows where its answer goes as a label on the question. Click the label to change it.

To reorder a question: drag it by the grip handle on its left. From the keyboard, focus the handle, press Space or Enter to pick the question up, move it with the arrow keys, and press Space or Enter to drop it (Escape cancels). You can also select the question and press Alt ↑ / Alt ↓, or use Move up / Move down in its More actions menu.

To copy or remove a question: use the More actions menu on the question.

• Duplicate: the copy keeps the wording but has nowhere to put its answer yet, because two questions writing to the same field would overwrite each other. Choose where it goes before you publish. You can’t duplicate the gift or the permission tick box.
• Remove.

Tip: A question that says No home yet has nowhere to put its answer. The form can’t be published until you give it a destination or remove it.

Take money (Money)

Click Take a gift on this form to add a gift, then answer three questions:

• How much? Either The supporter decides, with optional suggested amounts and a minimum and maximum, or A fixed amount. New payment questions default to GBP; this pane does not currently expose a currency selector. You can offer plain suggested amounts or choose gift handles from your organisation’s library. Gift handles in another currency, outside the amount bounds, or since deleted are not offered. At least one selected gift handle must remain usable to publish in gift-handle mode.
• How often? Once, Every month or Every year. Tick Let the supporter choose to show both a one-off and a regular option on the form.
• How can they pay?
  • Card payments go through Stripe. Stripe must be connected and able to take charges before the form can be published. An administrator completes onboarding; Pending review is not ready to take charges.
  • Direct Debit goes through GoCardless and is only offered to supporters choosing a regular gift. It needs GoCardless connected and an email address question on the form.

Tick Offer Gift Aid to include the built-in declaration. A Gift Aid claim needs the supporter’s home address, so if the form doesn’t ask for one the builder offers Ask for their address.

Card payment records use the amount, currency, and date confirmed by the provider, rather than a manually mapped answer. Direct Debit first starts a mandate sign-up: a processed submission does not prove the mandate was authorised or a payment collected. Check the contact timeline and recurring payment record; see submission statuses.

Ask for permission (Permission)

Click Ask for permission on this form, then choose:

• What are you asking permission for? Choose one or more of your consent purposes. Purposes are set up under Relationships → Configuration → Consent. If you don’t have any, the builder links you there.
• How may you contact them? Email, Mail, Phone, SMS or WhatsApp.
• How does the supporter say yes?
  • They tick a box on the form: the tick box starts unticked. A tick records a yes decision; an unticked or omitted checkbox records a no decision for its configured purposes and channels. You can edit its wording here or on the question itself.
  • Recorded for everyone who submits: records the configured decision without an opt-in tick. Check that this matches your organisation’s intended permission process before using it.

Use Ask for additional consent. for another request with its own purposes, channels, and checkbox wording. Use Remove this consent to remove one request. A question shared by several existing requests prompts for confirmation before removing all of them; use Permission to remove only one.

Each decision is recorded on the supporter’s record, dated and attributed to this form. Unticked boxes can therefore change an existing supporter’s permission; do not treat them as leaving it unchanged. Keep a contact email question so the response can be associated with the intended supporter. To stop asking, click Don’t ask for permission on this form.

Style the form (Style)

Set the primary colour, background colour, font, corner style (Square, Slight, Rounded or Pill), a logo URL and custom CSS. You can also enter your website’s address and click Extract from site to fill these in from your site’s own styles.

Choose what happens after submission (After submission)

Choose what the supporter sees once they have submitted:

• Show a thank-you: a message on the page.
• Send them to a page: redirect them to a URL, such as a thank-you page on your website.

Switching between these choices clears the previous message or URL. Enter the new value before saving.

What gets recorded summarises what each submission will create in your Hive. It is built from the questions you chose, so there is nothing to map here. For example, a contact matched on email or created, a touchpoint on their timeline, their gift, and their consent decisions.

Submitted answer values are retained on the submission. Descriptive text is display-only and submits no answer. A thank-you screen confirms the submission flow, not completion of every background CRM action.

Publish

1. Click Publish to open the checks dialog. This does not yet save or publish the form.
2. Anything that would stop the form working is listed. The form can’t be published until each one is fixed:
   • the form asks no questions
   • a question has nowhere to put its answer
   • the form asks for permission, but no purpose or channel is chosen, or your Hive has no consent purposes
   • the form takes a gift but Stripe can’t take charges yet
   • Direct Debit is offered but GoCardless isn’t connected, or the form doesn’t ask for an email address
   • Gift Aid is offered but the form doesn’t ask for an address
   • gift-handle mode has no selected handles, or none remain available for the currency and amount limits
3. Click Publish and get the embed code. This saves the draft, then publishes it. After success, use Embed to open the sharing options.

If Could not save appears, the changes were not saved and nothing new was published: stay on the page and retry. If Could not publish appears, the save succeeded but publication did not: retry Publish. For a previously live form, its old published content remains live while this is resolved.

Embed the form on your website

Once the form is published, click Embed. Then choose one of the two tabs:

• iFrame embed: click Copy snippet and paste the HTML into your website.
• Standalone URL: click Copy URL for a link to the form on its own page, for emails or social media.

Archive a form

Click Archive (only available on published forms) to take a form offline. Archived forms don’t accept new submissions. They stay in the forms list and their existing submissions are kept. An archived form can’t be edited or published again, so to reuse it, create a new form.