Getting started
Overview
How to build, share and read conversational forms with hootform, from your first question to Google Sheets, webhooks and encryption.
hootform builds forms that ask one question at a time, or, if you'd rather, every question on one page. Respondents move through them like a conversation, every answer is saved the moment it's given, and logic skips whatever doesn't apply to them. You build forms in the dashboard; respondents never need an account.
Every plan includes unlimited forms and unlimited responses, and all 24 question types. Premium ($19 a month for a whole organization) adds AI features, deeper Insights, your own branding and a few other things; pages about those are marked Premium.
Where to start
- New to hootform? Read Create your first form. It takes about five minutes.
- Looking for a particular question? See Question types.
- Want different people to see different questions? See Logic and branching.
- Making a quiz, or adding up a total? See Scores and calculations.
- Asking people in more than one language? See Languages.
- Rather describe the form than build it? See Build with AI.
- Putting a form on your website? See Embedding.
- Want responses in a spreadsheet? See Google Sheets.
- Sending responses to another tool? See Webhooks.
How hootform is organized
An organization is your company or team, and it's what a plan is bought for. Inside it, workspaces group forms, for example one per department or client. Each form has four tabs in the dashboard:
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Build | Questions, the welcome screen, endings and the form's design |
| Logic | Where respondents go next, drawn as a map |
| Responses | Every response, AI summaries, Insights, AI insights and CSV export |
| Settings | Hidden fields, variables, languages, password, privacy, close conditions, SEO, email notifications, webhooks and Google Sheets |
Everything in the docs is below, section by section.
Getting started
- Overview How to build, share and read conversational forms with hootform, from your first question to Google Sheets, webhooks and encryption.
- Create your first form Sign up, build a form, publish it and collect your first response, step by step.
- What respondents see How a hootform form behaves for the people filling it in: one question per screen or all on one page, keyboard shortcuts, saving and resuming.
Building forms
- The form builder The Build tab: adding, editing, reordering and duplicating questions, autosave, and the checks a form must pass before it's published.
- Question types All the kinds of question a form can ask, what each collects, and how to choose between them.
- Welcome screen and endings Greet respondents before the first question, and finish on one of several thank-you screens or send them to another website.
- Logic and branching Send respondents down different paths based on their answers and hidden fields, skip what doesn't apply, and finish on different endings.
- Answer recall Quote a respondent's earlier answers, or a hidden field, in later question titles, descriptions and endings.
- Hidden fields Pass values such as a campaign, a customer id or a plan through the form link, and store them with each response without asking.
- Scores and calculations Keep a score or a total as people answer — grade a quiz, qualify a lead, price an order — then send people to an ending by it, show it to them, and read it in your responses.
- Follow-up questions Premium Dig deeper into an answer with a follow-up question, asked when an answer is vague or when it matches a condition you set.
- Design and branding Colors, fonts, alignment and corners, pictures and videos on any screen, and your own logo in place of hootform's badge.
- Footer links Put your privacy policy, terms and other links under every screen of a form.
- Languages and translations Write a form in any of the supported languages, then translate it yourself or with AI so people can answer in their own.
- Templates and AI Start a form from a ready-made template, or describe what you need and let AI write the first draft.
Question types
- Short text A single line of free text, for names, job titles, short answers and anything else that fits on a line.
- Long text A box for paragraphs, for feedback, stories, descriptions and anything that needs more than a line.
- Email An email address, checked as it's typed and encrypted when stored.
- Number A number, optionally between a minimum and a maximum, averaged in Insights.
- Multiple choice A list of options to pick one or several from, with an optional "Other" for anything you didn't list.
- Dropdown One option from a long list, shown as a compact select menu.
- Phone number A phone number with a country selector, stored in one international format however it was typed.
- Link A web address, such as a website, portfolio or social profile, always stored with https:// or http://.
- Contact info First name, last name, email, phone number and company, asked together as one question.
- Address A postal address — street, city, region, postal code and country — asked together as one question.
- Yes / No A single yes-or-no question, answered with one tap or key.
- Rating A score from 1 up to between 3 and 10, answered with one tap and averaged in Insights.
- Scale A numbered scale with labels at each end, including Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT).
- Ranking Put a list of options in order of preference, best first.
- Matrix A grid that asks the same question about several things at once, with one answer per row.
- Date A calendar day, such as a birthday, a start date or an event day, optionally between two dates.
- Date range Two dates, a start and an end, for stays, trips, leave and availability.
- Date & time A day and a time together, for appointments, deliveries and bookings.
- Time A time of day, such as a preferred call time or an arrival time.
- Consent A checkbox for agreeing to terms, a privacy policy or marketing, which records exactly what was agreed to.
- File upload Let respondents attach files such as a CV, photos or documents, up to 10 per question.
- Signature A signature drawn with a finger, a stylus or a mouse, stored as an image with the response.
- Question group Several questions asked together on one screen, under a heading of their own, with one button.
- Statement A screen with text and no answer, for introductions, section breaks and instructions partway through a form.
Sharing
- Publishing and sharing Put a form live, update it safely, share its link, and close, reopen or delete it.
- Version history Premium Look back at earlier versions of a form and restore one, and what happens when two people save at once.
- Embedding Put a form on your own website inline, as a popup, as a slider from the side, or filling the whole window.
- Passwords and close conditions Keep a form to the people you give a password to, and stop taking responses automatically on a date or after a number of responses.
- Search and link previews Premium Choose how a form appears in search results and when its link is shared, or keep it out of search engines.
Responses
- Responses Read every response, search and filter them, find partial and duplicate ones, download a single response as a PDF, and export them all to CSV.
- Insights Views, starts, completion rate and time to finish for every form, plus drop-off and answer breakdowns per question on Premium.
- AI insights and summaries Premium Let AI read your latest responses and write up the themes, with quotes checked against real answers, or summarize a single long response.
Integrations
- Email notifications Get an email with the answers each time someone completes a form.
- Webhooks Send every completed response to your own server, Zapier, Make or any other URL as signed JSON, with retries and a delivery log.
- Google Sheets Send every completed response to a Google Sheets spreadsheet as it arrives, one row per response and one column per question.
Privacy and security
- Encryption How hootform encrypts identifying answers and uploaded files at rest, what stays readable and why, and how to turn it on or off.
- Deleting old responses Premium Delete responses automatically after a set number of days, or delete them one at a time.
- Spam and bot protection How hootform keeps automated junk and nonsense answers out of your responses without making real people solve puzzles.