Templates and AI

Every new form starts from New form in a workspace, which asks What do you want to build? Describe the form and choose Build it to have AI write the first draft, or start another way: Start from scratch for an empty form, or Pick a template. Your form is named after its template or its draft (or "Untitled form"), and you can rename it any time.

Templates

hootform has 31 templates, grouped into Feedback & research, HR & recruiting, Events, Sales & marketing, Education & nonprofit. They include an NPS survey, a job application, event and webinar registration, a contact form, a wedding RSVP, a product recommendation quiz and more.

Pick a template opens the gallery: a card for each template showing its first screen, with a search box and a button per category. Point at a card for two buttons:

• Use it creates your form from the template straight away and opens it in the builder.
• Preview opens the template before anything is created. Try it runs it as a real form, so you can answer the questions, follow its logic and reach its endings exactly as a respondent would; nothing you enter is saved anywhere, and Start over begins again. All screens lays out every screen at once, drawn as the builder shows them. Choose Use this template when you've found the one.

Blank form and Build with AI sit at the start of the gallery too. A template you only previewed leaves nothing behind.

A template only gives you a starting point. Your form is a normal form from then on, with its own copy of the questions, logic, design and pictures. Change anything you like; nothing you do affects the template or other forms made from it.

Build with AI

In New form, describe the form in a sentence or two: who it's for and what you need to know. For example: "A feedback survey for people who attended our design conference last week, asking about talks, venue and whether they'd come back." The suggestions under the box fill it with an example to start from. Then choose Build it (or press Enter), and AI writes a complete draft: questions of the right types, choices, logic, a welcome screen and endings. You can also start from Build with AI in the template gallery, where the box is called What should the form do? and the button Build the form.

Depending on what you describe, the draft can also include:

• Scores. Ask for a quiz, a test, a lead score or a total — "A 10-question science quiz for class 5 that shows their score" — and the draft keeps a score variable, gives each right answer its points, and shows the result on the ending. Ask for something like "a special message for a perfect score" and it adds a second ending with the logic to reach it. Check the answer marked right on every question: AI can be wrong about facts.
• Follow-ups. Feedback and research forms may dig deeper on one or two questions, such as asking "What would have made it better?" after a low rating. Quizzes, sign-ups and contact forms don't get them. Remove any you don't want under Dig deeper in the question's settings.
• Contact details and groups. A name, email and phone asked together become one Contact info question, and a postal address an Address question. A few short, related questions, such as the details of a trip, may be put in a question group so they share a screen. Move a question out with its Group setting if you'd rather ask it on its own.

The draft is shown for you to review before anything is saved. Choose Create form to keep it and edit it like any other form, or change your description and choose Build it again. A draft you don't create leaves nothing behind.

What to expect from a draft:

• It always opens in the builder, but might still have something to fix before it can be published. Anything that does is flagged in the question list.
• It never includes pictures or videos, because AI can't know whether a link points at something real. Add your own.
• It's worth reading every question. AI is good at structure and wording, but it doesn't know your audience the way you do.

Your description is sent to an AI model to write the draft. Nothing from your existing forms or responses is sent with it.