Building forms
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.
The welcome screen
The welcome screen comes before the first question. It's optional: select Welcome at the top of the question list and give it a title or a message to turn it on. Leave both blank and the form opens straight on the first question.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Title and message | Typed into the preview, like a question. |
| Button label | The button that starts the form. "Start" if you leave it blank. |
| Show how long it takes | Shows an estimate such as "About 2 minutes", worked out from the question types you've used. Turn it off if you'd rather not promise. |
| Picture or video | Shown with the welcome text. See Design and branding. |
Under the button, respondents also see how many questions there are and, if the form is encrypted, a note that personal answers are encrypted.
A few things to know:
- The welcome screen isn't a question. Nobody's response is created until they answer the first question, so people who only look at the welcome screen show up as views in Insights and not as responses.
- A respondent who is resuming a response skips it.
- It can't recall answers, since nothing has been answered yet.
- On a form set to All questions on one page, the title and message head the page instead of coming before it, and there's no button. Leave the title blank and the page is headed with the form's name. See Layout.
Endings
An ending is the screen a respondent sees after their last question. Endings are listed under the questions in the builder.
A form with no ending of its own shows a built-in thank-you. Select Ending to write your own title and message, and to add a picture or video. The ending can quote answers, like "Thanks, {{answer:name}}!", from any question in the form.
Several endings
Choose Add ending to add more, up to 10. The first is the default: it's where respondents land when they run out of questions. The others are only reached through logic: a rule's Then go to can name any ending, so a quiz can finish on a different result for each answer, or a qualification form can thank some people and invite others to book a call.
If you delete an ending that a logic rule pointed at, that rule is pointed at the default ending instead, so its conditions aren't lost.
Redirecting instead
Set Redirect to on an ending to send respondents to another website instead of showing the screen, for example your booking page or a discount code. The link must start with https://.
The link can carry answers, using the same {{answer:…}} and {{hidden:…}} tokens as answer recall: https://example.com/book?email={{answer:q_email}} fills in the respondent's email. The easiest way to get the right token is to choose Insert answer in the ending's message, then move the token it adds into the link. Answers are encoded, so they can't break the link or change where it goes.
Redirects also work when the form is embedded: the whole page moves on, not just the frame.
After the ending
Every ending (except a redirect) offers Submit another response, which starts the form again from the beginning. On the free plan, it also shows a small card inviting respondents to make a hootform form of their own, beside the Powered by hootform badge.