Build Your First Form -- A Step-by-Step Tutorial

This tutorial walks you through building, publishing, and reviewing your first form in TimelyChurch. By the end, you will have a working Visitor Connection Card that you can share via QR code, link, or email -- and you will have reviewed your first submission.

Estimated time: 10 minutes.

What You Will Build

A simple visitor card that captures:

• First name and last name
• Email address (mapped to the Person profile so it auto-syncs)
• Phone number
• "How did you hear about us?" dropdown
• Optional comments

When someone submits the card, a Person record is created automatically (or matched if it already exists), an email notification goes to your admins, and the visitor sees a "Thank you!" page.

Step 1: Open the Forms Module

1. Sign in to your TimelyChurch admin portal.
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click Forms.
3. The Forms list page opens. If this is your first form, the list will be empty.

Tip: If you do not see "Forms" in the sidebar, your role may not include the Forms module. See 12-form-permissions.md for permission setup.

Step 2: Create the Form

You have two options here -- pick one:

Option A: Start from a Template (recommended for first-timers)

1. Click Templates (top-right).
2. Pick Visitor Connection Card from the gallery.
3. The form is created with all the fields below pre-built and ready to publish. Skip to Step 4.

See 11-form-templates.md for the full list of templates.

Option B: Build from Scratch

1. Click Create Form (top-right).
2. Fill in:
   • Form Name: Visitor Connection Card
   • Description: Welcome! Tell us a bit about yourself so we can follow up.
   • Form Type: Contact Form
3. Leave settings at their defaults (Require Login: off, Allow Multiple Submissions: off, Send Confirmation Email: on, Notify Admins: on).
4. Click Create & Add Fields. You are taken to the field editor, with the form canvas in the center and a field palette on the left.

Step 3: Add Fields

From the left-hand palette, click these field types in order. Each one drops onto the canvas:

To map a field to the Person profile: click the field to open the slide-over editor, scroll to Profile Mapping, set Maps to Model = Person and pick the matching field from the dropdown. See 04-mapping-fields-to-profiles.md for the full reference.

When you are done, click Save in the top-right of the builder. The "Unsaved" indicator should disappear.

Step 4: Configure Sync and Notifications

1. Click the Settings tab.
2. Confirm Profile Sync Mode is set to On Submit (the default). This means new visitor data is written to your People database immediately.
3. Confirm Notify Admins is on so you get an email for each submission.
4. Optionally add custom Notification Recipients (e.g., your follow-up team's shared inbox).
5. Click Save Settings.

See 05-profile-sync-settings.md for sync mode details.

Step 5: Publish the Form

1. Back on the form's main page (or from the editor), click the Publish button.

2. The status badge changes from Draft to Published.

3. The public URL appears in a highlighted Public Form Link card (with Copy Link and Open Form buttons). It looks like:

   https://your-domain.com/c/your-church/forms/visitor-connection-card

Step 6: Share It

You have three quick options -- pick whichever fits your situation:

• QR code: Click Share to open the share modal. Print or screenshot the QR code for bulletins, signage, or projectors.
• Direct link: Click Copy Link and paste it into an email, text, or website link.
• Email blast: Click Email in the share modal to open your default mail client with a pre-composed message.

For embedding on your church website, see 08-embedding-forms.md.

Step 7: Test It Yourself

1. Open the public URL in a private/incognito window so you are not logged in as an admin.
2. Fill out the form with realistic-but-fake data (use your own email so you can see the confirmation).
3. Submit. You should land on a "Thank You!" confirmation page.
4. Check your inbox -- you should receive both:
   • The confirmation email (if Send Confirmation Email was on).
   • The admin notification email (sent to all church admins because Notify Admins is on).

Step 8: Review Your First Submission

1. Back in the admin portal, click the form's name to open it.
2. Click View Submissions to open the submissions list. Your test submission appears.
3. Click the submission row to view the full detail.
4. Notice:
   • Status: Pending Review (every new submission starts here, even when sync mode is "On Submit").
   • Linked Member: A new Person was created (or matched), shown with a View Member Profile link.
   • A Synced badge shows when the submission's mapped fields were written to the Person profile.
5. Click Approve to mark this submission as reviewed (purely organizational -- the data is already saved).
6. Optionally click Sync to Profile to manually push any mapped fields to the Person record again.

For deeper workflow options (rejection, bulk actions, exports), see:

• 06-managing-submissions.md
• 09-approval-workflows.md

You're Done -- What's Next?

Now that you have one form working end-to-end, here are sensible next steps:

• Add more forms -- duplicate this one as a starting point, or pick another template from the gallery (11-form-templates.md).
• Set up custom notification recipients -- route different forms to different teams (e.g., Prayer Requests -> prayer team) (07-form-notifications.md).
• Map custom Person fields -- if you have custom Person fields defined for your church, drop them into a form and they will sync just like the built-in ones (04-mapping-fields-to-profiles.md).
• Embed on your website -- drop the form into an iframe on your public site (08-embedding-forms.md).

Troubleshooting

The public URL shows "Form Closed." The form is either still a Draft, has hit its submission limit, or the close-on date has passed. Check the form's status badge and the Submission Limits section under Settings.

I submitted the test, but no email arrived.

• Confirm Notify Admins is on under Settings.
• Confirm at least one church admin user has a verified email address.
• Check your spam folder; if your church uses queued email, delivery may be delayed a few minutes.

No Person record was created. The system needs at least an email or a first name + last name to create a Person. Make sure those fields are filled in and that Sync Mode is On Submit (or trigger a manual sync from the submission page).

The Payment field didn't charge me. Paid forms collect card payments through Stripe, so your church must have Stripe connected first (Settings -> Church -> Integrations). If Stripe is not connected, the payment step cannot start. See 03-form-field-types.md for how the Payment field works.