Creating and Editing Registration Forms

Contents

• Create Registration Form
• Editing Your Registration Form 
• Previewing Registration Form on Event Registration Page
• Editing Form Fields
  • Display
  • Form Data
• Limit Registrants to Certain Email Domains
• Component API
• Standard Fields
• UTM Tracking
• Custom Field Components
• Hyperlinks

Your event Registration Form must be set up before you open registration for your event, as the form appears on your event Registration Page and allows people to RSVP to your event.

Create Registration Form

To create a registration form:

1. Log in to Goldcast Studio with your credentials.
2. Click the hamburger icon on the top left, and select the Events tab to get a list of all your events.                              
3. In the Events List, click on the event you’d like to edit.
4. Navigate to Registration > Page & Form on the left of the screen.                                         
5. Scroll down to the Registration Form section.
   • If you have created your event from scratch, the Registration Form displays default fields: Email, First Name, and Last Name.
   • If you have created your event from a template, the Registration Form displays the fields you saved in your template.
6. Click Edit on the right side of the Registration Form to add, remove, and rename fields, etc.
7. Click Save.

IMPORTANT:

• The fields Email, First Name, and Last Name are always required. Drag and drop additional fields from the Standard column to the page pane based on your requirements. For example fields such as: Company, Job Title, Linkedin URL, etc. 

Editing Your Registration Form 

Adding a Field

To add a field, simply select it from the fields list, then drag and drop it into your form.

Editing a Field

To edit a form field, hover over it, select its edit icon (). A window will appear. From here you can make changes as-needed. See the Editing Form Fields section below for in-depth instructions on editing fields.

Moving a Field

To move a field within a form, hover over it, select its reposition icon (), and drag it to reorder your fields.

Duplicating a Field

To duplicate a field, hover over it and select the copy icon (). A new duplicate icon

() will appear to its left. Select this icon to complete the duplication process.

Deleting a Field

To delete a field, hover over it and select the red delete icon ().

See the section Editing Form Fields below for in-depth instructions on editing your registration form.

Previewing Registration Form on Event Registration Page

Once you have finished creating a registration form to your event, you will want to preview it on the Registration page for your event before sending event and registration info to potential event guests.

To view the registration form:

1. Log in to Goldcast Studio with your credentials.
2. Click the hamburger icon on the top left, and select the Events tab to get a list of all your events.     
3. Navigate to the Registration --> Page & Form section.
4. Click the arrow hyperlinked next to the Registration Page button. The registration page opens.
5. Alternatively, you can also click the Registration Page tab on the left of the screen to view the registration page.                                                                                                   
6. Click the Register CTA to view the preview of the form. 

Editing Form Fields

Display

The following are a list of Display settings offered by the Form editor.

Label

The name or title for a component.

Label Position

The position of the label for that field. The following position options are available:

Placeholder

The placeholder text that will appear when this field is empty.

Description

The Description is text that will appear below the input field.

Tooltip

Adds a tooltip icon to the side of this field.

Prefix

The text to show before a field. For example, adding a "dollar sign" ($) before a field for questions about spending. Prefixes are not included in your submission data.

Suffix

The text to show after a field. For example, adding "years" after a field for a question about years of experience. Suffixes are not included in your submission data.

Widget

Widgets are the display UI used to input information into a field. Widgets are frequently used with the following Field Components:

• Text Field
• Select
• Time

Input Masks

An input mask helps the user with input by ensuring a predefined format. For a phone number field, the input mask defaults to (999) 999-9999.

Allow Multiple Masks

This setting will allow you to set multiple input masks for the field. The mask is selected by the user via a dropdown list and will dynamically switch the mask for the field when selected.

Hidden

The hidden field setting hides fields once a form has been rendered, while still allowing them to capture form submission data. 

• Enabling this setting is particularly useful for hiding a field and automatically filling it with URL parameters. For example:
  • If an Organizer wanted users to register for their event using a specific email, they could do so by hiding the Email field and sending out personalized registration links that include registrant emails. Once a link is clicked, its associated email would then populate the hidden Email field automatically.
• The image below uses an Email field that has not been hidden to demonstrate how this process works.

Show Word Counter

Displays a live count of the number of words that have been entered into a field.

Show Character Counter

Displays a live count of the number of alphanumeric characters that have been entered into a field.

Hide Input

Hides the input when viewing a form from the front end browser. While the input may be hidden, the information itself will not be encrypted once a form has been submitted. As such, you should not use this field for passwords or any other sensitive information.

Allow Spellcheck

This setting will enable spellcheck for a field.

Disabled

Disables a field on a form. You may wish to use this feature in instances where a field is no longer necessary after a certain date. Disabled fields are indicated by a greyed-out field that does not accept any input.

Form Data

URL Parameters

URL Parameters are used to collect information about how users interact with a webpage. In this situation, these parameters are specifically used to collect data about user form-field responses.

• Organizers may wish to use URL parameters to create customized links for their event registrants that pre-fill registration fields with basic information such as their first name, last name, and email. This can be accomplished by adding URL parameters with defined values to the end of a registration link.

Values

A value can be defined as any piece of data pertaining to a form field. Examples of values include:

• Default Values
• Radio and Select Box response options
• Data Source Values 

Default Values

Default values are values that are automatically populated into form fields when a user first visits your registration page. The Default Value field is available for all form components.

NOTE: Assigning a Default Value to a form field will override any Placeholder text you have entered.

Data Source Values

Data Source Values are values that are used as a data source for Select components.

The information entered into Label fields is what will appear in the Select dropdown while information entered into the Value fields is the data that is sent to the Goldcast database after a registration has been processed.

Text Case

The Text Case feature can be used to automatically change the case of any alphabetical text that is entered into a field.

Clear Value When Hidden

When this feature is enabled, any value entered into a form field will be deleted when the field is hidden. This feature is particularly useful if you are using conditional logic, as fields may toggle between visible and invisible depending on the rules you have established.

Validation

The validation tab is where you set requirements and conditions that must be met for a field input to be accepted. 

Required

Fields with this checkbox enabled are required to submit a registration form. 

Validate On

This feature is used to determine when and how frequently information entered into a field is tested for validation. It is particularly relevant if you are using a regular expression pattern or any of the minimum or maximum length requirements to establish rules for a valid field entry. This feature has two options:

1. Change - Runs a test for validation every time a new character has been entered or deleted from a field.

2. Blur - Waits until the user has finished entering information into a field to run a validation test.

Minimum & Maximum Length

The minimum and maximum length fields can be used to set requirements for how long or short a field input can be. 

• Minimum and Maximum Length can be used to establish the minimum and maximum number of characters that can be in a field response.
• Similarly, Minimum and Maximum Word Length determine the minimum and maximum number of words that can be in a field response.

Limit Registrants to Certain Email Domains - Regular Expression Pattern

The Regular Expression Pattern field allows you to establish a set of rules that a field value must pass in order to be considered a valid entry on your Registration form.

• This field may be useful for organizers planning company events that can only be attended by staff members. For example, the regular expression pattern below is structured so that an Email field can only accept email addresses ending in goldcast.io: 

If a user enters an email address that doesn't match the criteria outlined in the regular expression pattern, they will receive an error message. If the address does match the criteria, it will be accepted.

Regex can also be used to ban email domains from registering. In the example below, when an email with a Gmail or Yahoo domain is entered, the verbose error message in the Custom Error Message input will show and not allow the user to complete the registration process. 

NOTE: The regex example above is case sensitive and only bans the domains if they are entered in lowercase. The regex can be modified to make it not case sensitive, but a simpler solution is going to the Data tab and selecting the Lowercase Text Case option. This will force emails entered to lowercase.

Error Label

Error messages for invalid responses incorporate the field label by default.

Text entered into the Error Label field overrides and replaces the field-label text. 

Custom Error Label

Custom Error Labels allow you to create custom error messages for form fields. Unlike the Error Label field, any text entered into this field will override the default error message entirely.

Component API

The Property Name of a field, rather than its Label in the Display tab, is what identifies data collected from the field during registration. Imagine the fields on your form as buckets and every registrant as someone who walks by and drops a piece of information into each bucket. The Property Name is the name of a bucket and is used to retrieve the information dropped into it. 

When data from the form field is submitted, it will be stored in Goldcast's backend under the property name you have chosen. Additionally, it will also be used as the column header for the data collected by this field on the Registration details table in the pre-event dashboard and the registrants table in your event's registrants tab.

If you want these column headers to show up with spaces in them, use underscores in your Property Name where you want the spaces to appear.

The Property Name on a standard field component is preconfigured and connects to an existing Goldcast property name. We recommend you don't change the Property Name on a standard field.

If you are using a custom field component, you can change the property name by going to the API tab in the form component settings. You can either connect the field to an existing Goldcast property name by using one of our Standard Properties, or if no property matches your use case you can can create your own. Because the Property Name is an identifier, be sure to make it succinct and unique.

Note: The Property Name field is case-sensitive.

Conditional Components

Conditional components require an API Property to be configured. Any form component can use conditional logic to determine when to hide or display itself. The settings for a conditional field are configured on the component itself, and can be found by viewing the Conditional tab within the components settings.

The conditional logic is based on the following rules:

• Each field can be hidden or displayed
• Field visibility is dependent on another component defined within the form
• The logic is activated when a value is entered into the configured field that meets the criteria you've defined in its conditional logic settings.

For example, let's say you are having a Hybrid in-person / virtual event and would like to collect information on the dietary restrictions from in-person attendees only. In this scenario, you would start off by creating a Radio field that asks registrants how they plan to attend your event.Pay attention to the Value field for each response, as you will need this information in the future.

Additionally, you will also want to make note of the components Property Name, as it will make searching for the correct form component easier later on. This information is located in the API tab.

Once you've added the Radio field to your registration form, your next step is creating either a Select Boxes or Radio component, prompting registrants to specify their dietary restrictions.

Once you've set up the field, navigate to the Conditional tab and complete the following steps:

1. Select True from the This component should Display dropdown. This will keep the field hidden on your Registration form until the conditions you are establishing have been met.
2. Next, use the API property name mentioned earlier to search the form and select the appropriate form component from the When the form component dropdown.
3. Finally, since you would only like this field to display for in-person registrants, enter the "inPerson" value from the Radio field into the Has the value field.
4. Click the Update button to apply these changes.

Once this process has been completed, you may wish to repeat it for any follow-up questions. In this scenario, the follow-up question will only apply to those with dietary restrictions not listed.

 

Once you've finished, verify that your conditions have been set up correctly from the Registration page for your event.

 

Standard Fields

First & Last Name

The First and Last Name fields are where registrants can enter their full name. Both fields are required by default. While their API Property Names cannot be changed, all other settings can be customized as needed.

Email

The Email field is where a registrant should enter their email. Once they have done so, it will then confirm that the email address is valid. This field is required by default. While its API Property Name cannot be changed, all other settings can be customized as needed.

Company, Job Title, and Industry

The Company, Job Title, and Industry fields are where registrants can list their professional title, company affiliation, and relevant industry.

The Industry field is a dropdown component and comes preconfigured with a list of industries. You can add, remove, or modify Industries from the dropdown in the Data tab.

LinkedIn and Twitter URL

The LinkedIn and Twitter URL fields accept and confirm that a valid profile URL has been entered for each respective field.

Phone Number

The Phone Number field by default accepts a standard 10 digit American phone number.

You can change this component to accept different formats by changing the Input Mask of the component.

Age

The age field is a numerical only field that will only except characters 0-9. This field can be used to get the age of a registrant.

Location Fields

The location related fields can be used to get location information from a registrant.

The location fields include the following fields:

• Street Address
• Address Line 2
• City
• State
• Zip Code
• Country

For example, if your event is shipping out a swag package to registrants, you can use the location fields to get all the pieces of a customer's shipping address.

Country

The Country dropdown provides a list of countries. Registrants may select one country from this list.

Under the Data tab, you will find a list of Data Source Values. These values determine what countries appear in your dropdown.

If you would like to add an additional value that is not on the list, simply scroll to the bottom of the tab, select the Add Another button and add your value.

• Label – What the text that will appear in your Countries dropdown.
• Value – The information that will be sent to the database for your Goldcast Org.

UTM Tracking

UTM codes track the performance of campaigns and can be used to gain a better sense of the factors that contributed to people registering for your event. Once UTM data is collected by Goldcast, it can be sent to any platform integrations you have installed along with other registration information.

Our form builder allows you to track the following UTM parameters:

• Campaign – utm_campaign
• Source – utm_source
• Medium – utm_medium
• Content – utm_content
• Term – utm_term
• Creative – utm_creative
• Region – utm_region
• Keyword – utm_keyword

Tracking Custom UTM Parameters

You can also create custom form fields to track UTM Parameters that our standard fields don't cover. To do this, drag and drop the Hidden field from the Custom section of the component library on the left.

The field editor will automatically open after this. Write an apt label for your UTM tracking field. This field will be hidden on your rendered registration form, so the label will just be seen in the form builder.

Next, click on the data tab and enter the UTM Parameter that you want to track. Say you want to track a UTM Parameter utm_purpose. The data tab for your UTM Purpose tracking field should look like this:

Adding utm_purpose to the Url Parameter input makes it so this form field tracks the variable assigned to the utm_purpose URL parameter in your registration page's url. E.g. If your registration page url is "www.registration.goldcast.io?utm_purpose=marketing_campaign" then this form field would have the value "marketing_campaign".

Note: Data collected from a custom UTM tracking field will not be automatically sent to your downstream integrations. Please reach out to Goldcast Support if you want to set up a mapping between your custom UTM tracking field and one of your integrations

Pronouns

The Pronouns field is a dropdown component with options He/Him, She/Her, They/Them, and Other. Like any dropdown component, you can add, remove, or modify the options from the Data tab in the field editing interface.

Data Share Consent

The Data Share Consent field is a checkbox field that can be used to ask registrants for approval to use and share the data collected on them through the event with third parties. If you are looking for opt-in consent from event goers to share their data, use this form component.

Visa Required

The Visa Required field is a checkbox field that may be used if you are putting on a hybrid event and have international event goers. Someone traveling across borders to come to the in-person part of your event may need a temporary Visa to travel to the event. You can use this component to see which of your registrants need Visas to travel.

Dietary Restrictions

The Dietary Restrictions field is a dropdown component that collects information on registrants' dietary restrictions. This may be used if you are putting on a hybrid event and will be serving food at the in-person component of your event. You can add options to the dropdown in the Data tab after opening the field editor.

If you're worried about not having options for all sorts of dietary restrictions, you can make it so a text field shows on your form when a registrant selects the "other" dietary restriction option.

To do this, drop the Text Field form input from the Custom section of the component library right after the Dietary Restrictions field on your form. Label this component something like "Please list your other dietary restriction(s) here".

Next, click on the Conditional tab. We want this form field to display when the Dietary Restrictions component has the value "other". The configuration for this condition is shown below

An "other" form field will need to have a separate mapping set up to send data to integrations. Contact your CSM for help setting this up.

Accessibility Needs

The Accessibility Needs field is a dropdown that lets you see if any registrants have accessibility needs that you can accommodate. Like any dropdown field you can add, remove, or edit options in the dropdown in the Data tab of the field editor.You can also conditionally display a text input for registrant's that select "other".

Look at the steps for conditionally showing an "other dietary restrictions" text input above or Conditional Components section of this guide to get an idea of how you can do this for accessibility needs.

Registrant Type

The Registrant Type is a dropdown field that lets you categorize registrants into different groups.

Maybe you want to differentiate customers and prospects that register for your event. You can create two registrant types in this component: customer and prospect and registrants will select which they are.

In the Goldcast registrant data tables you'll then be able to sort and filter on each registrant type and even send out unique email communications to each registrant group.

Additionally you can create form questions that display conditionally based on a registrant's type. This will allow you to ask each registrant type different questions and collect different information from each registrant type. See the Conditional section on this help doc to learn how to show forms fields conditionally.

Custom Field Components

Text Field

A Text Field can be used for short, general text input.

Text Area

A Text Area has the same options as the Text Field form component; however, Text Areas have a multi-line input field that allows for longer text.

Number

Number fields can be used when a field needs to be limited to a type of number value.

Phone Number

The phone number form component can be used to enter phone numbers in a form.

Password

The password field has the same options as a text field component; however, the field will display asterisks when a value is entered.

Select

Select displays a list of values in a dropdown. Registrants can select one of them.

Select Boxes

Select boxes can be used when you'd like to give Registrants the option to select more than one answer to a question.

Radio

Radio buttons allow registrants to select one value from a list of options.

Checkbox

The checkbox component accepts text values and can be "checked" or "unchecked" by users filling out your registration form.

Hidden

A hidden field is still a part of the form; however, it is not visible on the form itself. Our UTM Tracking fields were configured using this field component.

URL

The URL component accepts and confirms that a valid URL has been entered based on the parameters setup in the Validation tab.

Date / Time

The Date / Time form components can be used to input dates, times, or both dates and times.

Day

The Day component can be used to enter values for the Day, Month, and Year using a number or select type of field.

Time

The Time component can be used to input time using different time widgets you would like to use.

Input Type
The type of Time widget can be selected between HTML5 Time Input and Text Input with Mask.

Currency

The Currency component should be used when a field should display currency amounts on a form.

Tags

The Tags component can be used to categorize items. For example, identifying the interests of your event registrants.
Signature

The signature component allows users to sign the field on a touch enabled device or with the mouse or trackpad. Once they have signed, their signature will be converted into an image and stored with the form submission.

For a more in-depth review of this template editor's features, we recommend checking out Form.io's documentation on Form Components.

Hyperlinks

How can I add a hyperlink to one of my form questions?

You can insert an HTML "a" tag directly into the label input of your form question to link an external page. An example label with hyperlinked text would be:

By submitting this form, I agree to Goldcast's
<a href="https://www.goldcast.io/privacy-policy" target="_blank">
Privacy Policy
</a>.

Let's break this down: the link we are attaching is placed in quotations after the href= attribute in the <a> tag. The hyperlinked text is the text in between the opening a tag, <a>, and the closing a tag, </a>. In the above case "Privacy Policy" is the hyperlinked text. When a user clicks that text they will be sent to the page "https://www.goldcast.io/privacy-policy".

Don't forget to include the closing tag, </a>. Leaving this out may break your form!