In this tutorial, we will be reviewing the options you have to create custom planning forms for your clients to fill out. Planning forms can be used to capture additional information from your clients on the intricate details of their upcoming event. Planning forms are typically sent to clients after the event has been booked, but prior to the execution of the event.

For example, with weddings, a planning form might consist of questions regarding how many people are in the bridal party, who the other vendors coming to the venue are, etc. If you have our DJ add-on, planning forms can also contain embedded song selection requests. For more information about the song selection process, please refer to our DJ add on tutorials at help.releventful.com.

Planning forms can be added as to-do items for your clients that they complete via their event portal.

To locate the planning form builder, select the templates icon on the left-hand navigation bar and select “form templates” in the submenu that appears.

You should see a sample planning form in your account that we have loaded as an example of how these forms can be configured and designed. To open the sample planning form, click on the form name from the list below. You can create a copy of the existing planning form to work from by clicking on the “options” drop-down and selecting “copy form template”.

You can also create a new planning form from scratch with the “add form template” button in the upper left-hand corner of the page.

Use the plus icon at the top of the form builder to pull up a list of the items you can add to the form layout and design. This builder is similar to the lead form and proposal template builder.

Utilize any of the available fields to build out and customize your form to gather the necessary information from your client.

The data fields listed under the “Event Detail Options” will map back to the backend details for the event. For example, if you add the venue name field to the planning form, when the client populates this field, the data entered will be reflected in the correlating venue name field on the event details tab of their event.

The two and three column options are a great solution to condense questions that are similar in nature with one another.

For example, if you are asking your client for a list of bridesmaids and groomsmen in the bridal party, a two-column list would be perfect for them to populate this information and provide it to you in a two-column display.

You can also use 2 or 3 column displays to present a question and a dropdown menu with preset options for your client to choose. For example, "will you be providing meals for the vendors" would be the question in column 1 and column 2 would present the options "Yes" or "No". For more information about using 2-3 column options and other helpful styling tips, please refer to our “forms style guide” tutorial at help.releventful.com.

Adding section titles is a great way to organize the questions on the planning form. You can use the section titles to introduce the questions you are about to ask the client and guide them through the questionnaire.

As you select fields from the menu on the right-hand display, they will be added to the bottom of the form. Hover over each of the fields that you add to the form to edit, copy or delete them.

As you build your form, there are further customizations you can add to make the form easier to populate. Use the drop-down or the select multiple option question types to make the process easier for your client to complete based on the questions that are being asked of them.

There is a Calendly option that can be added to the form.

Calendly is a third-party scheduling and calendar application that can assist you in booking appointments with your clients. To use the Calendly option in the planning form, you will need to first have an account with Calendly. This field on the planning form can add your Calendly scheduling link to the form and prompt your clients to book a follow up appointment with you to discuss the details of their event.

When your form is ready and you would like to test it out, you will need to attach the form as a client to-do within an event.

To complete your testing of the form, you can open an existing event or create a new event just for testing purposes. Open the event portal for the event you want to test the form with, open the to-do menu, select “add” and add a new form to do to the portal.

Add a title for the to do, description and due date.

Under “assigned to” place the name of the client that will be receiving this form to do, or yourself if you are testing the form.

Select the “Form Settings” tab at the top of the page and select the form with the hyperlink under “form template.” You will see a display of the form below once you have added it to the to do. Take a look at the form and see if everything looks correct.

Select the “preview to do” prompt at the top of the page to view the form. This is the view your clients will see for the form when you assign the form to them as a to do to complete.

Planning forms can be assigned to clients as to do’s manually in the event portal and also can be automatically applied to your event types with the available portal template automations. For more information on automations, please refer to our portal template tutorial at help.releventful.com.