Create ready-made lists of answers to add to fields

Pro, Business and Enterprise plans

If you’re making a lot of similar forms, simplify your form-building by creating lists of answers to insert into fields.

Lists can be used for two purposes:

• To populate field values, such as commonly-used answers in checkbox, radio button, and dropdown fields.
• To power a predictive search function in a text field.

Create or edit a basic list

Only admins can create and edit lists. If you’re not an admin, you can still add existing lists to fields in your forms.

1. From the main menu, go to Admin > Lists.

2. Select Create list to add a list, or choose an existing list to edit it.

3. Name your list in the Enter list name field.

4. Select whether you'd like to create a field value list, or a search list. (This cannot be changed once you've made your selection, and limits which fields your list can be applied to). 

5. Enter your list items in the List items field. Put each item on a separate line so they appear as separate items when you add the list to a field.

    

    

6. Save your list.

    

Once you’ve added your list to fields in a form, you’ll be able to see all the places you’re using it by selecting Forms and field sets using this link. You can search for the form or field set you want, and select it to open it.

Create a list from a spreadsheet or API

If you want to build a long or complex list, such as a list of suburbs or departments, it can be helpful to use a CSV file.

1. First, open a list as you would if you were creating or editing a basic list.

2. Instead of entering list items in the Enter or edit list field, select Upload CSV to upload your file.

3. Choose which columns from the file you want to use for ‘Text’ fields and ‘Value’ fields on your forms. Select Upload These Columns to create your list.

    

4. Save the list when you’re finished.

You can also build a list from an API.

Using very long lists in excess of ten thousand items can cause your web forms to load slowly. In situations where you need to draw from an extremely long list of answers, such as a complete list of your city's residential addresses, we recommend using data connections to query an external database.

It’s okay if you’re not an admin and you can’t create lists. You can still add them to your forms - keep reading to find out how.

Add a list to a field in a form

1. Open a form from Forms.

2. Select a checkbox, radio button, dropdown, or text field to add to your form from the field menu.

3. Select the gear icon, then open the field settings.

4. In the Use options from a list dropdown menu (or Predictive search list for text fields), choose the list you want. Your list will appear as options in the field.

5. Save your form.

Delete a list or remove it from a field

Only admins can totally delete lists. You can still remove lists from fields if you’re not an admin, though.

Once you delete a list you can’t get it back, so you should be really sure you want to delete it before you do anything rash. Once you’re sure, go to Admin > Lists from the main menu and open the list you don’t want anymore. Select Delete > Delete list.

To remove a list from a field, open the field settings like you would if you were adding a list to the field. Set the Use options from a list menu to None. As easy as that, your list is removed from the field. Just make sure you save your changes.

Now you’ve got your head around lists, did you know you can use them in field sets as well? Okay then, let’s look at how field sets work.