Long gone are the days when we wrote down the critical information in a notebook. Moreover, we've even outgrown the traditional spreadsheet that was effective for decades. It is the era of productive tools and platforms that are smarter, faster, and more user-friendly. Airtable is one of these tools, and we've discussed its different aspects in our Airtable Learning Hub. In this article, we are going to focus on Airtable forms, which is one of the key features of the platform What are the benefits of Airtable Forms? How to use Airtable Forms, and are there any other alternatives? We'll try to answer all of these questions, but first, let's understand what Airtable forms are.
What are Airtable Forms?
Image Source: Airtable
Airtable is a popular spreadsheet and relational database tool that has proved to be an equally popular and effective collaboration platform. The flexibility and versatility of Airtable allow it to be used for various purposes: work management, organizing inventories, task planning, event tracking, and more.
Airtable Forms is one of the platform's features that lets you collect and save information to an Airtable base. The feature is a practical solution for logging expenses, creating polls, collecting RSVPs, gathering customer data, etc. Moreover, the forms can be used on any device.
Further on, with Airtable Form, you can generate forms automatically from the existing table instead of building it from scratch. The forms have a lot of customization options (adding a logo, images, changing styling, etc.).
How to create a form on Airtable?
With Airtable forms, you can collect data from different sources directly into your workflow. The following step-by-step guide will help you start with a form even if you are a rookie.
Step 1: Create a form
Collecting information from different sources may be frustrating, especially if you don't want to lose any piece of data. A structured form will streamline the work, capturing every detail.
The first step is to create a table where all the data will be collected. The table can be made from scratch or imported from Google Sheets or elsewhere. Continue with the Form view inside the Airtable base to create a form.
Step 2: Edit your form
Once the Airtable form is created, you can start customizing the fields, making them visible or invisible for visitors. The drag and drop feature will help to order each field quickly. Aside from customizing the order of fields, you can also add logos and images as well as make other adjustments to achieve a more user-friendly interface.
Step 3: Share your form to collect submissions
Finally, when your form is ready, and all the fields are arranged, you can share it with partners or a target group within the organization. You can easily send the access link to the users to share the form, who can then submit the form without signing in to Airtable. Once you start receiving submissions, you can collect, edit, update data and take other actions.
Step 4: Organize submissions
After you have shared the form with recipients and collected data, you can now organize and process data.
Any new information submitted via the form shows up as a new record in the table. The data can be filtered to review necessary information quickly.
The features of Airtable forms
Initially, Airtable was created as a relational database software but gradually evolved to become an online collaboration tool (forms are one of such components). So, let's review some of the pros and cons of forms to give you a more complete picture of this feature.
Pros
- Multiple select fields
- Conditional logic
- Image and document submission inside the form
- Email and phone number submissions
Cons
- The forms cannot be created on iOS and Android.
- Forms can not be used to update records.
- It cannot be split into multiple pages or sections.
- Airtable branding can be removed only in the Pro plan.
Top alternatives of Airtable Forms
Airtable is a robust tool for form submissions, but you can always try Airtable alternative solutions to see which one fits your needs best.
Typeform is a popular solution for building forms with beautiful design and keeping users engaged. Typeform allows you to add GIFs, images, and videos, and customize the welcome screen. The simple analytics provide insights about records and user engagement. There are a number of third-party services that can be connected with Typeform to sync all the data.
Benefits
- Attractive design
- Integrations
- Beautiful design
Softr Forms are another Airtable alternative. With the help of Soft Forms, you can create and manage forms, collect information that can be stored on Airtable and sent anywhere with tools such as Zapier or Integromat. A variety of fields types are available for selection, and the overall look and feel of the form is customizable as well.
Benefits
- No need to use third-party tools to create forms and then embed them in Softr.
- Easy to match the style with the rest of the website and web app interface.
- Constantly releases new features to support different data types.
- Ability to connect a custom domain on the free plan.
Build a web app with custom forms linked to Airtable
No designer or developer needed. Zero learning curve.
Tally is a simple and interactive way to create forms without coding. With various customization options, the interface and functionality can be fully personalized.
Benefits
- Form logic customization;
- Integrations;
- Unlimited file uploads;
- Most features are free.
Paperform is a popular Airtable alternative as it provides you with an all-in-one tool for various business solutions. You can create payment forms, schedule bookings, automate workflows, perform complex calculations, and design branded forms, surveys and quizzes. It’s as simple as writing a document.
Benefits
- Built-in analytics
- 2000+ integrations
- In-app image editor
- Payment processing
- Scheduling capabilities
With its customizable forms, JotForms is an excellent alternative to Airtable forms. More than 20 different field types are available. You can also set up payment integrations and apply widgets. Moreover, the collected responses can be downloaded as a spreadsheet, HTML table, or visual report.
Benefits
- Free up to five forms;
- More than 10,000 templates;
- Zapier integration.
With an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, Cognito Forms lets the user create any form, integrate payment systems, perform calculations, and much more. The conditional logic helps to control, hide, repeat, and make fields visible.
Benefits
- Conditional logic;
- Integrated payments;
- Unlimited forms.
It is one of the practical Airtable alternatives that can be used with a Google account, and it is absolutely free. Google products are so popular because they provide smooth and fast synchronization across the Google ecosystem. For example, Google Forms can be automatically saved into Google Sheets for further analysis.
Benefits
- Variety of pre-built templates;
- Integrations;
- Extra fields with Google Add-ons.
This online form builder empowers users with limitless possibilities to create, publish, collect submissions and analyze data. Trusted by many popular platforms, Mighty Forms allows building effective forms to get immediate user engagement.
Benefits
- Optimization of lost fields;
- Connecting leads in real-time.
LeadGen is an online form-builder tool that is used to generate leads. You can easily create a powerful multi-step form to capture up to five times more leads and verify and manage your contacts in one place.
With the LeadGen app, you can create a basic to advanced multi-step form in just five minutes! Leadgen form builder is a great service for marketers, agencies, and those who provide lead generation services.
Benefits:
- Easy customization of multi-step forms with no-code
- Simple and user-friendly interface,
- An intuitive form-builder with features like different question types, calculator features, etc
About Softr
Softr is an easy-to-use no-code platform that turns Airtable bases into powerful web apps, member-only websites, and client portals. Softr offers a way for you to authenticate your end-users, control access to your content and data based on conditional rules like roles, logged-in status, subscription plans, etc. If you're using Airtable as a product catalog you can use a Softr template to build your e-commerce website. Or maybe you'd like to build a custom website for your travel journal, there's a template for that too!
