October 24, 2012 / in General Information, WordPress / by Jason Terry
We have a great audience with many different backgrounds and jobs. Some of you are business owners trying to figure out your next big market while making payroll, and some of you are software developers that sit around in shorts and T-shirts coding until 2am. This one’s for our geeks out there (and yes, I am on your team too).
In just about every WordPress project we do, we are asked for some kind of web form. Usually this is for the Contact Us page, with name, email address and a big message box. There are a ton of ways to accomplish this including custom coding, plugins like Gravity Forms and our new favorite, JotForm.com.
I need to give credit to Donna Rimbo at Christ Church Anglican for finding this excellent tool. We used it together on their website project when she discovered how flexible JotForm was. (For an example of one of their forms, check out the Alpha Course Registration Page)
JotForm is the first web based WYSIWYG form builder. Its intuitive drag and drop user interface makes form building a breeze. Using JotForm, you can create forms, integrate them to your site and receive responses by email.
JotForm is one of the easiest tools I have used to create forms for websites. The big difference with JotForm when compared to other options is that you create your forms online in a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get). Then, all you have to do is embed them into your web page or WordPress page with some simple code.
Even better, when you need to change the form, you simply log in to your JotForm account and change the form. The next time the form is displayed on your website, it will already be updated without you having to change any code!
The free version of JotForm will let you accept up to 100 form submissions per month, but the paid version is only $10/month and allows unlimited form submissions.
JotForm supports CAPTCHA and ReCAPTCHA form controls (those weird dialog boxes with squiggly lines that you have to type in to verify you are a human and not some automated program trying to cause havoc).
JotForm also supports integration with DropBox. Click here for a video about this… but the simple idea is that you could put a form on your website and allow customer to upload large files to you. The files would automagically go into your DropBox account, which means you would have access to the files from anywhere on just about any device.
I used JotForm for the forms on Home Rental Services website as well. I mention this because their site isn’t a WordPress based site. It is an example of JotForm integrating with a traditional HTML site. Check out their Maintenance Request Form, Testimonial Submission Form, or Change of Address Form. All good examples of what JotForm can do in a relatively short amount of time (compared to traditional ways of doing web forms.)
We are all about efficiency with professional results. JotForm is another tool in our arsenal for achieving those results in a short amount of time. If you need professional forms on your website, take a look at JotForm or forward this blog post to your web developer so they can run with it for you. (Shameless Plug: And if you don’t have a web developer, give us a call!)
The Blue Gurus crew did an awesome job designing and constructing my company's web site - Certified Asset Appraisals.
They listened to what and how I wanted our site to look and perform. They were quick and so easy to work with. Hats off to Blue Gurus!
Ken Fancolly
President, Certified Asset Appraisals
