Form Setup (Attendee/Registration Form)

Introduction

A registration form is an online form that enables attendees to register for an event, submitting their information into the registration and profile database tables. Each form must belong to one event, but an event can have any number of forms. Examples include Attendee Registration form, Exhibitor Registration form, Appointment Preferences selection form, etc. By default, all Certain forms and websites are "private" (invisible to engines). For information about changing this for all or some events, see the PDF guide, Web Crawlability in Certain Events. If the event has an Access Token (generated on Event Setup Details), then anyone going to any forms or websites in the event would have to enter the token before proceeding.

The Sections of a Registration Form

A form consists of one or more sections, which you can group into one or more pages. You can select the sections, their order, and the number of sections per page, as needed. The following is the list of Sections available:

• Entry
• Registrant Details
• Attendee Type
• Questions (up to 10 sections*)
• Accommodation Entry
• Accommodation
• Event Waitlist
• Agenda (Up to 40 sections*)
• Personal Agenda
• Agenda Sessions (up to 30 sections*)
• Additional Registration Add
• Travel Travel Entry
• Travel
• Group
• Promo Codes
• Verify / Edit
• Payment
• Confirmation
• Logic (Up to 20 sections*)
• Custom HTML (Up to 20 sections*)

You can have multiple Forms Questions, Forms Agenda, Forms Sessions, Forms Logic, and Custom HTML sections. Each one is only listed here once you have added and named it on its configuration page. That custom name is what you see on this Form Setup page. Every form must include a Registrant Details section. Accommodation Entry is optional. If Accommodation Entry is not used, attendees will only be able to request one room. If Accommodation Entry is used, it must be on the page immediately before the Accommodation section. The Accommodation Entry section serves no purpose other than as an introduction to the Accommodation section. The last section of the form must be a Confirm section. You do not need to add a {New Page} at the end.

Setup Information

• Name – (Required) Descriptive name for this form.
• Subtitle – (Optional) HTML or text to display online below the event's title.
• Set form dates relative to event dates – If selected, you can set the Form Open Date and Form Close Date as relative to the Event Start and/or End Dates instead of specifying fixed dates. If this is selected, and the Event Start or End Dates are changed later, the relevant form dates will change accordingly.
• Form Open Date – (Required) Date and time when the registration form opens. Prior to this, attendees will see the "Not open" message you can configure in the Advanced section of this page. If the event has a status of "Cancelled", the form will not be available to attendees at all. Unless 'Set form dates relative to event dates' is selected, just enter the date and time. Default: Current date at 8:00 AM (PT). If 'Set form dates relative to event dates' is selected, then options and the number of months/days/hours to apply are available (Before Event Start Date, Before Event End Date, After Event Start Date, After Event Start Date, At a specified time and date (PT)).
• Form Close Date – (Required) Date and time when the registration form closes. After this, attendees will see the "After Form Close Date" message you can configure in the Advanced section of this page. If 'Set form dates relative to event dates' is not selected, just enter the date and time. Default: Event End Date and Time. If 'Set form dates relative to event dates' is selected, then options and the number of months/days/hours to apply (Before Event Start Date, After Event Start Date, Before Event End Date, After Event End Date, At a specified time and date (PT)) are available. If a form close date is set after the event close date, then the event close date overrides the form close date, and the form will no longer be available once the event end date has passed. This avoids the potential risk of registrations being entered after the event has ended. If you want to override this, you can select Allow form open beyond event end date.
• URL – Website address of this registration form. If you don't specify a URL for the form, the system creates one automatically.
• Form Status – The form can be Live, Test, or Closed.
• Live – The form is available for attendees to use.
• Test – Best practice is to select this status only if the Event Status on Plan > Event Setup > Details is 'Testing'.
• Warning: If you are processing credit card payments on the form, and the Form Status is 'Test', payments will be sent to your online processor in Test mode instead of Live mode.
• Note: This status does not affect the status of Registrations, which are only added as 'Test' registrations when the status of the event is 'Testing'.
• Closed – Usually used if the Event Status is 'Postponed'. An attendee attempting to register sees the 'Form Closed' message (which you can configure in the Advanced section of this page) instead of the form.
• Hyperlink Label – Text shown for the link when a form link data-driven field is added to a Confirmation page or other object that accepts the data-driven field links.
• Google Analytics Tracking ID – Each form automatically inherits the Google Analytics Tracking ID entered at the event level, if one has been. You can optionally enter a separate Tracking ID, specifically for this form, in this field. This is generally used in the case of a "series" event, where each registration form is actually a separate event. A Google Analytics Tracking ID should look something like UA-12345678-1. For more information about obtaining a Google Analytics Tracking ID, see About Google Analytics Tracking IDs. For details of the cookies generated by a Certain form, see the Certain Cookies PDF guide. By default, form pages are not tracked at the individual level; once a registrant proceeds beyond the entry page, the form URL is the same for all pages. You can change this if you select Enable page-specific, page-level URL below.
• Settings – Optional check boxes to enable selected features.
• Do not allow edits to existing registrations – If selected, registrants may not be able to edit their information after completing their registration.
• This is the primary form for the event – One form per event must be designated as the primary form. This is useful when you want to view the primary form from an external website, such as an online calendar. A report will show the Primary Form Name and Primary Form URL values (if those columns are included in the report). To change which form is the primary, select this check box for the new form, which automatically clears it for the original.
• Make this form available on the Admin side – If selected, the form is available on the Manage > Registrations > Add Registration and Registration > Reg Form pages.
• Allow access via web service – If selected, the form will be accessible via the Certain API.
• Allow form open beyond event end date – If selected, and the form's Close date is set to after the event close date, then the form will still be available once the event end date has passed.
• Allow form to remain open when event Registration Capacity is reached – If this check box is selected, the form will remain open even after registrations have reached the capacity limit. This can enable waitlisting.
• Enable split screen edit mode – If selected, you can edit the form while seeing both the attendee view and the admin-side configuration screen.
• Disable browser back button – If selected, the Back button in a form will have no effect.
• Reg status – The form can automatically change the registration status of the registrant:
• Upon entry into this form, set status to – The entry status will be assigned to all registrations on the order as the attendee enters the form to register. Choose Do not change to leave the registration status unaffected by entry into the form.
• Upon completion of this form, set status to – The completion status will be assigned to all registrations on the order when the registrant reaches the form's confirmation page. Choose Do not change to leave the registration status unaffected by exit from the form.
• Note: The registration status selected here will override the default status of the registration's attendee type.
• Note: The list of statuses available for selection includes Custom statuses added on Plan > Event Setup > Custom Statuses and the 11 default registration statuses (New, Requested Invitation, Waitlist Hold, Invited, Request Denied, Invitation Sent, Pre-Registered, Declined Invitation, Cancelled, No-show, Attended) unless the account has the Show Default Statuses option cleared on Account Settings > Implementation > Security.
• User Notes – A text entry field for miscellaneous information.
• Page Layout – Select the sections that you want to include in the form from the Available Sections list on the left, and move them to the Online Form Sequence list on the right. A video is available for Page Layout. To save scrolling through a long list of sections, you can type any part of a section name in the Filter text box. If there are sections in the Online Form Sequence that you don’t want to include, move them back to the Available Sections box. You can use Top, Bottom, Up, or Down to change display order. Insert a {Secure Page} break before any section that collects credit card information or before a section to build a multi-page form. Either causes the page before it to end with a Continue button. Three Rules for Building a Registration Form:

1) Every form must include the Registrant Details section.

2) The Accommodation Entry section is optional. If it is not used, then attendees will only be able to request one room. If it is used, then it must be on the page immediately before the Accommodation section. The Accommodation Entry section serves no purpose other than as an introduction to the Accommodation section.

3) The last section of the form must be a Confirm section. You do not need to add a {New Page} at the end.

Page & URL Titles

• You can display a step-by-step navigation bar in this section. The navigation bar helps attendees see where they are in the registration process as they proceed through the form.
• Display step-by-step navigation bar? – Select this check box to turn on the navigation bar and to set the following display options for the bar.
• Page Title – For each step, enter the text for each page title to be displayed in the bar. Each number corresponds to a section in the Page Layout section above. Boxes left blank will not display on the final navigation bar. The registrant's browser will include this label after the registration site name, confirming the current step.
• Orientation – Can be set to display as Vertical Column on left or Horizontal Row across top.
• Horizontal Separator – (Available only if Horizontal Row across top has been selected.) The character used to separate the titles.
• Default = » (the HTML code for the double right-angle quote character, »).
• Background Color – Sets the color of the bar. Click the color picker or enter a hex-code directly (e.g., #003385).
• Font for Page Titles – Determines the font style for the page titles in the navigation bar (e.g., "Subheader"). Font styles can be configured on Plan > Configure > Display.
• Font for Current Page – Differentiates the registrant's current page by using a different font for its title.
• Display Image/Text – The image or characters displayed to the right or left of the name of the page in the navigation bar. Can be plain text or HTML. Default = » (the HTML code for the double right-angle quote character, »).
• Show Step Navigation on Page 1? – Indicates whether the page titles will show up on the initial page of the navigation system.
• Enable page-specific, page-level URL? – If selected, two columns are displayed: Page URL # and Page Title. Page URL # is a list of text fields numbered from 1 to n, where n is the number of pages in the Online Form Sequence. Each field can include a label to be added to the URL for that page. Page Title can also be configured per page. Registrants see it as the page name in their browser tab. Web analytics programs can use it for reporting.
• Global Display Settings – Global Display Settings determine the default display behavior for the entire form. Includes:
• Label Font, Label Alignment, and Label Vertical – Sets font and positioning for text labels.
• Form Layout – Sets the default relationship of text labels to form input fields. The default is Left / Right. You would usually change this to Top / Bottom if you use Insert Row to create a multi-column profile layout, making the online form look more like a paper registration form. The setting applies to Registration Details, and to sections of the Verify and Confirm pages: Accommodation, Appointment, Attendee Type, Questions, Registration Details, and Travel (V.1).
• Input Alignment and Input Vertical – Positions text when entered into text fields.
• Instructions Font – Sets the default font for instructions text that appears anywhere on the form. Default = Text.
• Page Font – Sets the default font for all other text. Default = Text.
• Required Font – Sets the style for messages indicating required fields. Default = Subheader.
• Start a new table with each section? – If selected, each form section on the same page is displayed in its own HTML table.
• Show navigation on Registration Forms? – If selected, the form will include navigation links to each page. These are configured on Plan > Configure > Display > Navigation Bar.

Required Fields Settings

Certain optional displays an image next to each field on a form page which is required.

• Req. image – Sets the image file displayed. If blank, no image will be displayed. Default is an asterisk <span class="error">*</span>.
• Attributes – Determines extra information in the HTML tag that places the Req. image on the page.
• Req. message – Sets the text message (e.g., "denoted field is required") next to the Req. image that will appear at the top of the header bar.
• place header bar – whether it will appear above or below the header bar of any page in the Registration form.
• in font – The font style in which it is to be displayed (one of those set on Plan > Configure > Display page).
• Error message – The text to be displayed if the attendee doesn't fill out a required form field and tries to continue to the next page in the registration form. Default = "Please correct the following errors:".
• Enable error message links – If selected, error messages for required fields will include links to those fields.
• Required Fields Messages – You can customize the error messages displayed to the attendee when what they have entered fails validation. The message labels and default values should be enough to explain each one.
• Agenda Item Error Messages – You can customize error messages related to agenda items.
• Labels for Registration Assistance Link – You can customize the message shown to an attendee if they click the link for registration assistance. You can include HTML tags in the text.
• The message labels and default values should be enough to explain each one.
• Labels for Buttons and Links – You set the messages that appear on standard links and buttons that can be automatically displayed on the form. If no text is entered in a field, the button will not be displayed (except that the Continue button is Required).
• Continue Button – (Required) The label for the button used to advance the registration form to the next section. Default = "Continue".
• Reset Button – The label for a reset button that can be used to clear the values from the form on any section of the registration form.
• Additional Registrants – If you configure your event to accept multiple registrants, this button enables an attendee to register other attendees. Default = "Add Another Registrant".
• New Reg Link – This link enables the registrant to go back to the beginning and create an entirely new registration after completing the current one. Default = "New Registration".
• Last Page URL Link – This sets the text of a link on the confirmation page that lets attendees return to your main website for more information.
• Last Page Url – This website to which the attendee is taken if they click the Last Page URL Link.
• Reg Assistance Link – Configures a text link displayed at the bottom of each page of the form that enables attendees to email the registration contact. Default: "<br /><br />Email Registration Assistance".
• Enable CAPTCHA – Selected by default, this option places a CAPTCHA check box on the form the registrant completes, so that they must prove they are human.
• Caution: If you clear this option, the form will not include a CAPTCHA check box.

Creating and Editing Registration Forms (ADVANCED SETTINGS)

Click the Advanced button on this Form > Setup page to edit messages that are displayed automatically when triggered by circumstances. Each message contains default text which you can change or delete. Each one of these settings includes the following fields:

• Append – If required, select a dynamic data field (DDF) to append to the Header of the Message.
• Header Text – The text to be displayed in the header bar. Example: "Important Notice".
• Message HTML – The text of the message displayed when triggered.
• Enable Editor? – If selected, you edit the Message HTML in a WYSIWYG editor with the usual controls for formatting it.
• If left clear, you enter the message in plain text (which can still include HTML tags).
• Show the Registration Assistance Link – If selected, a link opens a pop-up window that enables potential attendees to contact the primary Registration Contact for the event.
• Customize Entry Page Message (Before Form Open Date) – Message HTML for pre-open access.
• Customize Entry Page Message (After Form Close Date) – Message HTML for post-close access.
• Customize Entry Page Message (After Event End Date) – Message HTML for access after the event end date or if the event status is 'Cancelled'.
• Customize "Closed Form" Message – Message HTML for when the Form Status is 'Closed'.
• Customize "Event Registration Capacity" Message – Message HTML for when the event capacity is reached. Includes behavior for cancelled statuses and related notes.
• Customize "Maximum Concurrent Registrations" Message (Based on active sessions) – Guidance and message configuration when registrations approach a high-demand threshold. Includes references to Incomplete registrations count against capacity/inventory, and auto-refresh behavior with a custom message and an image indicating a refresh countdown.
• Allowed – Enter the maximum number of active registrations allowed to enter the form before message displays.
• Header Text – The header of the text displayed when the maximum concurrent registrations are reached.
• Message HTML – The message displayed when the maximum concurrent registrations number is reached.
• Enable Editor? – If selected, you edit the Message HTML in a WYSIWYG editor.
• Was this article helpful? – Feedback section.
• Related articles – List of related articles.
• Comments – Section to leave comments.

Three Rules for Building a Registration Form

1) Every form must include the Registrant Details section.

2) The Accommodation Entry section is optional. If it is not used, attendees can request only one room. If it is used, it must be on the page immediately before the Accommodation section. The Accommodation Entry section serves no purpose other than as an introduction to the Accommodation section.

3) The last section of the form must be a Confirm section. Do not add a {New Page} at the end.

Page & URL Titles (Additional Details)

• Page & URL Titles provide navigation bar configuration. See Page Layout for page sequencing details.
• Page Title configuration and per-page Page URL labeling enable unique URLs per page for analytics.

Global Display Settings (Additional Details)

• Global Display Settings determine default display behavior for the entire form.
• The settings include font, alignment, and vertical placement of labels, as well as overall form layout and input alignment.

Page Layout Details (Additional)

• The Page Layout section allows moving sections between Available Sections and Online Form Sequence.
• Use the Filter box to narrow the list.
• The order in the Online Form Sequence determines the display order.
• A Secure Page break can be inserted before a section that collects credit card information.
• The Insert Page rules ensure a clean flow for multi-page forms.

Required Fields Messages (Additional)

• The Required Fields Messages section provides customizable messages for required fields.
• The sections include messages for Agenda Items, Registration Assistance Link, and Buttons/Links.

Page Navigation and Help

• Navigation and help text are configurable.
• The article includes related articles such as Entry Page (Attendee Form), Travel (Attendee Form), Event Options, and more.

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[Related articles]

• Entry Page (Attendee Form)
• Travel (Attendee Form)
• Event Options
• Build and Manage an Event - Step 3
• Enforcing email uniqueness and addressing form login errors for existing email addresses

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