Add Questions to Form

Once the structure of your new form is complete (see Add, Edit, and Delete an Online Form) it's time to add some questions for your visitors to answer. To do so, you have two options. You must either add questions directly to a created form or create the question in your RescueGroups.org account and then add it to one or more forms. Every online form is made up of questions. So let us review how to add questions both to a form and to your account.


Where do I find it?

To Features > Online Forms



Let us start with an overview of how you add questions to a form. Each online form is made up of questions created in one of two ways. One method is to add questions to the Questions data table and then add them to a specific form (Create Your Online Form Questions). A second method adds questions to a form directly. Whether you choose to add all your questions to the account first or through the form, you will always need to add questions to your form.  

Add Contact Fields to your form

Before we talk about how to add questions, we want to talk about Contact Fields. When adding a new form, you can specify which contact fields, like address and home phone number, etc., are captured and/or required. These contact fields will appear at the beginning of your online form. These are handled differently than adding questions. So, for further information on this topic, please visit Add, Edit, and Delete an Online Form.

Add questions to your Questions data table

One way you can add questions is to add them to your Questions data table. This is very efficient, as then you can simply select them from the dropdown when adding them to your forms. To be clear, these questions are also stored and available for all future forms you may decide to create.  

To start go to Features > Online Forms > Questions.  


Once you click the Questions button, you have two options for adding questions to your account. You can use both of these options together or just choose one, whichever works best for you:


  • You can create original questions to use (Create a Question button). 

    • See Create Online Form Questions in this guide for details about creating your own questions. This is an extensive walk-through of the types of questions you can create.

  • You can add Default Questions, a standard set of questions from the RescueGroups.org system (Create Default Online Form Questions button). These questions can be edited so that you can customize them. 

No matter if you choose to use and/or edit default questions, make your own, or a combination of both there are a few things to consider, please see below.  

There is certain sensitive information that is prohibited from use in your RescueGroups.org account. You cannot ask for an applicant's driver's license number, social security number, or credit card number, for instance, on an online form. Using that type of information results in a violation of your Terms of Service and may result in the form or question being blocked from use.

Per our Terms of Service may not be used for the collection, storage, or processing of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or sensitive information (in whole or in part), including but not limited to Social Security Numbers (SSN), Driver’s License numbers, state ID information, birth date or exact age, credit card numbers, mother’s maiden name, financial/bank information, passport information, and healthcare/medical information.

Create default Online Form questions

If you click the Create Default Online Form Questions, those default questions in the RescueGroups.org account will be added to your account for you to use in creating online forms. These questions are common to many rescue organizations. They are already named and created, and they can be customized. This example gives you an idea of some of the questions in the account. These default questions are pre-made with the answer types that you'll learn about in the section of this chapter about About Answer Types, and in the section about Select Groups. 

Edit default questions

Default questions are all customizable for your organization. Select the Edit button beside the named question to edit the default question.


Once a question is created and used in a form, you have limited options when trying to change the answer type.  For example, you can change a Freeform Text field to Freeform Text (Short), but you can’t change it to a completely different question type like Checkboxes.  That prohibition allows the tool to preserve all previous answers to this type of question. You don't want to lose the information others have previously submitted. If you want to make major changes to a form, it's best to create a new form and enable it and disable the previous form.


Now that you have online forms questions in your account, you can add them to your form using the dropdown to select the question. 

Add questions directly to your form

If you want to add questions directly to a form, either from the Questions data table or directly, you must first start by going to your specific Online Form. Do this by going to Features > Online Forms then selecting the form name you want to edit. You will see something similar to the image pictured below. Select the Questions button on the left.




Now you are on the screen where you can add questions to the form. Select Add a Question to this Form.




From here you can either use the dropdown and add a question you previously added to your Questions data table OR use the green Create a new Question button. If you choose to Create a new Question, continue below.



From there, a pop up will show that allows you to create an online form question. Now, you will follow the directions in our Create Online Form Questions page.