Collect Information with a Form

Applies to

Smartsheet
  • Pro
  • Business
  • Enterprise

For more information about plan types and included capabilities, see the Smartsheet Plans page.

Capabilities

Who can use this capability

The sheet Owner and Admins can create and edit forms.

Anyone with access to the form can submit an entry on the form. A license is required to create and edit forms. If you are using a Trial version of Smartsheet, you can create forms, but those forms cannot be shared.
 

Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.

Create and share forms to gather and organize information within Smartsheet. After you create and share a form, each form submission will be added to the top or bottom of your sheet as a new row.

Use a form, for example, to collect survey responses, intake project requests, or gather product orders.

Anyone who can access the form can use it to submit information to the sheet.

Form submissions will always create new rows. If you want to give someone the ability to edit an existing row, you'll want to send them an Update Request. For more information, see Save Time and Work Faster With Automated Workflows. 

For the best experience when submitting a form from a mobile device, open the form in the mobile app (iOS or Android).

Create a new form

  1. Open the sheet that you want to attach the form to.

  2. On the top left of the sheet, click Forms > Create Form.

    When a new form is created, all columns (except for System columns) from your sheet will automatically be added to your form. Each field will function similarly to its respective column type.

    For Contact Lists and Dropdown Lists, this includes the Restrict to list values only checkbox. When this box is checked, people submitting on the form can only select from values listed in the column values.

    See Use the Best Column Type for Your Data for more information about each column type.

    By default, the title of the form corresponds to the sheet name and the fields on the form correspond to the names of their associated sheet columns.

    Form Builder

  3. Select an element from the center form preview to edit its settings, displayed in the right panel. For more information about field settings, see Edit or Remove Fields in a Form.
  4. Use Settings at the top of the form builder to adjust any form-level settings. For more information, see Manage Form Display and Submission Options.
  5. When you’ve finished setting up your form, select Save at the top-right to save your changes.

Character count limits on form fields

This chart shows the limitations (if any) on the fields you can use in a form. 

Field name Character count limit
Form title 100
Form rich description 100
Form field label 100
Form field rich help text no limit
Header 100
Description rich text 4000
Confirmation message 4000
Response field  4000

Preview and see sharing options

  1. Select Open Form to preview the form to ensure it’s configured correctly.
    After you've previewed the form, you can close the browser tab that it opens in.
  2. Select Share Form to email the form directly from Smartsheet, copy the form link, or embed it in a dashboard or webpage. 
  3. Select the back arrow in the top-left corner of the form editor to close it and return to the sheet.

The name of the form you’ve created will appear in the Form Manager where you can distribute the form, view its properties, and more.

Once you share a form, people will be able to use it to add information to your sheet. Each form submission will appear as a new row.

Even if you edit the form, the link to it will remain the same. Changes you make will appear on the form when you save them.