Table of Contents

How to Add Instructions to a Form

Lesley Updated by Lesley

Scenario

Sometimes, users misunderstand what information we want and we need to add in a little more direction to avoid hours of confirming the accuracy of information.

For example, we have a multi-step application where we keep getting responses to a few questions that aren’t exactly what we’re looking for- like our licenses questions. We’re only looking for licenses that were given at the state or national level. Right now, we have applicants that are including other types of licenses:

We want to add in some additional instructions to ensure we’re capturing the right information—the first time around.

Requirements

If this your first time creating an app, you'll need to know some basics about adding tables, fields, pages, and views. You can start by reading our Builder Basics section. 

Other good resources can be found in our About Your Database and Working With Pages sections of the knowledge base.

Steps

Select the Page with the Form

In the Pages section of the Builder, select the page with the form view you want to add instructions to. 

Open the Form Editor

Click on the form view on that page to open the editor.

Open the Edit Input

In the Inputs section, hover over the field you want to add instructions to and click the edit “pencil” icon:

Update the Field's Instructions

In the “Instructions” field on the field settings, change the text to whatever you want the instructions to say and then click the “Submit” button:

Instructions for the Whole Form

If you want to input instructions for the whole form, not just individual fields, you can update the description field at the top of the form. This can be edited from the "Settings" section of the view editor while editing form views.

Now when a user views the form, they’ll see the instructions you added:

How did we do?

How to Allow Users to Add New Options in Forms

How to Customize the Text on a Submit Button

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