Sending forms to the people you meet

What this is for

You can ask somebody questions before you meet them, and read the answers in Meetsy. They fill the form in on a phone or a computer. They do not need an account.

Their answers save as they type, so they can stop half way and come back to the same link later. Each person gets a link of their own.

You decide when every form goes out. A form is sent with a booking confirmation, or when you press Send. Nothing reaches anybody on a timer.

Building a form

Open Forms in the bar at the top, beside Templates. Each form has an Edit button beside it. If you can only read forms, that button says View instead.

1. Type a name under New form and press Create.
2. The editor opens on the Build tab.
3. Add a question with one of the buttons at the bottom. Pick its type.
4. Write the question. Tick Required if you must have an answer.
5. Use the arrows to reorder a question, and the × to remove one.
6. Press Save and publish.

There are ten kinds of question, including headings to break a long form into sections. The preview is the form itself, so what you see is what the other person gets. On a wide screen it sits beside the editor; on a phone it follows underneath.

A form cannot be sent until you publish it. Save draft keeps your work to yourself until you are ready. The two buttons appear above the questions and below them, so you do not have to scroll to the end of a long form to save it.

Started a change you do not want? Press Discard draft. The draft goes and the live version is untouched. It only appears once something has been published, because on a brand new form the draft is all there is.

There is no way to unpublish. To stop a form going to anybody new, archive it instead: people already part way through one can still finish.

Note in the email puts a sentence or two of your own in the invitation, above the button — why you are sending it, or when you need it back. It belongs to the form, so everyone sent that form gets the same note, and changing it takes a publish like any other edit.

To read a form the way the other person meets it, press View on its row. That shows it on its own, full width and not fillable, and says which version you are looking at. Anybody on your team can use it, including people who cannot change forms.

The same page has a Change version dropdown at the top. Every version the form has ever had is in there, newest first, with how many people answered each one, and you can type to narrow the list. Nothing is thrown away when you publish, which is why an old version can be read but never changed.

To change a form’s name, press Rename on its row in the Forms list. That name is for you and your colleagues. It labels the form on this list, on booking cards, and in the responses list. The person filling the form in sees its title instead, which you set at the top of the questions.

The JSON tab shows the same form as text. Both tabs edit one thing, so you can paste a form in and it appears as cards.

Attaching a form to a meeting type

Open the meeting type and find the Forms section. Every form has three settings:

• Not used. This meeting type ignores it.
• Sent with the confirmation. The link goes out with the booking email.
• Sent by hand, when I choose. Nothing is sent until you press Send.

Press Save forms. Attach any number of forms in any combination.

A common setup is a short form that goes out with the booking, and a longer one you send after the first call.

Sending a form

There are three ways.

• With a booking.Anything set to “sent with the confirmation” goes out on its own.
• By hand, from your calendar. Open the booking, open Forms, and press Send. This works after the meeting as well as before it.
• To somebody with no booking. Go to Responses and use Send a form. You get the link back too, so you can paste it into your own message.

When you book somebody in yourself, the same list appears on the booking screen, ticked as the meeting type says. Change it for that one person if you want to.

Reading the answers

Answers reach you by email as soon as they are sent back, and they are listed under Responses. The person who filled the form in gets a copy of their own answers at the same time.

Open a response to see every question, including the ones they skipped, which is often as useful as the ones they answered. Use the print button to save it as a PDF.

Two settings worth deciding

Both live under Settings, and both are off until you turn them on.

• Reminders about forms you kept back. Once a meeting has finished with a form still unsent, Meetsy emails the host once to say so. It never emails the client.
• Keeping form answers. Deletes answers a set number of days after they come back. A year, unless you change it.

Who can do what

Meetsy has three roles. Owners and admins have the same powers here; members have fewer.

• Creating, editing, publishing, archiving or deleting a form: owners and admins only. A form is shared property in a way a meeting type is not. Every host who sends the discovery form sends the same one, so rewording a question changes what all of your colleagues are asking.
• Reading the answers: anybody in the organisation. This is deliberate. Members already see every booking and what the person wrote on the booking form, so a stricter rule for the same client would be arbitrary.
• Sending a form for a booking:the host of that booking, or an owner or admin. The email goes to a colleague's client and asks for their commercial detail, so it is not open to everybody.
• Deleting answers: owners and admins only. That includes deleting everything held for one email address.
• The two settings: owners and admins only.

A member who opens a form sees the questions and the responses, and is told that changing the form is not theirs to do.

Things worth knowing

• A link works for 30 days after the meeting, or 90 days if you sent it with no meeting attached.
• Editing a form never changes what past clients were asked. Every response keeps the version it was shown.
• Archiving a form stops it going to anybody new. Anybody part way through can still finish and send it.
• If somebody reschedules, they keep the same link. They are never sent a second copy of a form they have already started.
• The link is the only key to that form, so treat it as private. Tell the person not to forward it.

Deleting somebody's answers

Open the response and press Delete. To remove everything held for one person, use Delete everything for one address at the bottom of the Responses page.

Deleting answers does not delete the booking, and deleting a booking does not delete the answers. The two are kept apart so one request cannot quietly become the other. The privacy policy sets out what is stored and for how long.

Still stuck?

Email meetsy@doubleslash.studio and a person will answer, usually within a working day.