Web forms: turn enquiries into records

A web form is the fastest way for a prospect to reach you, and the easiest place to lose them. Mesy gives each form an address of its own. Whatever posts to that address lands as a record: matched on email or phone, so the same person who writes twice stays one contact, and ready for a workflow to pick up.

Managers and admins manage web forms. Members can see the list, which the workflow builder reads from.

Add a web form

1. Open Admin, then Web Forms.
2. Choose Add web form. Give it a name and pick the record type it creates, usually your contact type.
3. Map each form question to a record field. The left side is the name your form tool sends, such as parent_name. The right side is the field on the record. A field can be mapped once, and relation fields cannot be filled from a form.
4. Optionally set a question’s own rules with Settings on its row. Required makes the answer mandatory on the form even when the record field is optional. Choices offers fixed answers on the hosted page, such as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and Allow other adds an “Other” answer that opens a text box. Every submission is held to the list, so a workflow that checks the city sees exactly one of the offered spellings.
5. Optionally map consent boxes. A ticked box is recorded as consent for that channel, with the submission kept as evidence.
6. Choose Create form. Copy the secret now. You can reveal it again later from the form’s details.

Connect your form tool

Open the form’s Details to find its post address. Send a JSON object of the form’s answers to that address, with the secret in the X-Mesy-Form-Secret header. Form tools that send webhooks, such as Typeform, Jotform or Tally, connect this way with no code.

For a Google Form, choose Show Apps Script on the card, copy the script into the form’s Apps Script editor, and add an On form submit trigger. Question titles must match the source keys in your mapping.

Host the form on Mesy

Tick Host a page for this form on Mesy to get a shareable link that renders the form for you. The page posts without the secret, behind a rate limit and a hidden trap field that catches bots. Switch hosting off again at any time.

Embed the form on your website

A hosted form can live inside your own page. Open the form’s Details and copy one of the two snippets under Embed on your website:

• The script snippet places the form where you paste it and keeps the frame the right height as the page changes.
• The iframe snippet works on site builders that do not allow scripts. Give it a height that fits your form.

The embedded form uses the same address and the same rules as the hosted page, so submissions arrive in the same log.

What happens to a submission

Every submission is logged before anything else happens, so nothing is lost if a later step fails. Mesy then looks for an existing record with the same email or phone:

• No match creates a new record.
• One match updates that record with the answers given. Blank answers never erase what the record already holds.
• More than one match is refused, with the reason in the log, because guessing which person it was would be worse than asking.

The record is created as the form’s owner, so sharing rules stay in force. The submission log on the card shows each entry as created, updated or rejected, with a link to the record it touched.

Start a workflow from a form

In the workflow builder, pick the trigger A web form is submitted. Leave the form set to any, or narrow it to one form. From there the usual steps apply: check a field such as city, assign an owner, create a task, add a tag or send a notification.

Two related steps arrived with web forms:

• Add a tag puts a tag on the record, so a saved view can collect, for example, every warm lead.
• Send a campaign message queues one campaign message to the record. It always waits for your approval, goes out from your own connected mailbox, and respects each person’s consent.

A workflow can also start when a WhatsApp or Messenger conversation is linked to a record, using the trigger A chat is linked. To give a campaign its own way into WhatsApp, and narrow that trigger to it, see WhatsApp entry points.

Export people who opted in

On any records list, the toolbar has two export buttons: Export CSV and Export email opt-ins only. On a phone, both are in the More actions menu. The opt-ins file contains records whose current email consent is opted in, which is the right list to hand to an agency for ad audiences. Both exports follow the list’s current filters, including an active tag.

Keep it secure

• The secret can be rotated from the form’s details. Every tool using the old secret stops working until it is updated.
• Switching a form off refuses new submissions at once.
• Deleting a form removes its address and its submission log. Records it created stay.