Creating a Contact Form

In this tutorial, we'll look at creating a Contact Form using Umbraco Forms. It will take you through the process of creating a Contact Form and cover all the different components involved in building the form.

You can use a Contact Form on your website to allow a visitors to send you a message. Having a Contact Form on your website allows you to keep track of potential customer queries and possibly generate leads via email communication.

Video Tutorial

Creating a Contact Us Form using Umbraco Forms

Step 1: Configure the Document Types

The first step in this tutorial is to configure the Document Types that will be used to show the Contact Form on your website.

Creating a Composition

We'll start off by creating a Composition. A Composition is a stand-alone Document Type, that you can reuse on other Document Types. By creating a Composition, we are not duplicating the same properties on multiple Document Types. This is helpful when we want to use the same set of properties on multiple Document Types.

To create a Composition, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Expand the Document Types folder in the Settings tree.

3. Select ... next to the Compositions folder.

4. Click Composition.

Creating a Composition

1. Enter a Name for the Composition- let's call it Title Box.

2. Add the following fields with the respective specifications:

Group	Field Name	Alias	Data Type
Title Box	Title	title	Textstring
Title Box	Subtitle	subtitle	Textarea

1. Save Composition.

Add Composition Properties

Creating a Contact Us Document Type with Template

Next, we will create a Document type with template. A Document Type contains different properties for holding different types of content. The Document Type we create here will be the one used for creating the content page that will hold our Contact Form.

To create a Contact Us Document Type, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Select ... next to the Document Types folder.

3. Select Document Type with Template.

4. Enter a Name for the Document Type- let's call it Contact Us.

5. Select Compositions in the top-right corner.

6. Make sure the Title Box Composition is checked.

7. Submit the change.

8. Add the following fields with the respective specifications:

Group	Field Name	Alias	Data Type
Form	Contact Form	contactForm	Richtext Editor
Content	Body Text	bodyText	Richtext Editor

1. Save the Document Type.

Contact Us Document Type Properties

Updating the Document Type Permission

In the following we will update the Document Type permissions to specifically add child nodes under the root content node.

To update the Contact Us Document Type permissions, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Document Type used for the root content node on your website, in this case Home Page.

2. Go to the Permissions tab.

3. Select Add child in the Allowed child node types section.

4. Select the Contact Us page.

Update Home Page Document Type Properties

1. Submit the changes.

2. Save the Document Type.

Step 2: Prepare the Content Node

This step takes you through creating the content node for your Contact Form. The content node uses the Document Type and Template to serve up an HTML page to web visitors.

To add the content node, follow these steps:

1. Go to Content in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Select ... next to the Home Page.

3. Create a Contact Us page.

4. Enter the name for the content node. let's call it Contact Us.

5. Enter a Title, Subtitle, and Body Text value. These can always be updated at a later point.

Enter values in Contact Us Content node

1. Save or Save and Publish the content node.

Step 3: Creating the Contact Form

In this step, we will create the Contact Form using Umbraco Forms.

To create a form, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Forms section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Click ... next to the Forms folder.

3. Choose the Empty Form option.

4. Enter a Name for the Form- let's call it Contact Us.

5. [Optional] Enter a Group Name for the Data Consent query - let's call it Data Consent.

6. Add new group - let's call it Information.

7. Select Add Question to add a new field.

8. Enter the following details:

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Name
Alias	fullName
Choose answer type	Short answer
Field Type	text
Mandatory	Yes

1. Submit the changes.

2. Repeat steps 7-9 to add the following fields:

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Company Name
Choose answer type	Short answer

Field Name	Value
Enter question	How should we contact you?
Choose answer type	Single choice
Prevalues Items	phone, email
Mandatory	Yes

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Enter your phone number
Choose answer type	Short answer
Field Type	tel
Validation	Validate as a number

1. Select Enable Conditions on the Enter your phone number field.

2. Click Add Condition.

3. Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.

4. Enter phone in the value field.

5. Submit the changes.

6. Repeat steps 7-9 to add the following field:

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Enter your email address
Choose answer type	Short answer
Field Type	email
Validation	Validate as an email address

1. Select Enable Conditions on the Enter your email address field.

2. Click Add Condition.

3. Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.

4. Enter email in the value field.

5. Submit the changes.

6. Repeat steps 7-9 to add the following field:

Field Name	Value
Enter question	What is your role?
Choose answer type	Dropdown
Prevalues Items	manager, developer, tester, writer, marketing specialist

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Attachments (if any)
Choose answer type	File upload
Predefined allowed file types	pdf, png, jpg, gif, txt

Field Name	Value
Enter question	Are you a Robot?
Choose answer type	reCAPTCHAv2
Theme	light
Size	normal
Mandatory	Yes

Add questions

1. Select the Reorder option.

2. Drag the Data consent group below the Information group.

3. Click I am done reordering.

4. Save the form.

Configuring the Form Workflow

Workflows is how you determine what you happen after your form is submitted. It could be actions like sending an email or displaying a "Thank You" message.

To configure the Form workflow, follow these steps:

1. Select the Submit message/ Go to page options in the bottom of the Forms editor.

2. Enter a customised message in the Message on Submit field.

3. Submit the change.

4. Click on Send template email to [e-mail].

5. Select Example-Template.cshtml in the Email template field.

6. Enable Attachments.

7. Enter an email address in the Sender Email field.

8. Submit the changes.

9. Save the form.

Configuring the Form Settings

In this step, you will find the information about accessing the Forms Settings and the validations available to customise your form.

To configure the form settings, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Settings tab in the Forms editor.

2. Scroll to find the Validation section.

3. Ensure that the Mark Mandatory fields option is checked under Mark fields.

4. Save the changes.

There are multiple settings that be configured. These are all optional in relation to this tutorial.

Step 4: Adding the Contact Form to the Content Node

Now that you have created your Contact Form, you can add it in the Contact Us Content Node using the Rich Text Editor. We will use the Insert Form macro to insert a form.

To add the Contact Form to the Content Node, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us Page.

3. Select Insert macro in the Contact Form field.

4. Select the Insert Form with Theme option.

5. Select Add in the Choose a form field.

6. Choose the Contact Us Form.

7. Select Add in the Theme field.

8. Choose the default theme.

Adding the Contact Us Form

1. Submit the changes.

2. Save or Save and Publish the content node.

Step 5: Additional configuration

In the next couple of steps, we will add some additional configuration required in order for our form to work properly.

Configuring the reCAPTCHA value

When you inserted the form in the previous step, you will notice an error message in the reCAPTCHA field. You need to update the configuration to include a value in the appsettings.json file.

To configure the reCAPTCHA value, see the reCAPTCHA configuration article.

Configuring Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

By adding the SMTP settings in the appsettings.json file, you can send out emails from your Umbraco installation. It is required in order for your form to be able to send emails on submission.

To configure the SMTP settings, see the Global Settings article.

Step 6: Rendering the Contact Form

In this step, we will render the values of the Contact Us Document Type in the template.

To render the Contact Form, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Settings section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us template in the Templates folder.

3. Choose the Insert option and select Value.

4. Select contactForm from the Choose field dropdown.

5. Submit the changes.

6. Follow steps 3-5 to insert the bodyText value.

7. Submit the changes.

8. Save the template.

The final result

Finally, it is time to view the Contact Form on the frontend.

To view the Contact Form on the Frontend, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.

2. Open the Contact Us Page.

3. Ensure that the page is published.

4. Go to the Info tab.

5. Click on the Published link in the Links section.

You now have a full-fledged Contact Form ready to be used on your website.