Creating a Contact Form
Last updated
Last updated
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.
The first step in this tutorial is to configure the Document Types that will be used to show the Contact Form on your website.
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:
Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Expand the Document Types folder in the Settings tree.
Select ... next to the Compositions folder.
Click Create.
Select Document Type.
Enter a Name for the Composition- let's call it Title Box.
Add the following fields with the respective specifications:
| Group | Field Name | Alias | Data Type |
|---|---|---|---|
Title Box | Title | title | Textstring |
Title Box | Subtitle | subtitle | Textarea |
Click Save to save the Composition.
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:
Go to Settings in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Select ... next to the Document Types folder.
Click Create.
Select Document Type with Template.
Enter a Name for the Document Type- let's call it Contact Us.
Select Compositions in the top-right corner.
Select Title Box.
Click Submit.
Add the following fields with the respective specifications:
| Group | Field Name | Alias | Data Type |
|---|---|---|---|
Form | Contact Form | contactForm | Form Picker |
Content | Body Text | bodyText | Richtext Editor |
Click Save.
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:
Navigate to the Document Type used for the root content node on your website, in this case Home page.
Go to the Structure tab.
Select Choose in the Allowed child node types section.
Select the Contact Us page.
Click Choose.
Click Save.
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:
Go to Content in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Select ... next to the Home Page.
Click Create.
Select Contact Us.
Enter the name for the content node. let's call it Contact Us.
Enter a Title, Subtitle, and Body Text value. These can always be updated at a later point.
Click Save or Save and Publish.
In this step, we will create the Contact Form using Umbraco Forms.
To create a form, follow these steps:
Go to the Forms section in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Click ... next to the Forms folder.
Click Create.
Select New Form....
Enter a Name for the Form. Let's call it Contact Us.
[Optional] Enter a Page Name and Group Name for the Data Consent statement. Let's call it Data Consent.
Click Add new group. Let's call it Information.
Select Add Question to add a new field.
Enter the following details:
| Field Name | Value |
|---|---|
Enter question | Name |
Alias | fullName |
Choose answer type | Short answer |
Field Type | text |
Mandatory | On |
Click Submit.
Repeat steps 8-10 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 | On |
| Field Name | Value |
|---|---|
Enter question | Enter your phone number |
Choose answer type | Short answer |
Field Type | tel |
Validation | Validate as a number |
Enable Conditions in the Enter your phone number field.
Click Add Condition.
Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.
Select phone in the value field.
Click Submit.
Repeat steps 8-10 to add the following field:
| Field Name | Value |
|---|---|
Enter question | Enter your email address |
Choose answer type | Short answer |
Field Type | |
Validation | Validate as an email address |
Enable Conditions in the Enter your email address field.
Click Add Condition.
Select How should we contact you? from the dropwdown.
Select email in the value field.
Click Submit.
Repeat steps 8-10 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 | On |
Select the Reorder option.
Drag the Data consent group below the Information group.
Click I am done reordering.
Click Save.
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:
Select the Submit message/ Go to page options in the bottom of the Forms editor.
Enter a customised message in the Message on Submit field.
Click Submit.
Click on Send template email to xxx@xx.dk.
Enter an email address in the Sender Email field.
By default, the Example-Template.cshtml template will be selected in the Email template field.
Enable Attach Uploaded Files.
Click Submit.
Click Save.
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:
Navigate to the Settings tab in the Forms editor.
Scroll to find the Validation section.
Ensure that the Mark Mandatory fields option is checked under Mark fields.
Click Save.
There are multiple settings that be configured. These are all optional in relation to this tutorial.
Now that you have created your Contact Form, you can add it in the Contact Us Content Node using the Form Picke Data Type.
To add the Contact Form to the Content Node, follow these steps:
Go to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Open the Contact Us Page.
Select Choose in the Contact Form field.
Select the Insert Form with Theme option.
Select the Contact Us Form.
Click Choose.
Click Save or Save and Publish.
In the next couple of steps, we will add some additional configuration required in order for our form to work properly.
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.
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.
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:
Go to the Settings section in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Open the Contact Us template in the Templates folder.
Enter the following code to render the form:
Select Insert.
Click Value.
Select Document Type from the Choose field dropdown.
Select Contact Us.
Click Choose.
Select bodyText from the Contact Us dropdown.
Click Submit.
Click Save.
For Umbraco Forms to work correctly, you need to include some client dependencies. For more information, see the Preparing Your Frontend article.
Finally, it is time to view the Contact Form on the frontend.
To view the Contact Form on the Frontend, follow these steps:
Go to the Content section in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Open the Contact Us Page.
Ensure that the page is published.
Go to the Info tab.
Click on the Published link in the Links section.
You now have a full-fledged Contact Form ready to be used on your website.
