Create a form

This walks through building a form end to end — fields, design, languages, action, routing, and sharing.

Before you start

• A user role with the Form Builder module permission
• A clear idea of what the form should collect and what should happen when someone submits it
• For a callback request form, you’d want: name, phone, preferred time, and a “Schedule Callback” action

Step 1 — Open the builder

1. Open Settings → Form Builder.
2. You’ll land on the Forms tab listing existing forms. To start a new one:
   Click New Form, then pick Blank Form in the Create New Form dialog to start blank
   Or pick the Callback Request template in the same dialog and customize from there

Step 2 — Add and edit fields

You’re now in the editor with three panes: a field palette on the left, the form canvas in the middle, and a properties panel on the right.

1. Drag a field type from the palette onto the canvas. Field types are Name, Email, Phone, Text, Multi-line, Numeric, Dropdown, Nested Dropdown, Country, Checkbox, Attachment, Terms, and Time Slot.
2. Click a field on the canvas to select it. The properties panel shows its settings:
   Label — what the customer sees above the field
   Placeholder — the hint inside the field before they type
   Required — toggle on if it must be filled
   Options — for Dropdown and Nested Dropdown fields, the list of choices
   Type-specific settings (validation, default value, min/max for numbers, etc.)
3. Reorder fields by dragging the handle. Delete with the trash icon. Add as many as you need.

Step 3 — Customize the look

Switch to the Design tab inside the editor.

1. Set the primary color, background color, text color, button color, and button text color.
2. Add a header image if you want the form to be branded — upload an image file (max 5MB) under Header. You have to save the form once before you can upload.
3. Set the Submit button text and the Thank-you message shown after submission.
4. Optionally add header links and social links.

Step 4 — Add languages (optional)

Switch to the Languages tab.

1. Pick the Active languages — every language someone might fill the form in.
2. Set the Default language — what the form falls back to when the URL has no ?lang= parameter and the visitor’s browser language doesn’t match one of the active languages.
3. For each non-default language, fill in the form text translations here — title, description, submit button, thank-you message, and footer text. Field labels, placeholders and options are translated per field: select the field on the canvas and open its Translations tab.

Languages can be added at any time — Atender prefills translations as blank for each field, and you fill them in.

Regional variants can reuse the base language text when no regional override is filled in. For example, English (UK), English (US), or Portuguese (Brazil) can fall back to English or Portuguese. You only need to edit the regional tab when you want region-specific wording. Script variants, such as Traditional Chinese, still need their own translation.

Step 5 — Configure the action

Switch to the Actions tab in the properties panel on the right (with no field selected).

1. Pick the Action type:
   Create a conversation — turns submissions into inbox conversations. Configure the default subject; the default team or agent stack is set in the Routing tab.
   Create a CRM entry — pick whether to create a contact or an organization.
   Store in Forms Log — just records the submission without creating anything.
   Schedule Callback — pick the phone number to book the callback against and the default language.
2. Field mappings — for each form field, pick the target field on the conversation or CRM entity it should populate. Custom fields you’ve created in Custom Fields appear here, as long as they’re placed on the conversation or CRM layout the action targets.

Create-conversation forms are treated as Email intake when Atender checks whether a returning customer already has a matching conversation. Form-specific exclusions are managed in Settings → Returning Customers on the Email tab, in the grouped Email / Forms exclusions picker.

Step 6 — Configure routing

Switch to the Routing tab.

1. Under Default destination, set Route to to choose the team or agent stack that takes submissions from this form when no rule matches.
2. Add conditional routing rules if different answers should go to different teams. Each rule uses a form field, a value condition, and the team or agent stack that should receive matching submissions.

Routing rules are evaluated at the form level. That means one form can route submissions to different teams based on the answers someone submits — for example, sending billing requests to Finance and technical questions to Support.

Step 7 — Save the form

Click Save Form in the settings header. New forms are enabled by default, so the form shows as Active in the list.

Step 8 — Share it

Back on the Forms list, find your form’s card and open the actions menu:

• Preview in panel — open a live preview in a dialog, or Open in new tab for the hosted form
• Copy Link — copy the hosted URL to your clipboard (append ?lang=xx to force a language)
• Get Embed Code — get an HTML snippet to paste into your website; pick the embed language from the dropdown

The hosted URL is permanent — share it, link to it, paste it into emails.

Verify it worked

Open the hosted URL, fill in every field, and submit. You should see the thank-you message. Then:

• For a Create a conversation form, open Atender’s inbox — a conversation entry should appear or the submission should be added to the matching existing conversation within seconds, with the form fields filled in.
• For a Create a CRM entry form, open CRM and find the new record — set the contact-type filter to Organizations if the form creates organizations.
• For a Schedule Callback form, open Atender’s inbox — a voice conversation with the subject Callback request from <phone number> should appear.
• For a Store in Forms Log form, view submissions in the Submissions Log tab at the top of the Form Builder.

Edit later

Open the form’s card from the Forms list and click Edit. Changes to fields, design, or action are picked up the next time someone loads the hosted URL — embedded copies update on the next page load. You don’t need to re-share the link.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Submissions aren’t creating conversations. Fix: Open the form and confirm the action is set to Create a conversation (not Store in Forms Log or another action). Check the Submissions Log tab — if submissions are landing there but no conversation appears, the action configuration is wrong.

• Symptom: A translated language is showing English text. Fix: Open the Languages tab and confirm every field has a translation filled in for that language. Empty translations fall back to the default language. Regional variants, such as English (UK), English (US), or Portuguese (Brazil), can also use the base language text when no regional override is filled in — edit the regional tab only when you want region-specific wording. Script variants, such as Traditional Chinese, still need their own translation.

• Symptom: Embed shows but submissions fail. Fix: The embed snippet expects your site to allow framing of the Atender domain. Check your site’s Content Security Policy if submissions are silently failing from an embed.

• Symptom: Header image looks stretched or pixelated. Fix: Use a wide rectangular image (roughly 1600×400) for best results. The form respects aspect ratio.

See also

• What is the Form Builder
• Custom fields