How to Create a Questionnaire in Dubsado
Creating forms in Dubsado for your business is super easy and a time saver. You can tie them into your workflows and send out reminders as needed, have them show up in the client portal, and more. There are a lot of ways to use forms in Dubsado.
Types of forms
In Dubsado, there are several types of forms that you may need in your business:
Proposals
Contracts
Questionnaires
Lead Capture forms
In this blog post, I’ll take you through the steps of creating a questionnaire for your business. I’ll go over proposals and contracts in a separate post.
Steps to create a questionnaire in Dubsado
Step 1 - Brainstorm questions
Before you start creating a questionnaire in Dubsado, just take a pen and paper (or a Google / Word doc) and map out what information you need from your client and what questions are essential to ask when you’re starting to work with a client.
If you aren’t sure what to ask, there are a lot of examples online.
Use Google and search: "questionnaires for (insert type of questionnaire and niche)" and you'll find a lot of blog posts with examples of questionnaires in your industry. Write down the questions that resonate with you.
For example you can search: “Questionnaires for event planners” and find a lot of blog posts to help you.
Dubsado also has a template library with questionnaire examples for different industries that can be used as a starting point.
Make sure what you’re asking is simple and clear. Keep the language simple and avoid using a lot of industry jargon.
Keep in mind that forms that are too long can be frustrating for clients. Stick to the questions that you need answers to. If the information you’re gathering might not be used, then maybe it doesn’t need to be asked.
In some industries the questionnaire are long but the information is necessary. In these cases, styling and adding design elements to your form will be very helpful.
Step 2 - Create your questionnaire in Dubsado
There are three ways to create a new questionnaire in Dubsado:
Create a new form by going to “Templates” on the left hand menu → then “Forms” → then click the plus sign beside “Questionnaires” to create a blank questionnaire.
If you want to use a template click “Template Library” at the top left of your screen and select a template from your industry or a template that has the structure you’re looking for.
There is a “Sample Intake Questionnaire” inside of your Dubsado account, you can duplicate it to use it as a starting point - that way you keep the original intact in case you need it again.
Once you have the form you want to start with, the next step is to add the questions you mapped out into Dubsado.
Step 3 - Add your questions
Add your questions into Dubsado and choose the type of element that works best for each question:
Short answer: this element creates a text box for responses that are shorter - about a line long. These types of responses can also map to certain mapped fields in Dubsado. For instance, if you set up the question to map to their email address, the client's response will populate the email address.
Free response: this element creates a text box that lets clients write longer paragraphs as a response.
Date select: for clients to choose a specific date from. You can map this response to your project date, project start or end date.
Project tracking: this creates a dropdown box where clients can choose from the project sources you’ve set up in your account, allowing you to track where your clients are finding you from. I personally use this element on lead capture forms.
Dropdown box: this element adds a list of options to your form for clients to choose from. Great for questions where there are preselected answers to choose one from.
Checkboxes: this element adds a list of options to your form for clients to choose from. This option allows for multiple responses to be selected. It can be formatted vertically or horizontally.
Multiple Choice: this element adds a lot of options to your form where a single response needs to be selected. It can also be formatted vertically or horizontally.
File uploader: this element adds a file uploader to your form so your clients can upload files or images that are needed for a project. You can allow multiple file types or only images.
Step 4 - Style your questionnaire
Once you’ve added your questions, you can add the following elements to help you style and add design elements to your form.
Styling elements:
Containers: this element allows you to add 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns in your form. It works well when you want to place questions side by side to shorten the length of your questionnaire. It also works when adding design elements to your form, allowing you to place images beside your questions.
Text box: this element allows you to add titles and descriptions to sections of your form.
Images: this element allows you to add .jpg or .png or .gif files to your forms and change their proportion inside the form after they’ve been uploaded.
Divider: this element allows you to add a line between your content. You can edit the line style, color, weight, width and add padding before and after the line.
Spacer: Allows you to add space between your form content.
HTML block: this element allows you to insert JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code blocks into your form. Adding CSS code to your forms can enhance the functionality and design vs. what is provided natively in Dubsado. For example, you can add accordion dropboxes, image or testimonial carousels, etc.
Use your branding colors, images and fonts to create something on brand that helps your form stand out.
In cases where you have a long questionnaire, it helps to create sections and break up the questions so that the form doesn’t seem too overwhelming to your clients.
Use elements like adding color to the background, titles for each section, using dividers and lines to structure your different sections.
To learn about styling your forms in more detail, check out this blog post
Step 5 - Edit your form settings
Once you’ve added all the questions and content you want to share in your form and structured it the way you want it to look, you can edit the form settings to make sure the form is working the way you want it to.
Under ‘Form Settings‘:
Expiration date: this allows you to set (or not set) an expiration date on your forms. There are three options for this setting
Relative: you can set the form to expire based on specific triggers:
X days after project start
X days before project start
X days after project end
X days before project end
X days after applied to project.
Keep in mind that those trigger dates need to be setup in the project for the expiration date to work.
You can also add a reminder email X hours, days or weeks before the expiration date. The email that is sent is a canned email template, so keep in mind that if you use reminders - it will be the same email for ALL forms that have the reminder enabled.
You can find this email in your canned emails → click ‘Edit Templates’ at the top → ‘Form Reminder’ email.
Fixed: You set a fixed expiration date for all clients using this form.
No expiration: no expiration date is set, meaning that this form can be submitted anytime in the future if the project is still live.
Completion Alert: allows you to customize the text of the pop up banner that appears when someone submits / completes a form.
Header: this is the bold text that appears at the top of the pop up
Body: this is the smaller text that appears under the header. It is not bolded.
Password protection: Dubsado forms are public by default, meaning that anyone with the link can view and fill out the form.
Toggling on password protection will make your form private and require your client to sign into their client portal with a password in order to view the form. A private form will display a ‘Private’ badge inside a project.
Under ‘Form Styling‘:
Question styling:
Font: choose a font for the questions in your form. This does not apply to text boxes - those can be set individually.
Font size: choose the size of the font for the questions in the form.
Font color: set the color of the text for the questions in the form. You can add a HEX code to set the color of the text.
Padding: you can set top and bottom padding for the entire form. This padding will appear at the very top and very bottom of the form.
Submit button text: changes the text of the button to submit the form - the button at the very bottom of the page. The color of the submit button is set in your Dubsado settings → Branding.
Step 6 - Preview your questionnaire
Preview your questionnaire to make sure the end result is what you want.
Do not skip this step, as sometimes things look a certain way in the form editor and when you preview the form, it may look different.
Tutorial: How to create a questionnaire in Dubsado
Here is a quick tutorial to show you how to create an questionnaire in Dubsado.
To learn how to style your questionnaires - check out my blog post and video on the new Dubsado form builder
Need help setting up Dubsado for your business?
If you need help setting up Dubsado for your business and want to work with an expert, the very first step is to book a free 20 minute discovery call.
We'll talk about where you need help and the type of client process you'd like to have in your business and see if a Dubsado setup is a good fit for you.
Click the link to schedule your call