Available with the following plans, except where noted:
Copper forms allow you to automatically update opportunities, projects, and items in your pipelines when someone fills out your form.
You can use this to:
Qualify potential customers
Collect information to provide a quote
Scope a project
Solicit post-project feedback
Here's an example flow to quickly scope a project using Copper Forms + Pipelines + Email Automations:
When the project hits the Scoping stage, an email automation fires that sends the customer the scoping form link
The information you need to scope the project are required fields on the form
When the customer submits the form, the pipeline record is automatically updated with the form responses
Professional and Business only: And the pipeline record automatically moves into the next stage 🪄
This article walks you through creating a form that will update existing pipeline records.
If you want forms responses to create new pipeline records instead, please see this article.
Only Admins and Account Owners can create and manage Forms.
When you access the forms builder for the first time, you will see three options to create a new form. If your company does not have Leads enabled, you will not see the Leads option.
Which option you choose depends on what you would like form responses to do in Copper.
Create or update Leads. Your form will have Lead fields and will create or update Leads. Leads cannot be related to Companies or Pipelines. If you would like to create a Lead form, please see this article.
Create or update People. Your form will have people fields and will create or update people. Optionally, if you add company fields the form will create or update companies, if you add pipeline fields the form will create pipeline records. If you would like to create this kind of form, please see this article.
👉 This article: Update existing pipeline records. Your form will have people and pipeline fields and will create or update people and update existing pipeline records. Optionally, if you add company fields the form will create or update companies.
Click Update existing pipeline records continue to the form builder.
Adding fields to your form
Copper forms come preconfigured with fields you need to start collecting data. You can add your own fields, relabel fields, rearrange fields, and customize the text on other form elements.
To add or remove fields from your form, check the boxes on the left. Your changes will appear on the form on the right.
You will need to add at least one pipeline field for your form to update pipeline records. Select the Pipeline and add at least one Pipeline field to your form. Only fields that are active on the selected pipeline can be added to the form.
For more information on which fields you can add to the form, how they behave on the web, and how the responses update data in Copper, please see this help article.
Inactive fields cannot be added to a form. The Work Email field is used for duplicate matching and cannot be removed.
Customizing the fields
Once the field is on your form, you can hover over it to see additional options.
From here, you can:
Rearrange fields by dragging and dropping
Relabel a field by clicking into the field name
Add a field description
Click into the 3-dot menu to see options to mark a field required or remove a field from the form
Relabeling a field
This powerful feature allows you to control the display label of a field on your form without changing its name in Copper, ensuring a smooth user experience for both prospects and staff.
For example, you may have a custom field called "Budget" that you relabel to "What's your budget?"
When you relabel a field, you are still able to see the Copper field it is mapped to.
Relabeling a field on the form is cosmetic only and does not impact the field name in Copper. The activity created from form responses will also display the field name and not the form label. This ensures your prospects and staff each see the right terminology.
If you rename a field in Copper, the field will continue to sync even if you have relabeled it on the form. We will not automatically update the field label on the form. However, we will update the display of the field mapping.
Adding a field description
Provide additional information on how you would like respondents to answer the question by adding a description to the field.
Field descriptions only display on the form. Field descriptions do not display on Copper profiles, fields, saved filters, or activities.
On the form, the field description will be displayed using the same font and color chosen for the fields in the Style tab, but with a smaller font size.
Marking a form field as required
Ensure respondents are filling out all the information you need by marking a form field as required in order for the form to be submitted.
You can set a form field as required independent from whether a field is required in Copper. For example, you may want your potential customers to answer the "What's your budget?" question on the form, but don't need that field to be required for staff use in Copper.
Click the 3-dot menu to the right of the field name to set a field as required.
Customizing the form elements
Once you have your fields in place, customize the other elements of your form.
The form header is at the top of the form, above your fields, and will be visible when published and shared.
Below your fields, you will see additional form elements that you can add and customize, including:
reCAPTCHA v2
The Submit button text
The widget button text
The "Thank you" message that appears after a form has been submitted
A call-to-action (CTA)
💡 Tip
Prevent spam submissions with Google's reCAPTCHA v2. See this help center article on adding reCAPTCHA to your form.
To relabel the Submit button or widget button text, click into the element, as shown below.
Customizing the "thank you" message
When the form is submitted, a pre-configured "thank you" message appears.
On the Build step, customize the text of this message by clicking into the elements.
💡 Tip
Strike while the iron is hot and add a call-to-action (CTA) to your thank you message.
Customizing the form actions
On the Workflow tab, you can automate actions to perform when a form response is received. You can also see a preview of the activity that is created when a form is submitted.
On the workflow tab, you can:
All plans: Configure contact creation options and automatically tag new and existing contacts who fill out the form
Basic, Professional, and Business plans: Automatically create a task when a form is submitted
Basic, Professional, and Business plans: Configure pipeline record update options
Professional and Business plans: Move a pipeline record into a different stage once the form is submitted
Copper automatically creates a saved filter of respondents. Learn more here.
Customizing the Create/Update People record action
Copper automatically creates and updates People records based on form submissions. While this action cannot be removed from the form workflow, you are able to customize the action.
Click the Create/Update People record action to see the customization options, as shown below.
Follow these steps to customize the Create/Update People action:
Set the Contact Type for People created from form responses
We've pre-populated the field with Potential Customer, but you can change it.
⚠️ If you delete the Contact Type you've set here, any future contacts created from form responses will be created with Type = Uncategorized.
Assign an Owner for new People created from form responses
Based on the user's notification preferences, they will receive notifications for these form submissions.
Add tags to new and existing People who fill out a form
⚠️ Similar to how Workflow Automations behaves, if you delete or rename the tag in Settings, it will not apply to the form automation. You will need to update your form action as well.
Existing People (based on email match) who fill out the form will not have their Contact Type or Owner changed. However, the fields on their profile will update with their form responses, and they will have tag(s) applied.
Customizing the Create Task action
Basic, Professional, and Business plans only. You can choose to automatically create a task when a form submission is received. For example, you may want a task to "Research the new prospect". The task will be related to the Person record.
Follow these steps to add a Create Task action to your form workflow:
Name your task something that can be reused for each submission and will convey the appropriate next step to the assignee.
Assign an owner for the tasks that will be created when a submission is received.
Select from the due date options. For ease of use, we've provided options that are easy to understand in the context of submissions that will be received on an ongoing basis.
Day of submission means that the task will have the same due date as the day the form is submitted.
Day after submission means that the task will be due the day after the form is submitted.
Week after submission means that the task will be due the week after the form is submitted.
Currently, only one task can be automated for form submissions.
Customizing the Update Pipeline record action
You can only change the destination pipeline in the Build step. Changing it will remove any pipeline fields from the form and reset the pipeline workflow action.
Styling the form and elements
The form comes pre-configured, but you can make several styling changes to the form and elements to match your brand.
For forms that update pipeline records, the only styling options available are for the share link option.
Follow these steps to style your form:
Choose from a selection of Google Fonts for the Header, Fields, and Submit Button:
Inter
Merriweather
Montserrat
Open Sans
Oswald
Roboto
Slabo
Set the text colors for the Header, Fields, and Submit Button to align with your brand standards
You can use the eyedropper tool shown below to match your website directly. Simply open your website in another browser window side-by-side with Copper. Then, select the eyedropper tool and click on the website element that you would like to match.
By clicking the arrows on the color picker shown below, you can switch to HEX mode and enter your HEX value.
Set the background color of the Submit Button to align with your brand standards using the same color picker shown above
Once you've added your fields, configured your actions, and styled your form, be sure to give your form a unique Name. Form names must be unique, including deleted forms. This is because we automatically create activity types and saved filters that stay synced with your form name.
Sharing the form
Unlike other Copper form options, forms that update pipeline records can only be shared via emails in the Copper web app. This is because Copper requires the context of which pipeline record should be updated with the form response.
For many of our customers, the email address of the primary contact is not a unique identifier for pipeline records. You may have several pipeline records in the same pipeline with the same primary contact. Or, it may be that the primary contact forwards the form to someone on their team to complete––again making the email address of the primary contact not the unique identifier.
The Share tab will show you information on how to share your form from within Copper.
Forms that update pipeline records, and email templates that contain forms that update pipeline records, can only be emailed via the Copper web app and only when the user is initiating the email with the context of the pipeline record. This ensures Copper is able to update the right pipeline record. For example, you can send a form that updates pipeline records:
By clicking on the email address of the primary contact on the pipeline record
Bulk emailing from a pipeline saved filter
This help center article details how to share your forms in Copper emails.
Have a question? Contact our Customer Success Team using the in-app chat 💬