Send a request
Send your form to one person, with what you already know filled in. They check it, add what is missing, and submit.
Send one by hand
- 1
Open the New request sheet
Open a published form and click New request, the paper plane icon at the top right of the form page.
- 2
Say who it is for
Under Who is it for?, enter their email and name. The email is needed even if you will send the link yourself.
- 3
Fill in what you know
Under What they see, fill in the answers you already have. Click Lock on any answer they may only confirm.
- 4
Choose Email or Link
Email has Formstep send the invitation, on Pro and Business. On Free, your first 10 invitations go to your own address only. Link emails nothing and gives you the link to send however you like.
- 5
Send it
Click Send invitation or Create link. The request appears on the Requests page.
Under Callback and options you can change when the request expires (30 days unless you set 1 to 365) and add an External id, your own reference such as a CRM record. To send the same form to a list of people, see Bulk send.
Prefill, locked fields and hidden fields
A request can carry three kinds of values for one person.
| Value | Use it for | The recipient |
|---|---|---|
| Prefill | Answers you already know, such as their company name | Sees it and can change it |
| Locked field | Facts they only confirm, such as a contract number | Sees it and cannot change it |
| Hidden field | Values the form needs but does not ask, such as a case number | Cannot change it, and sees it only where you show it |
Prefill
Prefilled answers save the recipient typing: they check and correct instead. Formstep does not look the values up for you. Fill them in by hand, or let your workflow look them up first, for example in HubSpot.
Locked fields
A locked answer is shown but cannot be changed. Locking applies to this one request, not to the form. A locked answer needs a value, or the recipient could never submit.
Hidden fields
Values for the form’s hidden fields, such as a case number or an amount. Logic, calculated fields and email text can use them, and they come back unchanged with the answers. They are not secret: the recipient sees a value wherever you mention it in the form or the invitation.
Repeating groups, multi-select questions, matrices and files can only be filled in from a workflow. The sheet says how many such fields the form has.
Try it on yourself first
Try it yourself, at the bottom of the sheet, creates a test request from what you filled in and gives you its link. Answer it as the recipient would. A test request emails nobody, does not count toward your monthly allowance, and expires after a day. On Free you can make 10 a day. Its answers stay out of the inbox, stats, exports and integrations. To find it on the Requests page, open Filter and tick Show test requests.
What the recipient sees
Your form, in your theme and their language, with their answers filled in and locked answers read-only. There is no captcha and no sign-in. A request has no message of its own, so put what they need to know in the form. A mention of a prefilled or hidden value makes it personal.
Send requests from a workflow
Zapier, Make, n8n, an AI agent or your own code can create the same request, with the same prefill, locks and hidden fields. Fill in the sheet once, then open the ⋯ menu and choose From an automation: it shows the request you filled in as a ready-made call. See the automation guides, or Create requests from code for every option.
What a request costs
Each request counts once toward your monthly allowance when you create it, whether or not anyone answers. Public link submissions share the same allowance.