Collecting Responses With Database Forms – Sapience Cloud

Overview

Sometimes the information you need lives with people who don't have a Sapience account: a lead, a client filling in an intake sheet, an event sign-up, a supplier sending you documents. A form turns one of your database tables into a simple web page those people can fill in. You share a link, and every response lands in your table as a new, correctly typed row, uploaded files included.

That means no separate form tool, no copy-pasting answers, and no CSV import. The answers arrive in the same table your Agents already work from.

A form can only add a row. The people filling it in never see the rows already in your table, any other table, or any column you didn't put on the form.

Who Can Build A Form

You can build and manage a form if you are the owner of the database or have write access to it. People with read-only access can't: they don't see the New form button, and the form builder won't open for them.

The responses are added to your table on behalf of the person who created the form. If that person later loses write access to the database, the form stops accepting responses.

Building A Form

Open your database on the Databases screen and select the table you want to collect into.

Click New form, next to New view.

Fill in the form builder (the settings are listed below).

Save.

Setting	What it does
Table	The table that receives the responses. It is chosen when you create the form and can't be changed afterwards
Title	The heading visitors see at the top of the page. It is also how the form appears in your tree
Description	Optional introduction shown under the title
Fields	The columns that appear on the form. Add field adds a column, Remove takes it off, and Move up / Move down set the order visitors see
Label	The name shown above a field. Left blank, it uses the column's own name
Help text	Optional hint shown with the field
Required	Visitors must answer this field before they can submit
Submit button text	The words on the button. Left blank, it says Submit
Thank-you message	What visitors read after submitting. Left blank, it says Thank you — your response has been recorded.
Accepting responses	On by default. Turn it off to close the form
Let Agents read uploaded files (uses AI credits)	Off by default. See Uploaded Files below
Email me each response	On by default. See The Email You Get below

A form needs at least one field and can hold up to 50.

Some columns can't go on a form. Person, Reference and Lookup columns are listed in the builder but greyed out, with the note "This column type can't be used in a public form". They would show people outside your organisation names or rows from inside it.

Dropdown choices. For a Select or Multi-select field the builder shows the column's Options, and you can edit them right there. They belong to the column, not the form, so editing them changes the table's column too.

Renaming and deleting columns is safe. A form follows each column itself, not its name. If you rename a column, a field with no custom label picks up the new name. If you delete a column, it simply drops off the form rather than breaking it.

To remove a form altogether, open it and click Delete form. You will be asked to confirm first.

Publishing The Public Link

When you save a new form for the first time, the builder stays open so you can publish straight away. Look for the Public link section:

Optionally set a password (see below).

Click Create link. Sapience shows you the link to copy.

Send it to the people who should fill the form in.

If you come back to the form later, the builder shows its active link with Copy link and Revoke link.

The link doesn't run out. There is no expiry or view-count setting for a form link: it stays valid for 3,650 days (about ten years), and there is no cap on how many responses it can collect.

Anyone with the link can respond. Share it only where you want responses, and set a password if you want to limit who can open it.

Changing the password: a new password creates a new link and leaves the old one working. To change it safely, click Revoke link first and then Create link.

Passwords

If you set a password, visitors are asked for it before they see the form, the same way they are for a shared note or project. Once they have entered it correctly, their browser remembers for a while, so they aren't asked again on every visit.

Closing, Reopening And Revoking

These are different on purpose. Closing keeps your link; revoking kills it.

You want to...	Do this	Visitors see
Pause responses	Turn Accepting responses off	"This form is no longer accepting responses."
Resume responses	Turn Accepting responses back on	The form again, at the same link
Shut the link for good	Click Revoke link	The link stops working. To collect again you create a new link
Remove the form	Click Delete form	The link stops working. Responses you already collected stay in the table

A form also shows the "no longer accepting responses" page if its table has been deleted.

What Your Visitors See

Visitors open the link on any device, with no account. They see a clean, mobile-friendly page with the Sapience logo, your title and description, and one control for each field. To see exactly what they see, open the link yourself.

Column type	What the visitor gets
Text	A multi-line text box
Number	A number box (decimal places follow the column's setting)
Currency	A number box with the currency symbol beside it
Percent	A number box with a % after it
Duration	A number box with the unit (minutes, hours or days) after it
Rating	A row of stars, up to the column's top score
Checkbox	A tick box. Left unticked, it is recorded as unchecked
Date / Date and time	A date picker / a date-and-time picker
Select	A dropdown of the column's options
Multi-select	A group of tick boxes, one per option
Email / URL / Phone	An input suited to an email address, a web address or a phone number
File	A file picker (several files if the column allows more than one)

Required fields are marked with an asterisk. A few more things visitors will notice:

Mistakes are explained, not lost. If something is wrong (a required field left blank, letters in a number box, a file that is too big), the form comes back with "Please fix the problems marked below and submit again," the problem is marked next to the field, and everything they typed is kept. Nothing is saved until it is right. The one exception is files: a browser can't keep a chosen file, so visitors pick it again.

Double-clicking is safe. The button switches off once it has been pressed, and after a successful submit the visitor lands on a thank-you page showing your message. Refreshing that page doesn't send the response a second time.

A limit per network. To discourage spam, one network can send at most 30 responses to the same form in an hour. After that, visitors see "Too many submissions from your network. Please try again later." Forms also carry a hidden spam trap that real people never see.

Uploaded Files

If your table has a File column, visitors can attach files. Sapience checks every upload before saving anything:

Limit	Value
Size of one file	10 MB
Files in one response	10
Total size of one response	25 MB
Several files in one field	Only if the column is set to allow more than one
Empty files	Not accepted
File types	The same types Sapience accepts everywhere: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, images, text and code files, audio, video, and zip or tar archives

A file that breaks a rule is turned away with a message beside the right field, and the rest of the response is not saved.

Where the files go. Each file is stored with your table, and attached to the new row's file cell, so people with access to the database, including read-only members, can open it. Files keep their original name with a short random prefix in front, so two people uploading cv.pdf never clash.

If a response can't be saved, the files uploaded with it are removed, so no stray files are left behind.

AI processing is OFF by default. Strangers can upload files, so by default Sapience only stores and attaches them. It does not extract their text, index them, write summaries or describe images, which would spend your AI credits. If you want Agents to be able to read what people send you, switch on Let Agents read uploaded files (uses AI credits) for that form. Processing a file doesn't add it to the knowledge of a project's Agent.

Seeing Which Rows Came From A Form

A row that arrives through a form is clearly marked, so it never looks as though you typed it yourself.

Source column. In the table grid, a read-only Source column shows Form: followed by your form's title (for example, Form: Event sign-up). If the form has since been deleted, it reads Form (deleted). The column is shown automatically in any table that has at least one form, and you can hide it like any other column.

Submitted via. Open a form row and the row editor shows a Submitted via line naming the form and the date of the response.

Renaming a form relabels its existing rows, because Sapience reads the form's current title.

The row's Name is built from your form's title and the time of the response, for example:

Your form title — YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM

Times in the row's Name and in the notification email are shown in Sydney time.

The Email You Get

By default you receive an email for every response. It names the form, shows when the response arrived, lists the answers (file fields show the file names) and links to the database in Sapience.

It goes to the email address on the account of the person who created the form.

To stop the emails, turn Email me each response off in the form builder. Responses are still saved.

Finding Your Forms

Forms sit in the Everything view. Open Databases, expand a database, and you will find a Forms group next to Views and Tables, with one entry per form named by its title. The group shows an expand arrow only when the database has at least one form. Click a form to reopen its builder, already set to that form and its table. Only people who can edit the database can open it.

Copying a database copies its forms too, pointed at the copied table. A copied form does not get a link. Create a new one.

Deleting a database deletes its forms and switches their links off.

What Happens Behind The Scenes

A visitor opens your link. Sapience checks that the link is still active and, if you set a password, asks for it.

If the form is closed, its table is gone, or its creator no longer has write access, the visitor sees the polite closed page and nothing is written.

The visitor fills the form in and submits. Sapience checks each answer against the column's type (the same checks as typing into the table) and checks the required fields and any files.

If anything is wrong, the form comes back with the problems marked and nothing is saved.

If everything is right, Sapience creates exactly one new row in your table, on behalf of the form's creator, with its Source set to your form.

You get your email, and the visitor lands on the thank-you page.

What Forms Don't Do

They never show existing rows, other tables or columns you left off the form.

They don't offer Person, Reference or Lookup fields.

They don't support questions that change depending on earlier answers, multi-page forms, custom themes, response analytics, or editing a response after it has been sent.

They don't use a CAPTCHA. Spam protection is the hidden trap and the per-network limit described above.

Every response is a row, so forms count towards the table's normal limit of 50,000 rows.

Quick Reference

Topic	Answer
Who can build a form	Database owner, or anyone with write access
Where you build it	Databases screen → New form (next to New view)
Fields per form	Up to 50
Link lifetime	3,650 days (about ten years), no cap on responses
Password	Optional, set when you create the link
Pause / resume	Accepting responses off / on
Kill the link	Revoke link (or Delete form)
Largest single file	10 MB
Files per response	10
Largest whole response	25 MB
Responses per network per hour	30
AI processing of uploads	Off unless you switch it on (uses AI credits)
Email per response	On unless you switch it off
Where responses show up	New rows in the table, marked in the Source column

Summary

A database form gives anyone with your link, with no Sapience account needed, a clean page for adding a correctly typed row to one of your tables, files included. You choose the fields, optionally add a password, then close, reopen or revoke the link whenever you like. Every response is clearly marked with its Source, arrives by email unless you turn that off, and costs you no AI credits unless you choose to let Agents read the uploads.