Goodworld’s Flexible Form Elements allow platform administrators to collect exactly the information they need throughout the user journey. Whether you’re accepting donations, selling event tickets, registering attendees, or managing volunteer opportunities, Flexible Form Elements let you build customized forms without requiring custom development.
Using a library of configurable field types, administrators can:
Collect custom information from users and participants
Display instructions and rich text content
Validate common data types like email addresses and mailing addresses
Capture structured information using dropdowns, checkboxes, and date pickers
Associate responses with either a user’s contact record or a specific transaction
Save reusable form elements to a centralized library for use across future campaigns, events, and volunteer opportunities
Flexible Form Elements help organizations standardize data collection while giving each campaign or event the flexibility to collect the information it needs.
Where Flexible Form Elements are used
Flexible Form Elements can be added anywhere Goodworld collects user information, including:
Donation campaigns
Event registrations and ticket purchases
Volunteer opportunity registrations
Post-checkout user surveys
Each experience can have its own customized questions while maintaining consistent data collection across your platform.
Available field types
Goodworld supports a variety of flexible field types for collecting structured information.
Examples include:
Short text fields
Long text fields
Dropdown lists
Checkboxes
Email fields with validation
Address fields with address validation
Date pickers with standardized formatting
Rich text instruction blocks
Using validated field types helps ensure your reporting remains clean and consistent by preventing improperly formatted responses.
Configure Flexible Form Elements
Flexible Form Elements are configured within the User ID & Data feature for each campaign, event, or volunteer opportunity.
To add custom fields:
Open your campaign, event, or volunteer opportunity.
Navigate to the Features tab.
Enable User ID & Data if it has not already been enabled.
Open the User Details step.
Add the desired form elements.
Configure each element’s settings, including whether it is required, optional, or reusable.
Administrators can mix and match multiple field types to create a tailored registration experience.
Store data on the contact or the transaction
Flexible Form Elements can store information in two different ways depending on how the information should be used.
Contact attributes
Store responses on the user’s contact record when collecting information that should remain associated with the individual over time.
Examples include:
Department
Affinity group
Membership status
Preferred communication preferences
Because these responses live on the contact record, they can be reused and reported on across future engagements.
Transaction or registration attributes
Store responses on the specific donation, registration, or volunteer signup when the information only applies to that individual engagement.
Examples include:
Meal preferences
T-shirt size for a specific event
Emergency contact information
Event-specific acknowledgements
Volunteer availability
This keeps one-time responses tied only to the relevant transaction rather than permanently updating the user’s profile.
Purchasers, attendees, and group participants
Flexible Form Elements support collecting different information depending on who is completing the registration.
For example:
Events
Ticket purchasers can answer one set of questions while each attendee completes their own attendee-specific information.
Volunteer opportunities
Group leaders can provide organization-level information while each volunteer participant completes their own registration details.
This allows organizations to collect the right information from every participant without duplicating unnecessary questions.
Automatically tag users
Flexible Form Elements can also update contact data behind the scenes.
For example, selecting an option such as:
Young Professionals
Alumni
Board Member
Employee Resource Group
can automatically apply groups or tags to the user’s contact profile.
These tags become available throughout Goodworld for reporting, segmentation, and workflow automations.
User Surveys
In addition to collecting information during checkout, Goodworld also supports User Surveys.
Unlike required registration fields, User Surveys appear after a donation, registration, or purchase has already been completed.
Because the transaction has already been finalized:
registrations are not interrupted
donations cannot be abandoned because of additional questions
organizations can encourage users to provide optional feedback or supplemental information
User Surveys support the same Flexible Form Elements available during registration.
To learn more, read User Surveys.
Reuse elements with the Elements Library
Frequently used questions do not need to be recreated every time.
Flexible Form Elements can be saved to the Elements Library, allowing administrators to reuse standardized fields across multiple campaigns, events, and volunteer opportunities.
Using the Elements Library helps:
maintain consistent reporting
avoid creating duplicate custom fields
standardize data collection across your organization
reduce setup time for future campaigns
Best practices
For the cleanest reporting and best user experience, Goodworld recommends:
Use validated field types whenever possible instead of free-text fields.
Save commonly used questions to the Elements Library instead of recreating them.
Store evergreen information on contact records and event-specific information on transactions.
Keep required fields limited to information necessary for completing registration.
Use User Surveys to collect optional feedback after checkout rather than increasing friction during the registration process.
If you have questions about Flexible Form Elements, schedule a support call with our success team.