Your organization builds portal forms, such as membership applications, event registrations, and certification applications, from pages of questions. This article shows you how to move through a form, what to check when it stops you, and what happens after you submit. Each form can look a little different because your organization chooses the layout, the questions, and what happens with your answers afterward.
Prerequisites
- You are signed in to your organization's portal.
- Have the information the form asks for before you start. Longer forms may ask for details you need to look up, such as an employer's address. If the form offers Save & Return Later, you can stop and finish another time; see Save a Form and Finish It Later.
- If you do not see that option, plan to finish the form in one sitting. The form does not warn you before you leave the page, and answers you have not saved are lost if you close or reload it.
- If you created your portal account with an email address, that address becomes your contact record's primary email, and some forms require it. If you clear it while filling in a form, the form will not let you continue until you enter a value again.
Fill In and Submit the Form
- Open the form from your portal. While it loads, you see Initializing form.... If you saved a draft of this form earlier, the form first asks whether you want to continue it; see Save a Form and Finish It Later.
- Read the page before you answer. When a form has several pages, the page names appear as steps across the top. You cannot choose a step to jump to that page, and the steps are hidden on small screens.
- Answer the questions. Some questions appear after you answer an earlier question, and others disappear when your answer makes them irrelevant. When a question is hidden, it is not required, and the form does not send its answer. If a question shows your organization as a number instead of its name, that is expected and is not something you can change on this form; update your organization through your contact or profile update form instead. A checkbox that links an address to your organization's address starts selected and cannot be preset unselected, so clear it yourself if you need to enter a different address.
- Choose Next to continue. Depending on your answers, the form skips pages that do not apply to you. Choose Back to return to the page you came from; your answers are kept. Pressing Enter in a question does not move you forward. Each new page opens at the top.
- If the form has a review page, check your answers there. The review page shows what you entered on earlier pages as read-only cards. A question you left blank shows an empty value, or Not specified for a list of choices. To change an answer, choose Back until you reach it. The review page does not include an edit link.
- Choose the submit button on the last page. It reads Save Changes unless your organization gave it another name.
Result
If your organization's form has a completion page, it appears after you submit. It shows a large green check mark and a heading, which is Success unless your organization wrote its own. It also shows a message: either This form has been completed successfully. or your organization's own text about what happens next. Choose Continue to finish. If the form has no completion page, the portal takes you to whatever comes next, such as your application's status.
If you had saved a draft of this form, submitting deletes it.
When the Form Will Not Let You Continue
Next and the submit button stay unavailable, or greyed out, until the form has everything it needs. They check different things:
| Button | Unavailable while |
|---|---|
| Next | Something on your current page still needs attention: a required question is empty, an answer is invalid, a table has fewer rows than it needs, a table's row window is still open, or a special item on the page reports a problem |
| Submit (Save Changes) | Something anywhere in the form still needs attention, including on an earlier page, or one of your organization's own checks is not met |
To find what the form needs, check these places:
- Read the error list. Pages with a submit button show a problem list headed We need you to take care of this before we can continue... unless your organization wrote its own heading. The list names each question that needs attention as You have not entered a valid value for question, followed by any message from your organization's own checks, such as a warning that a graduation year cannot be before a birth year.
- Look under each question. A question with a problem shows a message beneath it.
- Go back. If submit is unavailable but nothing on the last page is wrong, the problem is on an earlier page. Choose Back and check each page.
- Check tables. A table of entries, such as degrees or previous employers, may need a minimum number of rows. The form tells you when it does, for example One entry is required before you may continue. When you reach the maximum, you cannot add more rows. If you closed a row's window with its cross or Escape, open the row again and save or cancel it.
Your organization's own checks block only the submit button. You can still move between pages and save a draft while one of those checks is not met.
Cancel a Form
If the page offers Cancel, choosing it shows Are you sure you want to cancel this form? All work will be lost, and any drafts will be erased. Confirm to leave the form and lose the answers currently on screen. Although the message says drafts will be erased, a draft you saved earlier is kept, and the form offers it again next time.
If Something Goes Wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Initializing form... stays on screen | The form could not start | Reload the page. If the same form loads normally on another device, another browser, or for someone else, the form is available, and the problem is local to your browser or connection. Try another browser or device before contacting your organization |
| Unable to initialize form | The form, or your saved draft, could not load. On a join or registration form, this can also mean a background step that converts prices to your currency did not finish. On a checkout form, it can mean pricing information temporarily failed to load | Reload the page, then try again |
| The specified form does not have any pages configured. | The form has not been set up yet | Contact your organization |
| Page transition error | The next page could not be prepared | Choose Next or Back again. Your answers are kept |
| Next does nothing, with no message | The form's design points to a page that is not available | Contact your organization and include the form name and the page you were on |
| An answer you expected the form to fill in is empty | A lookup the form uses to fill in the answer did not work, so the form continues without it | Type the answer yourself |
| The portal refuses your submission, including a generic message such as Unable to Process Submission | The application that saves your answers found a problem. This can also mean you already have a submission on record from before | Your answers stay on screen. Check whether you already applied or registered, then correct what the message asks for and submit again. A draft you saved is already deleted, so choose Save & Return Later if you need to stop |
| A forbidden or access-denied message appears while you add or change an organization on a contact or profile form | The organization field was left blank or changed to an organization you are not a member of | Leave your existing organization in place, or choose one you belong to, then submit again |
| A CAPTCHA challenge appears before the form loads, or the form fails to load after you select Cancel on it | Some forms confirm you are not an automated visitor, which helps reduce errors from high-volume or automated traffic. Cancelling the challenge instead of completing it can stop the form from loading | Reload the page and complete the challenge. It is designed to appear only once each session; clearing your cookies or cache can make it reappear |
| Pasting into a question does not work from your browser's menu | Some browsers, such as Chrome, can block the editor's Paste menu option | Use your keyboard's paste shortcut instead, or try Safari |
| A file will not upload | See A File Will Not Upload, Open, or Download | — |
A VPN, a restrictive network, or a firewall's rate-limiting can prevent a form from loading or a payment or donation action from completing. When that happens, you may see an intermittent, generic error instead of a message that names the real cause. If you run into an error that is hard to reproduce, try disconnecting from any VPN or using an incognito or private window. You can also use Chrome or Firefox, clear your browser's cache, sign out and back in, or try another device. A public registration or microsite page can refuse some visitors intermittently for the same kind of network reason. If none of that helps, record what happens and contact your organization with the recording, the form name, and the page you were on.
If you notice several different problems at once, such as slow pages, failed navigation, and forms failing together across your portal, the more likely cause is a temporary, wider service problem. That can include an issue at an outside infrastructure provider Rhythm depends on, rather than something specific to the form you were using.
When you contact your organization, include the form name, the page you were on, and the exact message. On most forms, the form's name appears in small type at the right, below the buttons.
For Staff
Staff see the same form in the Console, with one difference: a custom field marked optional in the Console is not required there. To understand why a member saw a particular behavior and which design setting caused it, see How a Form Behaves for the Person Filling It In. For an overview of web forms, see Web Forms Explained.
When you investigate a member's report, remember that impersonating them does not always reproduce the problem. An error tied to the member's own sign-in session or browser can appear when you sign in directly as that person, but not when you impersonate them. Before troubleshooting an intermittent Unable to initialize form report any further, also confirm that the person already has a contact or portal account; a missing account is a separate problem from the form failing to load.
Because the same form design can be used in both a portal and the Console, a control meant only for the portal, such as a credit button, can still appear in the Console. Expect it to stay greyed out and do nothing there; that has a different cause from the permission-related greyed-out buttons described in I Get "Access Denied" or a Button Is Greyed Out.
If a member sees a forbidden or access-denied message while submitting a form that adds or updates a contact, check the form's own setup before assuming it is a permissions problem. A form whose last page was edited but never saved as a completion step — with a Success Message component added and the page's Step Type: set to completion — can produce this kind of error. If duplicate organizations appear during contact creation instead, check the active form's Contact Social Lookup settings; this is usually traced to one misconfigured form rather than a wider matching problem.
An organization form can include a setting that stops portal users from editing the organization name. When it is on, the field is read-only wherever the form is used, including as a filled-in and greyed-out field when someone edits a child organization's contact.