Creating Online Registration Forms in UM SiteMaker
UM SiteMaker (sitemaker.umich.edu) is well suited for creating online registration forms because it uses data tables. Registration data is kept inside a data table that site owners can view and even export to Excel.
Examples
Here are some examples of existing SiteMaker registration sites (these links might go away without notice):
Step One - Request your Site
If you don't already have a SiteMaker site for your form, you'll need to request one. Go to UM SiteMaker and click Request Website at the top of the SiteMaker home page, and the Request a New Website form will come up:
Be sure to choose Public Health, School of as your organizational unit. Your site ID will be whatever comes after "sitemaker.umich.edu/" in the URL of your site. Like all website files, it should be all lower case with no spaces or special characters.
Your request will be sent to Patty Bradley, who will approve it. You will receive an e-mail saying that your SiteMaker site is ready.
Step Two - Configure your Site
Go back to SiteMaker and click My Websites at the top. Click on the name of your new website to configure it. You will be sent to the main configuration page of your new site. There are four sections shown as tabs:
- Website Sections - the actual pages in your site
- Overall Appearance - site style, headers, footers, etc
- Access Groups - control who can see what
- Manage Files - upload files, such as images and PDFs
- Data Tables - to contain your form data
We will not be going over all of these in detail. Please contact sph.web@umich.edu for more detailed information.
Overall Appearance
Click the Overall Appearance tab first.
You can make your site match the layout of the School of Public Health website by choosing one of the "Public Health, School of" styles from the Style drop-down menu. There are many different styles to choose from.
Put the complete name of your website in the Banner Text field.
If desired, enter contact information and links for the footer of your site.
Access Groups
If you want someone else to be able to edit your site, you should add their uniqname to the Owners/Co-owners group under the Access Groups tab. You can also set up other groups for various purposes such as viewing registration data.
Step Three - Create Data Tables for your Value Lists
Before you create your main data table for your form, check to see if any of your form fields will be select menus (drop-downs), like the Affiliation field below:
SiteMaker data tables have a type of field called a value list that is used for select menus. Value list fields can be displays as select menus or radio buttons. Value list fields must be based on an existing data table. So before you can create your main table, you must create tables for all of your value lists.
In the example above, our Affiliation field contains 6 possible values. To make this work, we need to set up a data table for the Affiliation field:
 Create a text file that contains the values for your value list. I use NotePad for this, but you could use WordPad as well. Create a file that only contains the values for your value list. In the example to the right, note that I have left a blank space at the end of the list, and I named my file affiliation.txt. Also note that it does not matter what order you put the values in as they will be listed alphabetically by default.- Create a data table for your value list. In SiteMaker, click the Data Tables tab and choose Create New Table. Give your table a name that corresponds to the value list (in this case, affiliation).
- Click Create New Field and choose data type Text. Type the name of your field into the Name box. Name the field after your select menu (in this case, affiliation).
- Click Back to Data Tables
- In the Action column of your data tables list, choose Import Data and import the text file you created.
 
- Because this is a single field, there is no delimiter. Be sure to choose No on Skip First Line. Since the field currently contains no data, it doesn't matter what you choose for Retain Existing Data in Table?
Follow these steps for each of the select menu/value lists your form requires.
Step Four - Create the Data Table for your Form
Now it is time to create the table that will contain your registrant data. Click Back to Data Tables if you are already in the data tables section, or the Data Tables tab if you are not. Then click Create new Table.
I usually name my tables Registration, but you can name it whatever you like.
Add your data fields, one at a time, in the order that you want them to display on your form.
Data Types
SiteMaker data tables use 7 different types of fields:
- Text - the most common field that can contain any text
- Number - a field that can only contain a number
- Date/Time - a field that can only contain a date or time value
- File - when you want someone to be able to upload a file
- Checkbox - a circle or square that allows users to choose one or more from several options
- Value List - a select menu that allows users to choose one or more from several options
- Calculation / Formula - this is an advanced field that I do not recommend
Please note that you cannot change the type of a data field after it has been created. You can change their names however.
If you choose the Value List data type for a field, you will be asked to choose the table it is based on. That is why we had to create the Value List tables ahead of time. Simply choose the data table you created in the previous step.
Step Five - Create your Registration Website Section
Once you have finished entering all the data fields into the data table for your registration, it is time to create the website section for it. Click the Website Sections tab, and then Create New Section.
- Type - Data Access
- Name - The name of the page (I usually use Registration)
- Navigation - Link is shown in the navigation
- Style - Use style specified in Overall Appearance
- Section Access - everyone, unless you want to limit access to a group
Once you click the Save button, you will be prompted to choose which data table to base the section on. Choose the registration table you just created.
Step Six - Configure your Registration Section
After you create your new website section, you will see this page, where you can configure it. You can also return to this page any time by choosing Edit Content in the Action menu of the website section list. Click the Save & View button at the top right to see your form live at any time.
There are three important tabs here:
Section Settings Tab
- Only Add Records should be checked under Visitors to this section will be allowed to perform the following actions on the table. You don't want your registrants to see other people's registration data.
- The When displayed as a list section is irrelevant.
- An "Add Record" Form should be selected for When visitors first enter this section, they should see
- Click the Save & View or Save button when you are finished.
Add Form Tab
This is where you change the order that the questions on your form are displayed in, which fields are displayed, whether or not there are default values, field width, and much more. You will come back to this tab many times. Remember to always click the Save & View or Save button when you are finished.
The Add Forms tab is also where you change select menus to radio buttons if desired. Radio buttons can be displayed horizontally, vertically or as a grid:
Step Seven - Customize your Form with Dreamweaver
Custom Layouts Tab
Under the Custom Layouts Tab, you can download all of the templates for your form, edit them with Dreamweaver, then re-upload them to SiteMaker You will want to do this for Single Record (the page the registrant sees after they submit their registration) the Add Form (the registration form itself) and the Notification Email.
Add Form
- On the Edit Contents page for your form, click on Download Template next to Add Form and choose to save it to your computer. It will be named add_form.html. Put it somewhere you will remember.
- You can then open the page with Dreamweaver and change question wording and much more. You may want to change (or remove) the default text at the top of the form about "Add a Registrant." You can do just about anything, as long as you do not alter the web object tags on the form. These are what make the form work.
- Once you have made changes and saved add_form.html, go back to the Custom Layouts tab for your registration section in SiteMaker and click Browse in the row for your Add form. Navigate to the file you just edited with Dreamweaver, and upload it to the site. This will change your form from Default to Custom.
Single Record Form
- The single record form is the page your registrant will see after they submit their registration. The default content for this page is abysmal - you will definitely want to change it.
- Click on Download Template next to Single Record Form and choose to save it to your computer. It will be named single_record.html. Put it somewhere you will remember.
- Open it with Dreamweaver. You can delete whatever text is there and replace it with a message thanking the user for registering, and even giving more info about the event if wanted.
- Once you have made changes and saved single_record.html, go back to the Custom Layouts tab for your registration section in SiteMaker and click Browse in the row for your single_record form. Navigate to the file you just edited with Dreamweaver, and upload it to the site. This will change your form from Default to Custom.
Email Notification
You can also customize the automatic confirmation e-mail that gets sent to the registrant (this only works if you have asked for their e-mail address).
 Click Back to Website Sections up above the tabs- In the row for your registration form, choose Email Notification under Actions
- Make sure Send Email is checked only for Create Records
- Also in the Create Records row, enter a subject line for the email.
- Enter an email address in the From Address field
- At the bottom, under Send Email Notification To, choose the Email address field
- If you want a copy of the notification emails, check the Site Owners/co-owners box
- click Download Template in the Create Records row and choose to save it to your computer. It will be named create_template.html. Put it somewhere you will remember.
- Open it in Dreamweaver. On this page, you can delete absolutely everything and just put in the text for the confirmation email. Add it in code view so there is absolutiely no HTML in the e-mail.
- Once you have made the changes, click Browse in the Create Records row and upload the file you just modified.
- Be sure to click the Save button when you are finished.
Final Step - Viewing Registration Data
Once you launch your registration form and people begin using it, you will want to see who has registered. There are two ways to do this: create a new website section based on your registration table that is viewable only to site owners, and/or export the registration data to Excel. You will probably want to do both.
New Website Section for Viewing Registration Data
To create this, go back to your website sections page and click Create New Section
- Type - Data Access
- Name - The name of the page (I usually use Registrants)
- Navigation - Link is hidden from the navigation
- Style - Use style specified in Overall Appearance
- Section Access - Access Groups Only - Site Owners/Co-owners
Once you click the Save button, you will be prompted to choose which data table to base the section on. Choose the registration table.
The configuration of the new section is different than that of the registration section:
- Browse/Search for Records, Add Records and Delete Records should all be checked under Visitors to this section will be allowed to perform the following actions on the table. You want to be able to see and update the data.
- All records in table should be checked under When visitors first enter this section, the set of records found will be: (remember, "visitors" is you).
- The When displayed as a list section defines how the records are sorted. I usually change the number of records shown per page to 50.
- List of Records should be selected for When visitors first enter this section, they should see.
- Click the Save & View or Save button when you are finished.
 Exporting Registration Data
You can also export all the data in the registration table into Excel:
- From the main configuration page, go to the Data Tables tab
- Click the Action drop-down for your Registration table and choose Export
You will come to the Export Data page:
- Under Export to File, change the extension of your file to be exported from .txt to .xls (this will make it into an Excel spreadsheet)
- Change Delimiter to Tab (there may be commas in the data, and that would mess it up)
- Include Header Line - Yes
- Records to Export - Here you can use criteria to limit the records you export
- Select and Order Fields to Export - Un-check any fields that you do not want included in your spreadsheet.
- Click the Export button at the top
- Save the file to place you will remember
- Open the file with Excel
Adding Form Validation
Form validation means requiring registrants to enter data into certain fields before they can submit the form, and/or limiting certain fields to specific types of data. It is important to add validation to your registration form. You don't want people submitting your form without entering their name or e-mail address. There may be other fields you want to require as well.
There are instructions for adding form validation on the SiteMaker Support Topics website. Unfortunately, you must use Code View in Dreamweaver to add form validation. Feel free to try and tackle this yourself, or contact Patty Bradley sph.web@umich.edu, who will be happy to do it for you. |
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