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Creating a form that automatically adds new members

With Gracely Forms, you can collect information and instantly create member profiles without extra manual work.

🎬 Watch the 30-second video: Care: How to make a connect card form

Why Use Member-Creating Forms?

  • Save time on data entry

  • Prevent duplicate records with email detection

  • Capture consistent, accurate information

  • Automate the new member onboarding process

Step 1: Start a New Form

  1. Go to Forms in the left-hand menu.

  2. Click Create form.

  3. Select a ready-made template (Member Registration, Event Sign-up, etc.) or Create a custom form.

👉 Log in to Gracely to follow along.

① Member Registration Form is a ready-made template for this, or ② Create a custom form.

Step 2: Add Your Questions

  • Use the right field type for each question:

    • Short text → Full Name, Address

    • Email → Email Address

    • Phone number → Mobile/Telephone

    • Date → Birthday, Anniversary

    • Multiple choice → Marital Status, Interests

💡 Tip: Add optional fields like “How did you hear about us?” to gather insights without affecting member creation.

Step 3: Enable Member Creation

  1. Scroll down to the Enable Member Creation option.

  2. Turn it on.

  3. (Optional) Choose Create members as visitors if you’d like responses saved as visitors first, requiring pastor approval before portal access.

① Enable Member Creation. ② Optionally tick Create members as visitors. Field Mappings then lists every question: ③ choose the member field each answer should fill.

Step 4: Map Questions to Member Fields

This is where you connect form questions to Gracely’s member database fields:

  • Standard fields (default): Built-in fields every member can have, such as:

    • Full Name (Standard)

    • Email (Standard)

    • Phone Number (Standard)

    • Birthday (Standard)

    • Primary Address (Standard)

  • Extra fields (custom): These are additional fields your church has created for specific needs (e.g., Work Email, Anniversary Date, Notes, Age Group).

How to Map

  1. Under each question, open the Map to member field dropdown.

  2. Select either a Standard or Extra field, depending on what you’re capturing.

  3. Example:

    • “Your full name” → Full Name (Standard)

    • “Your email address” → Email (Standard) (required)

    • “Marital status” → Marital Status (Extra)

Each mapping dropdown has a search box and lists the standard member fields first, followed by your church's extra fields.

⚠️ Important: At least one question must be mapped to the Email (Standard) field. This allows Gracely to detect duplicates and prevents creating multiple records for the same person.

Step 5: Publish & Share

  1. Click Publish.

  2. Copy the link and share it via your website, social media, email, or SMS.

Every submission will automatically create or update a member profile in your People database.

Best Practices

✔️ Always include Name + Email fields for accuracy.
✔️ Use multiple-choice questions to track interests (small groups, volunteering, etc.).
✔️ Map only the fields you need — unmapped answers are still stored in the form submission for reference.

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