Customize the signature form of your petition
You decide what your petition asks. Turn each field on or off, mark it required or optional, drag the fields into the order you want and add up to three questions of your own. A preview beside the builder shows the form exactly as signatories will see it.
The fields you can ask for
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| First name, Last name | Required for the petition to appear in the petition lists. |
| City, Country | Shown publicly with the signature when the signatory agreed to that. |
| Street address, Postal code, State | Never shown publicly. Only you and your co-managers see them. |
| Email address | Verified with a confirmation link before the signature counts. |
| Phone number | Lets you call a signatory to confirm a signature. Never shown publicly. |
| Comment | A free text in the signatory's own words. |
| Drawn signature | Drawn with a finger or a mouse. It appears only in your own download, never publicly. |
Each field has three settings: Required, Optional or Not asked.
How to build the form
- On the create page, go to the step Signatories.
- Pick a starting point: Popular choices fills the form with the usual fields, Define manually starts from an empty form.
- Under Fields to collect, switch fields on and off and tick Required where you need an answer.
- Drag a field by its handle to move it, or move it with the up and down arrow keys.
- Press Add a custom field for a question of your own and write its label.
- Check the result in the Sign this petition preview next to the builder. On a phone, open it with Show a preview of the signature form.
Later you can change everything from Edit in the petition menu.
Your own questions
A petition often needs something the standard fields do not cover. A union petition can ask for the workplace, a school petition for the class, a sports club for the membership number. Press Add a custom field, write the question as the label, and signatories answer it in a text field. You get three such questions. Tick Hidden on a question whose answers should not appear on the signatures page: only you and your co-managers see those.
Why the order matters
People fill a form from the top down and stop when it starts to feel long. Putting the fields you really need first, and the optional ones last, means an abandoned form still leaves you the important answers. The order you drag the fields into is the order signatories see on the signature form.
Limits and good to know
- Three questions of your own, answered as text.
- Without a required first and last name the petition is left out of the petition lists, because such signatures cannot be verified. It still works through its own link and can be found in search.
- We verify email addresses, not identities. A required phone number lets you call a signatory and confirm the signature yourself.
- A required drawn signature shuts out people who cannot draw one, for example those signing with a keyboard or a screen reader.
- If you restrict who can sign by email domain, the email address becomes required automatically.
Questions and answers
How many questions of my own can I add?
Three. Each one gets a label you write yourself and signatories answer it in a text field.
Can I change the form after the petition is published?
Yes. Choose "Edit" in the petition menu. Signatures already collected keep the answers they were given.
Are the answers shown publicly?
Name, city, country and comment are shown only for signatories who agreed to public display. Street address, postal code, email address and phone number are never shown publicly. A question of your own can be marked "Hidden", which means only you see the answers.
Does a longer form cost me signatures?
Usually yes. Every extra required field is one more reason to abandon the form, so require only what you actually need.
Why does the form warn me about the first and last name?
A petition is shown in the petition lists only when a first and last name is required. Signatures without names cannot be verified. The petition still works through its own link.