In Build your first form in Atlas we built a Service Request form on the free Basic tier and printed it. On the Advanced tier — five dollars a month — the same form collects itself. Every form gets a public link, anyone you send it to can fill it in, and what they send comes straight back to you in Atlas.
What Advanced adds
Open your organization on Advanced and the navigation has grown. Data Schemas and Forms are still where they were, and beside them is a new area: Data Collection — the forms you’ve published, and everything people have sent back through them.
Your form is already there
Open Service Request in Forms and it’s exactly as you left it: Contact Details and Service Address attached, each at the version you published, with the layout you gave it further down. Nothing about it has to change to collect it online.
1. Find the public link
Scroll down the form and you’ll find Public URL. This is the address your customers use, and on Advanced every form has one. Atlas gives you two ways to take it:
- Open in a new tab shows you exactly what a customer will see.
- The copy button puts the link on your clipboard, ready to paste wherever you need it.
The same link lives in Data Collection, along with everything that has come back. Each form appears there as a published form, with a count beside it. Open one, and its link and its submissions sit on the same page.
2. Share it anywhere
That one link is all anyone needs. Put it behind a button on your website, send it in an email, or text it to a customer standing in their driveway. Nobody signs up, and nobody waits to be approved — if they have the link, they can answer.
That’s worth remembering: treat the link as public, because it is. See Sharing a public form link.
3. What your customer sees
The link opens a guided page, even in a browser that has never signed in to Atlas:
- Your organization’s name at the top, then the form and what it’s for.
- Every step listed down the side — their details, each section of the form, and a final review — so nobody starts without knowing how long it will take.
- Name and email first. Atlas asks for these before the form starts. That’s what attaches the answers to a person, so a submission is never anonymous to you.
- One section per data schema. Contact Details, then Service Address — with the fields, formats and required markers that come from your schemas.
- A review step with every answer in one place. This is the moment to fix things, because a submission can’t be edited afterwards.
- Submit, and a confirmation — nothing left for the customer to do.
Governed public intake explains why each of those steps is there.
4. The submission arrives
Back in Atlas, nothing has to be refreshed by hand. Data Collection already counts the new submission against Service Request, and opening the form lists who sent it.
Open a submission and you get the form you designed, filled in — same sections, same order, same layout you laid out for print. There’s a PDF to download if it needs to reach somebody who doesn’t use Atlas. Nothing was retyped, and nothing was transcribed. See Working with submissions in Data Collection.
Troubleshooting
I don’t see Public URL on my form. Public links are part of the Advanced tier. Also make sure the form has fields — any form with fields can be published with a public submission link.
Nothing appears in Data Collection. Open the link in a new tab and submit a test entry yourself. It should appear in Data Collection against the form, with the name and email you entered.
A customer wants to change their answers. Submissions can’t be edited afterwards — that’s why the review step exists. Contact the customer using the email address they provided and, if needed, ask them to submit again.
Some answers are missing. Check which fields are optional in your data schemas. If you need an answer every time, mark the field required and publish a new version.
Best practices for the first week
- Test it yourself first using Open in a new tab, all the way to submission.
- Share in one channel, such as your website, before sending it everywhere, so you can see how people respond.
- Watch the counts in Data Collection daily.
- Refine the form based on real submissions. Adjust schemas and publish new versions; earlier submissions keep their original shape.
- Keep the paper version for people who prefer it — it asks the same questions.
Frequently asked questions
Do respondents need an account? No. Anyone with the link can answer. Atlas asks for their name and email before the form starts.
Can I send different forms to different teams? If your organization is split into teams, you can publish a form for a specific team, so whatever comes in goes straight back to them.
Is the link private? Treat it as public. Anyone who has the link can open the form and submit.
Can I download a submission? Yes — each submission can be downloaded as a PDF in the layout you designed.
What does Advanced cost? $5 a month per subscribing account, including everything in Basic.
Recap
- The form you already built needs no changes.
- Its Public URL can go anywhere.
- Answers arrive already shaped by your schemas.
- Every submission waits in Data Collection.
When you’re ready to organize those submissions around the customers and properties they’re about, the Enterprise tier adds classifications — start with What is a classification?
