Skip to main content

Collecting Contacts on Forms

Online Forms give you a few ways to capture people, and picking the right one decides whether you get a full contact record or just a name. This is the most common point of confusion when building an intake form.

The Contact Picker is for existing contacts​

The Contact Picker field lets a respondent choose a contact you already have — it is not a way to collect a new person's details.

  • In the form builder, a Contact Picker uses an Allowed Contacts list. Only the contacts you select there appear as options on the public form.
  • On the public form it shows a single search box, and the respondent picks from your list. DocJacket then attaches that existing contact to the transaction, using whatever email and phone are already saved on that contact's record.
  • As they search and after they pick, each result shows the contact's company, office address, and tags — enough for the person filling out the form to confirm they've chosen the right contact (for example, the correct Escrow Officer at the correct office). Phone and email are never shown on the public form.
  • It does not collect a new email or phone from the person filling out the form — there are no email/phone boxes on a Contact Picker.
Why a contact field can show "just a name"

If a Contact Picker has no Allowed Contacts set, it falls back to a plain name text box on the public form. So an outside person filling out an intake form ends up typing only a name — because the Contact Picker was never meant to gather a new contact's email in the first place.

Capturing a new person's email and phone​

When you need details from someone who isn't already in your contacts — a buyer or seller filling out an intake form — don't rely on a contact field. Add dedicated fields instead:

  1. In the form builder, add an Email field
  2. Add a Phone field
  3. Add a Text field for their name (or use the built-in submitter name)

These give you real, mapped values you can push onto the transaction.

Every public form already captures the submitter's email

Public forms include a built-in Your Name and Your Email at the top of the form, separate from any field you add. For a simple intake, that submitter email may already be all you need.

If you added a Participant field expecting separate name and email boxes, add explicit Email and Phone fields instead — dedicated fields are the reliable way to capture contact details on a public form.

Getting the details onto the transaction​

Once a form is submitted, you map its answers onto the deal from the transaction's Forms tab:

  • Email, Phone, and Name fields can be mapped to the Buyer, Seller, or Agent slots on the transaction.
  • A Contact Picker selection attaches that existing contact to the deal by its role.

See Applying Form Submissions for the full mapping workflow, and Online Forms for building and sharing forms.

Rule of thumb​

  • The person is already in your contacts → use a Contact Picker (and set Allowed Contacts).
  • The person is new (outside intake) → use dedicated Email, Phone, and name fields.