Place numerical and time limits on your form submissions

In this article:

Introduction

You may want to limit the number of submissions you'll accept for specific forms. Examples include:

  • Offering a workshop with room for a limited number of attendees
  • Asking a specific number of volunteers to sign up for an event
  • Giving away a limited number of free items

In LGL Forms, you can set a limit on the number of submissions you'll accept for a specific form. This is a blunt tool, in that your entire form will be closed to the public after the submission limit is reached.

For more advanced functionality, you might consider the option to set limits on an Amount field.

Setting a submission limit for your form

When you're editing a form, you'll see a box where you can enter a number if you want to limit the submissions you'll accept on the form. In the example below, we've set a cap of 20 submissions.

NOTE: If you are offering multiple inventory items and you set a limit, it will apply to everything within the Amount field. If you need to set inventory limits for different inventory (e.g., ticket) types individually, you will need to use multiple Amount fields, one for each inventory item. Keep in mind that this will prevent your form from being able to collect recurring gifts, so if that option is enabled for your form it will need to be disabled.

After entering a number, you'll see that you can edit the message to show in place of your form once the submission cap is reached. Clicking on the Cap/end date reached message link opens an editor where you can type the formatted text you want people to see when the submissions cap for your form has been reached.

By clicking on the Submit button when editing your form, you can also edit the message form users will see right below the Submit button. The default text is, "Hurry, only X remaining", where X represents the number of submissions left. To edit the text, hover your cursor over the field and click "Edit Submit Button".

Setting an end date for your form

You can also add a date after which your form will no longer accept submissions. This can be useful for limiting the time during which registrants can sign up for your event, for example. You can enter the end date for your form in the Cap submissions/End date section as you're editing your form. Click into the End Date field to open the calendar picker and select your end date:

The end date will occur at the end of the day, in other words, midnight, on the date specified, as defined by the time zone of the user that publishes the form. For example, if your time zone is Mountain Time, the end date will officially occur at midnight in Mountain Time. 

Monitoring your form's number of submissions and managing the submission cap

On your Forms page, you can see forms with a submission cap set. This information displays directly below the count of submissions received to date. 

If you need to change the submission cap, edit the form and simply change the number in the Cap submissions field. Make sure you click Save & publish to re-publish the form with the new submissions cap in place.

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