How to Build an SGEN Contact Form

How to create, configure, and publish a form using My Forms

The form your site needs already has a shape in mind: a name field, an email field, maybe a message box. Getting that shape live and wired to the right inbox is the work this guide covers. SGEN handles forms through My Forms, the built-in form builder inside SG-Admin. No plugin, no third-party embed, no dependency on a service that charges per submission. You build the form once, embed it on any page, and route submissions wherever your team reads them.

This guide takes a first-time builder through the complete flow: create a form, add fields, configure layout, set up notifications, embed on a page, and verify the form works before the first real visitor sees it. The examples throughout use SGEN's own site as the reference — a general contact form, a wholesale inquiry form, and an event RSVP form built inside My Forms. This guide builds the general contact form.

What is this for?

My Forms is the form management surface inside SG-Admin. It lists every form on your site, shows submission counts, and gives access to the form builder, notification settings, and submission history for each form. The form builder inside My Forms is where fields are added, labeled, reordered, and configured.

Use this guide when you are building a form from scratch — no prior form exists and you need to produce a working, published contact form. If you have an existing form and need to change who receives notifications, read Route Form Submissions instead. If you have an existing form and need to review submission data, open the submissions list for that form inside My Forms.

Good use cases

General contact form. The most common starting point. One form, one recipient, three fields: name, email, message. The visitor fills it in, clicks Submit, and the site owner receives an email with the submission. This guide builds that form exactly.

Wholesale inquiry form. Same structure, different fields. A wholesale form adds fields for company name, monthly order volume, and preferred delivery region. The form routes to the sales lead rather than the general inbox. The same builder handles both — the difference is field selection and notification routing.

Event RSVP form. Collects attendee name, email, and party size. Can include a dropdown for which event date the attendee is registering for. Same builder, different field types.

Multi-step intake form. Some use cases need more fields than a single-screen form handles comfortably. SGEN's form builder supports conditional logic so that follow-up fields appear only when the visitor has selected a relevant option. This keeps forms short for most visitors while capturing the detail needed from the ones who qualify.

What NOT to use this for

• File upload collection. My Forms handles text and selection fields.

If your form needs visitors to attach a file, check whether file upload is available in your SGEN version before designing around it.

• Payment collection. Forms are not the path for collecting money.

Ecommerce orders and payment-linked forms route through the Orders surface, not My Forms.

• Survey-style multi-page forms with branching logic beyond two paths.

For highly branched survey workflows, evaluate whether My Forms' conditional logic covers your branching depth before committing to it.

How this connects to other features

• Route Form Submissions — after this guide, configure where submissions go: email, webhook, or CRM.
• Set Up Form Notifications — the detailed guide for Mail Settings configuration, reply-to setup, and audit log verification.
• SGEN Analytics — form submission events appear in the Analytics Dashboard under conversion signals.

Review submission trends alongside traffic data.

• Pages — the pages where your form will be embedded. Build the form first, then embed using the form block in SG-Builder or via the form shortcode.

Before you start

Confirm these things before opening the form builder.

You have admin access to SG-Admin. My Forms is visible to users with admin-level access. If you cannot find My Forms in the sidebar, your role may not include it.

You know what the form is for. Write down the form's purpose, the fields it needs, and who should receive submissions before opening the builder. Planning takes two minutes; rebuilding an unplanned form takes longer.

You know where the form will appear. Which page will it live on? Is that page already published? The form can be embedded after it is built, but knowing the destination in advance prevents back-and-forth.

You have a notification recipient ready. Who should receive an email when the form is submitted? Have the address written down. You will enter it in Mail Settings immediately after building the form.

Where to go

Navigate to SG-Admin → My Forms. The My Forms index lists all forms on your site, with submission counts and status indicators.

Click New form to open the form builder for a blank form.

How to build a contact form in SGEN

Steps — Build, configure, and publish a form

1. Name the form and set its basic properties

When the form builder opens, the first screen asks for a form name. Enter a name that identifies the form's purpose internally — this is not the heading visitors see on the front end. For this example, the internal name is Contact Us.

Set the form status to Draft while building. Draft forms are not live on the site. Switch to Active only after you have tested the form and configured notifications.

Choose a submission handling option. The two standard options are:

• Show a success message — after the visitor submits, a confirmation message appears in place of the form.
• Redirect to a page — after the visitor submits, they are taken to a thank-you page.

For a general contact form, show a success message. The message should confirm that the submission was received and set expectations for response time. A good default: "Thank you for reaching out. We'll reply within one business day."

2. Add fields

The Fields panel is where the form takes shape. Each field you add becomes a form input on the front end.

For a standard contact form, add these fields in order:

1. Full name — text field, required, label "Your name"
2. Email address — email field, required, label "Your email"
3. Message — textarea field, required, label "Your message", minimum height 4 rows

Click Add field and select the field type. Label each field clearly. Visitors read the label before deciding whether to fill in the field — unclear labels produce incomplete submissions.

For the Full name field, set the placeholder text to "First and last name" to eliminate ambiguity about format. For the Email field, SGEN validates the format client-side — a visitor cannot submit a non-email string in this field. For the Message textarea, do not add a character limit unless the use case genuinely requires it; limits increase abandonment on forms where the visitor has something real to say.

3. Configure the submit button

Scroll past the fields to the Submit button configuration. The default label is "Submit" — consider replacing it with something more descriptive.

For a contact form, "Send message" is clearer than "Submit." The button label is the last thing the visitor reads before deciding whether to complete the form. A verb that names what is about to happen ("Send", "Get in touch", "Request a quote") converts better than a generic one.

Set the button alignment. Left-aligned submit buttons perform consistently on desktop and mobile. Centered buttons also work; right-aligned buttons are non-standard for contact forms and can create confusion.

4. Review the form preview

Before configuring notifications, check the form preview. Most form builders display a live preview of the form as fields are added. Review it for:

• Field order makes logical sense to a visitor (name before email, message last)
• Labels are clear and free of internal jargon
• Required field markers are visible
• The submit button label reflects the action

If the preview shows a field in the wrong order, drag to reorder in the Fields panel. SGEN preserves the field order in the rendered form.

5. Configure Mail Settings

With the fields in place, open the Mail Settings tab for this form. Mail Settings controls who receives an email when the form is submitted, what the email says, and what address the recipient can reply to.

Enter the notification recipient address in the Notification recipient field. For SGEN's contact form, the recipient is the marketing inbox: marketing@yoursite.com.

Set the notification subject to something that identifies the form and the site at a glance. A subject the recipient can scan without opening the email: New contact form submission — {site_name}.

Set the reply-to field to {field:email}. This tells SGEN to populate the reply-to address with the email the visitor submitted. When the recipient hits Reply, their response goes to the visitor — not to a no-reply address.

Click Send test notification before saving. Verify the notification arrives in the recipient inbox, the subject resolves correctly, and replying routes to the right address.

6. Set the form to Active

After the test notification passes, return to the form's basic properties and set the status from Draft to Active.

An active form is ready to accept submissions. It is not yet visible to visitors until embedded on a published page — but submissions sent through testing will now record correctly and trigger real notifications.

Save the status change.

7. Embed the form on a page

Navigate to the page where the form should appear. Open that page in SG-Builder.

Locate the Form block in the component library. Add it to the section of the page where the form should sit. In the block settings, select the form by name — "Contact Us" — from the form selector dropdown. The form renders in the builder canvas.

Publish the page. The form is now live.

8. Test the live form

Open the page where the form is embedded in a browser where you are not logged in to the dashboard. Fill in the form with real-looking data. Submit it.

Verify three things:

1. The success message appears after submission.

Confirm the text reads correctly — no raw template variables or placeholder text.

1. The notification arrives in the configured recipient inbox within two minutes.

Check the subject line, body, and reply-to address.

1. The submission appears in My Forms — navigate to SG-Admin → My Forms → Contact Us → Submissions.

The submission should be listed with the name, email, and message the visitor entered.

What success looks like

When the form is fully built and verified:

• The form appears on the correct published page with no layout issues.
• All required fields show required indicators.
• The submit button label is clear and action-oriented.
• The success message appears immediately on submission without page reload.
• The notification email arrives at the recipient inbox within two minutes.
• The notification subject resolves dynamic variables correctly.
• Replying to the notification routes to the visitor's email address, not to a no-reply.
• The submission record appears in My Forms → Submissions with all field values intact.

What to do if it does not work

The form does not appear on the page. Confirm the form status is Active, not Draft. Draft forms do not render in the embedded form block. Set to Active, save, and reload the page.

The success message does not appear after submission. The form may be submitting but the page is refreshing instead of showing the inline message. Check the submission handling option in the form's basic properties. Confirm it is set to "Show success message" rather than "Redirect."

The notification is not arriving. Open SG-Admin → Audit Log and filter for form notification events. A "delivered" status means SGEN sent it — check the recipient's spam folder. A "failed" status means the recipient address may be wrong; open Mail Settings and verify the address character by character.

The submission does not appear in My Forms. If the page showed the success message but the submission is not in the list, wait one minute and refresh. If the submission is still absent, check whether the form is connected to the page correctly — navigate to the page in SG-Builder, open the Form block settings, and confirm the "Contact Us" form is selected.

The reply-to is not routing to the visitor. Open Mail Settings for the form. Confirm the reply-to field contains {field:email} and that the form's email field slug is exactly email. Open the form builder and check the slug for the email field. If the slug differs — for example, contact_email — update the reply-to to {field:contact_email}.

Example scenarios

Example 1: General inquiry form. Three fields, one recipient, live in under twenty minutes. The marketing manager receives every submission immediately, replies directly from her email client to the lead, and the audit log shows a clean delivery record. No missed leads, no silent accumulation in a dashboard nobody checks.

Example 2: Wholesale inquiry form with additional fields. Same process, extended for the sales team's needs. Four fields: full name, email, company name, monthly order volume. Recipient is the sales lead's direct inbox. Reply-to routes to the lead's email. After six weeks of running this form, the sales lead notes that 80% of high-volume inquiries come from leads who found the site through organic search — a signal that feeds back into the content team's planning.

Example 3: RSVP form for a seasonal tasting event. Five fields including a dropdown for which date the attendee prefers. Recipient is the events coordinator. Submissions trigger real-time capacity tracking — the events team opens My Forms → Submissions and counts by date selection. No integration required; the submission data is right there.

Common questions

Can I have more than one form on a page? Yes. Add multiple Form blocks to the page and select a different form in each block's settings. Each form routes submissions independently through its own Mail Settings.

Can I duplicate an existing form? Check whether My Forms includes a duplicate action for existing forms in your SGEN version. Duplicating a form copies the fields and layout but resets the submission count and notification settings — you will need to configure Mail Settings on the copy.

How many fields can a form have? There is no published hard limit. Practical guidance: contact forms with more than eight visible fields see higher abandonment rates. Use conditional logic to show additional fields only when they are relevant.

Can I add a CAPTCHA to reduce spam? SGEN includes submission filtering options. Review the spam protection settings in the form's advanced configuration. Some SGEN versions include CAPTCHA or honeypot options; check your version's available settings.

What happens to submissions if I set the form back to Draft? The form stops accepting new submissions. Existing submissions are retained in My Forms → Submissions. The form block on the page will no longer render the form for visitors.

Related reading

• Route Form Submissions — configure email, webhook, and CRM routing
• Set Up Form Notifications — detailed Mail Settings guide
• How to Use SGEN Analytics — read form submission events as conversion signals