Emailing People Who Submitted a Form (Notify)

Every form has a Notify tab where you email the people who filled it out. Send a thank-you, share details for a sign-up, or write only to the people who picked a certain answer, like everyone who chose the Saturday session.

Before you begin

You need access to Forms and to your church's email features, including sending. Without email access, the Notify tab doesn't appear.
These emails reach people who gave an email address when they filled out the form. Anyone who left it blank can't get one.

Step-by-step

Open the form and click the Notify tab. The section is titled Emails.
Click Add email. A pop-up window opens, titled New email (or Edit email if you reopen one you already made).
Pick who it goes to under To. Choose Everyone who submitted, which shows how many people that is, or People who chose an answer. For the second, pick a question, then check one or more answers. Each answer shows how many people chose it, and the line underneath tells you how many the email reaches.
Write the Subject. This is the subject line people see in their inbox.
Write the Message. In either the Subject or the Message, type / to insert the person's first name, the form's name, or a link to the form.
Choose when to send under When to send.
- On a schedule lets you pick a day and a time.
- Send now emails the group you picked right away.
Save or send. If you chose a schedule, click Save. If you chose Send now, click Send now, then confirm in the pop-up, which names the group and how many people it reaches.

You're all set. Each email appears in the list on the Notify tab with a line showing when it sends (or when it went out, how many people it reached, and how many couldn't be sent) and who it's for.

Shortcut: on the Submissions tab, click Email everyone to jump straight into a new email to everyone who submitted.

Which answers you can pick

People who chose an answer works with questions that have answers to pick from: multiple choice, checkboxes, dropdowns, yes or no, limited slots, and scheduling polls. If someone submitted more than once, they count if any of their submissions picked that answer. If a form has no questions like these, the option is grayed out.

Send yourself a test first

Click Test send inside the pop-up window.
Churchday emails a copy to your own account address with [Test] at the start of the subject. It never counts as a real send, and its Unsubscribe link only opens a preview, so it never unsubscribes you.

Good to know

One email per person. Someone who submitted three times with the same address gets a single copy.
People who unsubscribed or whose address bounced don't get these. The pop-up tells you how many submissions have no email address and how many people can't get email, so the number next to Send now is the number of people who get it. Everyone else gets it even if they never joined your church's email list, because they gave their address on the form.
A scheduled email goes to everyone in the group who has submitted by then, including people who fill out the form after you schedule it.
Big lists finish in the background. When a lot of people submitted, Send now sends what it can right away and the rest keep going out in the background, a batch every 15 minutes. The list shows how many have gone so far.
Nobody gets the same email twice. If you edit an email after it went out and send it again, it only reaches people who haven't gotten it yet. To reach everyone again, write a new email.
If you remove the question or answer an email was for, the email won't send, and the list says so. Open it and pick who it goes to again.
Turn a scheduled email off or on with the switch next to it. Turning it off stops it from sending without deleting it.
Times use your church's timezone, shown at the bottom of the Notify tab. If a scheduled email can't go out within a day of its time, it doesn't send late; the list shows Didn't go out.
Deleting an email is permanent.
Text messages aren't available here yet. Notify sends email only.