Formstack

Formstack is a powerful and flexible suite of tools to collect, manipulate and output your online data. Back in "the day" Formstack was one of the early players in the online forms game. They eventually decided, "we're helping people collect a lot of data, but maybe we should help them do more with that data". As a result they started expanding their tools and capabilities through acquisition — as well as through external integrations. Their document generating tool, Formstack Docs, was a company called WebMerge. Their signature tool, Formstack Sign, was a company called InsureSign. Over the years these three disparate tools have developed tight integrations that work really well together.

Note: There is also a Salesforce tool, but we won't cover that here.

Let it be known... along with Webflow, Formstack Docs is one of our favorite low code tools. It honestly makes us feel like we have super powers. It helps us and our clients save hundreds of hours every year. We haven't seen many tools in the low code space that provide functionality and flexibility like Formstack Docs. While it is a low code tool, we feel like we get full code customization and results.

We lean on Formstack Forms for its tight integration with Docs and because we can intercept the form submission with custom code block. In other words, Forms lets us do fully custom (javascript) calculations before our data is sent downstream, which is a feature we haven't seen in some other tools. Doing calculations in the same place as the data collection keeps our no code workflows succinct and more organized.

Full disclosure, we are a Formstack Certified Partner (FCP) and have affiliate links on this site. That said, we became FCP after we fell in love with the tool.

Formstack is powerful - almost feeling like a big step towards enterprise software. While it can be finicky at times, their Docs tool is one of our favorites in the no code space. Of all the workflows we've created, the systems that include Formstack Docs are definitely the most impressive and have the most direct application in a traditional business setting. Put another way, Formstack Doc automations save us crazy amounts of time in the real world — something any no code tool would love to claim.

Additionally, the integration between Forms and Docs is super tight and stable — which is amazing because it means we don't have to muck around with data delivery tools. When it is integrated with other platforms, Formstack really takes things to 11.

While we really do love what Formstack brings to the table, our experience has taught us a few things:

1. Getting closer to "Enterprise Software" is a double edged sword... and with Formstack, the thought, "I'm just going to quick whip up a form" doesn't really cross our minds. There is a LOT of clicking. If you have a big form and need to delete/change a bunch of fields, it is a lot of clicking... which gets annoying and cumbersome.
2. The UI design and experience of their forms isn't as strong as Typeform, another form product we use. When trying to make a real impression on clients or users, we think Typeform generally presents better. There is a "one question at a time" feature in Formstack, but it feels like a hasty response to Typeform.
3. Docs has a learning curve - especially since you'll want/need to use a little PHP code in your documents. You definitely need to be comfortable googling for answers and possibly reaching out to their support. That said, we are not PHP developers, and as long as you follow their help articles you can create really impressive documents.
4. Docs can be a bit finicky. We've run into a few situations, especially in the PowerPoint editor, where things just won't work... and it's stuff you'd never anticipate, so we've spent plenty of hours frustratingly trying to debug our Docs. Once things are set, you're usually all good — but there have been a handful of head-scratchers that can make you frustrated.
5. Having questions with a variable number of inputs is clunky. For example, "Enter the Make / Model on all of your vehicles"... some people have 1 response, while others may have 10. Creating this type of "child form" with a variable number of input functionality is a pain. In this case we look to Jotform.
6. Formstack Support is helpful but slow. Their teams is committed to helping solve your problem, but it just might take 1-3 days to get things sorted. This can be very frustrating when you're in the zone and want to make good progress.