Article

    Field settings | Forms Help

    3 min read
    Last updated 4 days ago

    Click any field in the Build tab to open its settings panel alongside the form. Every field has the same set of controls.

    Label

    The text shown above the input. Defaults to the Attio attribute name. Override it with anything that makes sense for your audience, like "Work email" instead of "Email address".

    Labels support answer piping: you can reference previous answers using {{field_slug}} syntax. See the Answer piping article for details.

    Help text

    Optional text shown beneath the field input in a smaller, muted style. Use it to give respondents context: format hints ("Include country code"), examples ("e.g. Acme Corp"), or reasons why you are asking.

    Help text also supports answer piping tokens.

    Required

    Toggle to make the field mandatory. Respondents cannot submit the form without filling in required fields. Required fields display a red asterisk next to their label.

    You can also make fields conditionally required using Require rules in the conditional logic panel.

    Placeholder

    The grey hint text shown inside the input before the respondent types. Keep it short, one or two words. Do not repeat the label.

    A value injected server-side that is never shown to the respondent. Useful for:

    • Source tracking: set source to "Website contact form"
    • Campaign data: set utm_campaign to the current marketing campaign
    • Internal categorisation: tag every submission with a team or department

    Hidden defaults are set at form-build time. They cannot be overridden by a respondent or by any client-side manipulation.

    Dynamic variables

    In addition to fixed values, hidden defaults support the following dynamic variables that are resolved at submission time:

    VariableValue
    {{current_date}}Today's date in YYYY-MM-DD format
    {{current_timestamp}}Current date and time as an ISO 8601 timestamp

    For example, set a hidden submitted_at field to {{current_timestamp}} and each submission will record the exact time it was received.

    Hiding fields at runtime

    Fields can also be hidden dynamically at the URL level using the _hide query parameter:

    ?_hide=field_slug_1,field_slug_2
    

    This lets you share the same form with different fields visible for different audiences without creating multiple forms. Hidden fields are still submitted with their configured default values. See the URL prefill & hiding fields article for full details.

    Refresh schema

    If you add or rename attributes in Attio after building a form, click Refresh schema in the builder toolbar. The field list updates to reflect the current Attio schema. Existing field configurations are preserved.