Portal Forms

Advanced settings

Quick answer: Each form has toggles for active/draft mode, one-per-year locking, resubmission, fees, category, and which families it's intended for. This article covers each.

Active vs draft

Every form has an is active toggle. When off, the form is hidden from the parent portal entirely — parents won't see it in the list. Use draft mode to:

• Build out the field schema before going live
• Pause a form mid-year while you revise it
• Retire a form without deleting historical submissions

Forms can also have a needs review flag. When set, the form shows a yellow "Draft" badge in both the parent portal and the admin inbox. This is useful for forms that are technically live but still being finalized. Parents see the warning at the top of the form so they understand the questions may change.

One submission per year

The one_submission_per_year setting is on by default. With it on, once a parent (or each student, for per-student forms) has a submission on file for the current academic year, the form is locked — opening it shows the "You've completed this form for the 2025-26 year" message instead of a fresh form.

Turn this off for forms that should accept multiple submissions in a year:

• Field trip permission forms (one per trip)
• Allergy / medical updates (parents may need to update mid-year)
• Carpool authorization (the list changes)

Resubmission allowed

The resubmission_allowed setting works alongside one-per-year. With it on, parents can submit again after their first submission — the new submission supersedes the old one (both are kept in history). This is the right setting for any form that captures a current state the parent might need to update (allergies, emergency contacts, pickup list).

Fees

Forms can have a fee amount. When set:

• The form shows the fee on the parent portal as a small blue badge ($25.00 fee).
• On submission, the form is marked as pending payment — not submitted.
• The parent sees a payment link in their portal.
• Once payment clears, the status flips to paid.

Status of paid forms: Stripe payment integration is in development for the next release. Today, fee-based forms accept submissions and mark them pending payment, but parents pay outside the portal. Reach out to your account manager for the current payment workflow.

Required-for filter

The required_for setting controls which families the form is intended for. It's a free-form text field today (used for filtering and reporting). Common values:

• all — every family
• new-families — only families enrolling for the first time
• grade:k — only kindergarten students
• program:LE — only families in the Lower Elementary program

This setting doesn't hide the form from non-matching families today — it's a label for your reporting. (Conditional visibility is on the roadmap.)

Categories

Each form belongs to one category that controls how it's grouped in the parent portal:

• registration — first-of-year acknowledgements
• medical — health-related
• permission — parent permissions / opt-ins
• release — pickup / photo / media releases
• legal — tuition agreements, handbook, background checks
• trip — field trips and excursions

Pick the closest match. Parents see forms grouped by these categories on the Forms page of their portal.

Academic year

Submissions are stamped with the current academic year (e.g. 2025-26). At the start of a new academic year, all completion tracking resets — families who "completed" the photo release in 2024-25 will show as needing to submit again for 2025-26.

This is automatic and doesn't require any action from you. Just update your Growth Suite workflows to use the year-stamped completion date as the trigger.

Description and help text

Two useful fields for parent UX:

• Form description — a short paragraph shown at the top of the form. Use it to explain why the form exists and what happens after submission.
• Field-level help text — a sub-line under each input. Use it to clarify what you want or to remind parents of edge cases.

Related articles

• Requesting a new form
• Field types in the form builder
• Per-student vs per-family forms