Custom forms

Custom forms let you control what information customers provide when they start a conversation from your Help Center. Use them to collect exactly what your team needs – like issue type, priority, or product area – up front, so your team can dive in and resolve issues faster. 

How to create a custom form

1. Go to your Help Center.

2. Navigate to the Customer Inbox section.

3. Click into the Custom Form section.

From here, you can create and manage your form fields.

Adding fields to your form

When adding a field, you can choose from:

• Dropdown – Let customers choose from predefined options.

• Text area – For longer, freeform responses (your customers will be able to re-size this as necessary). 

• Text input – For short, structured answers (like Workspace ID for example). 

For each field:

• Name it – this is what your customers will see.

• Add placeholder text – a helpful prompt that appears inside the field.

• Set it as optional or required using the toggle.

Triggering actions from form submissions

Once your fields are set up, you can define actions that take place in Plain when a customer submits the form.

Available actions:

• Add assignee

• Add label

• Add priority

• Add thread fields

You can assign multiple labels, sub-labels, or thread fields based on customer input – making it easy to route and categorize conversations from the start.

What your customers see

On your Help Center, customers will see the form you’ve configured, with any required fields clearly marked. If they try to submit without completing a required field, they’ll see an error.

What your team sees

When a form is submitted:

• A new thread is created in Plain.

• A timeline entry shows the values the customer submitted.

• Any configured actions are applied automatically to the thread.