Merge tags

Use merge tags to personalize notifications with submitted form values

Merge tags (Liquid placeholders) let notification emails include values from the form and the submission. Turn on submitter or owner emails from the Notifications tab — see Sending emails. For richer layouts, use Custom email templates.

Your form needs an email field (or e-mail / email_address) before FormBackend can send an auto-response to the submitter.

<form action="https://www.formbackend.com/f/{your-unique-token}" method="post">
  <label>Name</label>
  <input type="text" name="name">

  <label>Email</label>
  <input type="email" name="email">

  <button type="submit">Submit form</button>
</form>

Available values

Reference values with {{...}} where ... is one of the keys below.

Form values

• {{form.token}} — the form token used in the endpoint URL
• {{form.name}} — the form name
• {{form.url}} — the form URL in FormBackend

Submission values

• {{timestamp}} — when the form was submitted
• {{values}} — an array of submitted fields. Each item has:
  • name — the field name (for example first_name)
  • value — the submitted value
  • is_attachment — true when the field was a file upload
  • attachments — uploaded files for that field (filename, url, size)
• {{value}} — a specific field, such as {{value.email}} or {{value.first_name}}
• {{submission.id}} — the submission ID
• {{submission.url}} — link to the submission in FormBackend (requires login)
• {{submission.submitted_from}} — referrer URL of the page that submitted the form

When you type {{ in a notification body editor, FormBackend offers field suggestions when they are available.

Example: list submitted values

<p>
  {% for value in values %}
    <p>
      <strong>{{value.name}}</strong><br>
      {% if value.is_attachment %}
        {% for attachment in value.attachments %}
          <a href="{{attachment.url}}" class="attachment-link">{{attachment.filename}}</a>
          <span class="attachment-metadata">{{attachment.size}}B</span><br>
        {% endfor %}
      {% else %}
        {{value.value}}
      {% endif %}
    </p>
  {% endfor %}
</p>

Example: attachments only

<ul>
  {% for value in values %}
    {% if value.is_attachment %}
      {% for attachment in value.attachments %}
        <li>
          <a href="{{attachment.url}}">{{attachment.filename}}</a>
          ({{attachment.size}}B)
        </li>
      {% endfor %}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
</ul>

Useful Liquid filters

Default when a field is blank:

Hi {{ value.name | default: "there" }}

Use only the first word of a full name:

{% assign names = value.name | split: " " %}
{{ names.first }}

See the Liquid documentation for more filters and control flow.