Update 21 july form blocks

Before I could have a prospective client fill out my contact form on my website. That form was connected to a business gmail account and it would forward the form details in an email to me. From there I could easily reply to the email back to the client.

Now Squarespace has implemented a change that forces you to go to "Manage Sumissions", then copy the info, go back to my gmail and paste the email and form details to reply.

This is a very annoying hassle and was much easier. It's messing up the flow. Squarespace should allow it forward to your email for ease of use instead of forcing you back into Squarespace to manage replies which you can't even reply directly from. 

Hi - The format of email we receive, when someone fills in form, has changed making it hard to read. This has only happened over the last 48 hours or so and we didn't do (we don't really fiddle with the website).

Is this something Squarespace have done ? Can we change it back to how it was ? 

The emails used to come through as plain text and now they are formatted with bold headers, making them hard to read.

Thanks for any help. 

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Is this something Squarespace have done ?

Possibly. SS is changing things all the time. Not specifically this element but at some point almost all elements are likely to change. SS is a living breathing technological entity.

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Can we change it back to how it was ? 

Probably not. SS is not in the habit of letting folks go back to what was before.

Are you specifically referring to the form field label are bolded now and they weren't before?

Interestingly I think the labels being highlighted have been around forever. I've never really paid attention though. Probably because it didn't trigger me in anyway. I just checked some form submissions in my trash and the earliest from July 1 has bolded labels.

Have you changed mail clients recently or upgraded your email client? Some clients don't support styled text and so would fallback to just showing the plain text. An updated client may now be rendering styled text that it wasn't before.

I came here to ask exactly this as I have the same issue. I used to be able to see at a glance what had been completed without actually opening the email and now the preview just says you have a new submission and I have to open it and scroll down to see the actual form content.

The emails must be a larger file size too as the whole thing is formatted with a background and header fonts. 

I get eye strain very easily and have my phone apps set to dark mode on a low brightness setting so to have hundreds of emails coming through on a white background that In have to open and interact with is another layer of frustration. 

Is there a way to contact squarespace to provide feedback or is this it?

6 hours ago, creedon said:

Have you changed mail clients recently or upgraded your email client? Some clients don't support styled text and so would fallback to just showing the plain text. An updated client may now be rendering styled text that it wasn't before.

I have the same issue. A sudden change in emails received but no new client or other changes at my end. I don’t know why anyone would want forms to come in in a format that makes it more difficult to capture and automate the data. Really frustrating. 

Folks. I just got the updated form on my test site. So the change is percolating across SS's system.

If you'd like a simpler formatting you could use Google Sheets as your storage option.

Thanks everyone and I'm not sure I understand all the answers... but : we've not changed our email provider but that doesn't mean they haven't changed their system (I'll ask) - thing is, if I go back and look and previously received forms, they look as we want them (the second photo below) - the top form looks OK on a big screen but most of our team are using tablets / phones. The old forms were great and could be seen clearly - the new one is hard to read, too spread out etc ..... thanks again 

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I'm not sure I understand all the answers...

The upshot is that Squarespace have changed how the forms are formatted. There is nothing to do client side as this is happening in SS's backend.

Since yesterday, 7/21/23, I have had the same issue. I was receiving emails with form content that I could simply reply to. Now, instead, I get an email from Squarespace with a link to the Manage Submission page. The email that is connected to the form storage has been working fine for several years. Apparently Squarespace HAS changed something.

On 21 July 2023, Squarespace started rolling out the 'Form Submission Storage Update'. This new email format is a consequence of this update.

Instead of...

...you'll probably now receive something more like this:

Update: Squarespace recognised that users would prefer the emails without the Squarespace branding, and reversed this change on Friday 4 August 2023.

Did this help? Please give feedback by clicking an icon below  ⬇️

This is also effecting our business reply times and workflow. I do not understand why this was changed?

There is no option to raise a ticket regarding this issue on this link provided above. 

On 7/23/2023 at 2:18 PM, Adamjoeroberts said:

There is no option to raise a ticket regarding this issue on this link provided above.

If you are having difficulties raising a ticket, please read how to contact Squarespace and see if this helps.

Hi there, since the 21 july there is an update in the form blocks. We used to receive forms in our email in standard mail layout.

Now the layout of the form in the mail is changed to a very long and bulky layout. We used to print out the forms, now it's a printout of 4 pages instead of 1 page. Is there a work around to have the submissions/contact forms to have the old layout? Love to hear any solutions. Since support doen't seem to have any solution.

I'm not sure how to fix that in your email, but connecting the form to Google Sheets and storing the data there might give you more solutions to print.

Alternatively, if you copy the data into a blank document and then print it may take up fewer pages compared to printing directly from your email.

Just submitted my ticket! 

Form submissions should not be treated like new email list subscribers notifications. It's great that Squarespace is keeping an email list now of form submits, but it seems no thought went into our workflows once a form is submitted. 

I've been avoiding costly CRM platforms, but it may be worthwhile to avoid cut and paste errors. 

Thanks for letting me vent!

"Greetings from Portland, OR. My name is XXX and I'm happy to help you today. 
 
Please note, we recently made updates and changes that are rolling out with form blocks and form submissions. This includes updates that have also rolled out including a section where form block submissions are now stored in the Profiles panel as well. We have a guide with more information regarding this here:
 
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360046485652#toc-form-submitter-profiles
 
At this time, form submissions have some HTML formatting and this can’t be changed or customized. We have a guide with more information regarding this here:
 
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205814638-Managing-form-and-newsletter-storage#toc-manage-submissions-2
 
That said, I can certainly understand how this change may not be desirable and we can’t change the formatting back to plain text at this time. I want to ensure your feedback has been heard, as this allows us to assess the impact of this change and how it has affected our customers. As a result, I’ve sent your suggestion to our development team on your behalf. While we can’t guarantee implementation of every suggestion, customer feedback is an important part of how we continue to improve our platform, so we appreciate your input.
 
Feel free to reach out again if you have any other questions or need additional clarification —we're here 24/7 and always happy to help anyway we can."

Happy to help in anyway they can other than to actually help (which they can, but choose not too). Its a shame as we like our website but now its unusable we'll have to go elsewhere. 

To Submit a ticket about this

On 7/23/2023 at 9:18 AM, Adamjoeroberts said:

There is no option to raise a ticket regarding this issue on this link provided above. 

The only way I found to submit a ticket through the link paul2009 shared was: 

Squarespace Circle > Report an Issue > Other

 Click on the “Contact With Email”  

Then I wrote “Form Submission Email Format Update Issue” on your subject and described the issues I’m having regarding my workflow. 

This change is a complete disaster. Not only is it difficult to see, but now I'm getting confused responses from clients when I reply directly to the submission email. The email is more spread out, has more graphics making the emails slower to read, and has Squarespace's branding plastered all over it. I'm with the above poster--if this isn't fixed in a month, I'm migrating my website elsewhere.

The new HTML formatting Squarespace implemented for the emailed version of Form responses is bulky, clunky, difficult to read (on both desktop and mobile), annoying to forward (or choose to send) to anyone who doesn't have login credentials, and more. Plus Squarespace didn't warn us that they were making these changes, let alone ask for our input. Now that this new formatting has been sprung on us, Squarespace also doesn't provide any way to revert back to the old plain text or any way to edit/adjust the new HTML formatting. 

Tried reaching out to Support, who were zero help. The only thing we can do is complain on various platforms in a faltering hope that somebody with actual power at Squarespace will hear -- so here we are.

1 hour ago, bdegolia said:

This change is a complete disaster. Not only is it difficult to see, but now I'm getting confused responses from clients when I reply directly to the submission email. 

The team are actively working on a solution for this.

Also seems like potential privacy issues. All sites need to be able to:

1. Opt out of HTML, in favor of plain text emails
2. Opt out of storing form submissions altogether -- ETA: SS updated documentation on 7/31 to say a required Email field drives this. So a current workaround would be to use a required Text field for email (altho it won't validate for email format).
3. Permanently delete "form submitter" info when needed

I came to the forum to make a post and complain but I am glad to see this is already sparking outrage. 

We didn't ask for this, this is not practical and doesn't suit my automated systems. I want the old format back. 

For instance - even if you copy and paste the forum into a blank email, the formatting, line spacing etc can't be changed. You have to click the remove formatting button on GMAIL to be able to edit it. But doing so removes all formatting, the BOLD font etc that were the relevant questions asked in our forums. 

You have created more work for me and many others making this change. 

I collect a lot of information from my clients as I shoot weddings, I really hope this is address quickly. 

The format/layout has changed when we now receive the information from a form that has been submitted through Squarespace. Can we modify it or go back to the way it was in July? Because of the spacing, MORE paper is used when we print out the information, resulting in 1.5 more pages. 

Hi 

I’m new here so I hope I’m posting this in the right place. 
since acuity changed the form submissions when I go to reply to it on my phone and paste a template response, the size of my font increases dramatically and I can’t reduce it.  
I’ve included a picture below of my problem. The words ‘Many thanks’ is the normal size whilst the other text is how big the reply I paste becomes. So then the client receives an email reply with really large text which looks stupid. 
 

please help! 

Same here, I hate this! Hope somebody will help.