Quick Start: Your First FormPRO
This page walks you through building your first FormForge Pro form. In about 10 minutes you’ll activate your license, build a form with the drag-and-drop builder, embed it on a page, and confirm that your first test entry lands in FormForge Entries.
Everything in this guide works on every FormForge Pro tier. Email notifications, payment gateways, and CRM integrations are covered in their own guides once you finish this Quick Start.
Before you start
Confirm the following are in place. If any are missing, fix them first.
WordPress 5.8+ and PHP 7.4+
FormForge Pro requires WordPress 5.8 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer. Check Tools > Site Health > Info for your current versions.
Plugin installed and activated
Upload the FormForge Pro zip from your Royal Plugins account, install it, and activate it. A new FormForge menu will appear in the WordPress sidebar with a Forms icon.
License key handy
Find your license key in your Royal Plugins account at my.royalplugins.com/my-account/licenses/.
A page or post to embed the form on
You’ll paste the form’s shortcode into an existing page or post at the end. Any page works, including a new draft page created just for testing.
Step 1: Apply your Pro license
Activating your license unlocks the Pro-tier features (payment gateways, CRM integrations, advanced field types, entry management tools) and enables automatic plugin updates.
Open the License page
Go to FormForge > License in your WordPress admin sidebar.
Paste your license key
Paste the key from your Royal Plugins account into the License Key field, then click Activate License. The status indicator turns green when activation succeeds.
Confirm activation
Head to FormForge > All Forms. The top nav header confirms the plugin is running in Pro mode.
The most common cause is a typo. Copy and paste the key rather than typing it. If your key still won’t activate, confirm the site URL matches an active seat on your license page.
Step 2: Build your first form
FormForge Pro ships with a visual drag-and-drop builder. You pick field types from the sidebar, drop them into the canvas, and edit each field’s properties in the settings panel that appears when you click it.
Open the form builder
Go to FormForge > All Forms. If this is a fresh install, you’ll see a “Create Your First Form” welcome screen with a Create a Form button. Click it. On sites with existing forms, click the Add New button at the top of the page instead.
Give your form a name
The page title reads Create New Form. Type a name for the form at the top (for example, “Contact Form” or “Newsletter Signup”). The name is internal, not shown to visitors, but you’ll use it to find the form later in the Forms list.
Add fields from the sidebar
The left sidebar has Add Fields grouped by category. Standard Fields covers the basics (Single Line Text, Paragraph Text, Dropdown, Radio Buttons, Checkboxes, Number, Hidden Field). Advanced Fields covers formatted inputs (Email, Name, Phone, Address, Website, Date, Time, File Upload, Consent, Signature, Star Rating, Image Choice, Cascading Dropdowns, Repeater, Password). Layout covers structural elements (Page Break, HTML). Click any field type to drop it into the form canvas on the right.
Configure each field
Click any field in the canvas to open its settings panel. Edit the label, help text, default value, and whether the field is required. Standard field settings are minimal by design so you can build a working form in a couple of minutes.
Save the form
Click Save Form at the top right. The page reloads as Edit Form and your form is now saved with an ID. You’ll use that ID in Step 4 to embed it.
A simple contact form covers the basics: Name (Advanced > Name, required), Email (Advanced > Email, required), Subject (Standard > Single Line Text), Message (Standard > Paragraph Text, required). Save the form, and you’re done building.
Step 3: Set up email notifications (optional but recommended)
Notifications trigger every time a visitor submits your form. Admin notifications alert you when a new entry arrives; user notifications acknowledge the submission back to the person who filled it out.
Open the Notifications tab
Still in the form builder (Edit Form), click the Notifications tab in the top navigation.
Configure the admin notification
Set the recipient email, subject line (defaults to New Form Submission: {form_title}), and message body. Available merge tags include {form_title}, {entry_id}, {all_fields} (renders every submitted field), and {field_id} where field_id is the numeric ID of a specific field you want to pull from the entry.
Save the form
Click Save Form at the top right to persist the notification settings. You’ll verify the notification actually delivers in Step 5 by submitting a test entry from the front end.
Most shared hosts do not deliver WordPress-native wp_mail() reliably. If your test notification never arrives, install Royal SMTP or a similar SMTP plugin to route mail through a real provider (Gmail, SendGrid, Postmark). This is the single most common cause of “my form is broken” support tickets.
Step 4: Embed the form on a page
FormForge Pro embeds via shortcode. The Forms admin page copies the exact shortcode you need for each form, so you never have to type it by hand.
Copy the shortcode
Go back to FormForge > All Forms. Your new form appears in the table with columns for Form Name, Shortcode, Entries, Created, and Status. In the Shortcode column, click the Copy button next to your form. The shortcode looks like [royal_form id="1"] where 1 is your form ID.
Paste into a page or post
Open the page or post where you want the form to appear. Paste the shortcode into the content. The block editor accepts it in a Paragraph block or a Shortcode block; the classic editor accepts it inline.
Save and preview
Save the page. Click Preview or View Page to see the form rendered on the front end. Every field, label, help text, and Required marker should show exactly as you configured it in the builder.
If you don’t want the test page visible to the public yet, set the page’s Visibility to Private in the Publish panel before you save. Only logged-in administrators can view Private pages, but the form works exactly the same. Change Visibility back to Public when you’re ready to launch.
Step 5: Submit a test entry and view it
A form that doesn’t record entries is not a working form. Confirm the full round-trip before you rely on the form for real submissions.
Submit the form from the front end
On the page where you embedded the form, fill it in with test data (your own name, a real email, a dummy subject and message). Click the submit button. You should see a “Thanks for your submission” confirmation message or be redirected to a thank-you page (depending on how you configured it).
Open the Entries page
Go to FormForge > Entries. Your test submission appears in the entries table with a timestamp, the form it came from, and a preview of the first fields. Click the entry to see every field value.
Check your inbox (if notifications configured)
The admin notification email should arrive within a minute or two. Confirm the subject line renders correctly, the field values are populated (not showing raw merge tags like {form_title} or {all_fields}), and the sender address matches what you configured.
Verify Analytics captured the submission
Go to FormForge > Analytics. Your form should show one view (from the preview) and one submission. Conversion rate is the ratio of the two.
What’s next
You’ve done the essentials. Here are the guides most FormForge Pro customers read next:
- Email notifications: setup and troubleshooting, the #1 area customers get wrong on new installs.
- Setting up reCAPTCHA v3, essential spam protection before you make your form public.
- Stripe payment integration, for order forms, donations, and paid registrations.
- Understanding entries: search, export, and manage submissions, the day-two-and-beyond workflow.
- Conditional logic: show and hide fields based on user input, for smarter multi-branch forms.
FAQ
Do I need coding knowledge to use FormForge Pro?
No. Every form is built with the visual drag-and-drop builder. You pick field types from the sidebar, drop them into the canvas, and edit their properties in the settings panel. No HTML, PHP, or JavaScript required.
How do I embed a form on my website?
The Forms admin page lists every form with a Copy button next to its shortcode. Paste the shortcode into any page, post, or widget area, and the form renders on the front end. The shortcode format is [royal_form id="X"] where X is your form ID. The block editor accepts the shortcode in a Paragraph block or a Shortcode block.
Where do submitted entries go?
Every submission is stored in FormForge > Entries. You can search, filter, export to CSV, and view each entry individually. If email notifications are configured, admins and users can also receive submission details by email.
How do I test a form before customers see it?
Embed the form on a page and set the page’s Visibility to Private in the Publish panel (only logged-in administrators can view Private pages). Submit a test entry, then view it in FormForge > Entries to confirm every field captured what you expected. Change Visibility back to Public when you’re ready to launch.
Can I edit the form after people have already submitted it?
Yes. Changes to the form apply to future submissions immediately. Existing entries keep the field structure they were submitted under, so old submissions still show the fields that existed when they were captured, even if you later removed those fields.
What happens if I delete a form that already has entries?
Deleting the form deletes the entries too. If you want to keep the entries but stop accepting new submissions, set the form’s Status to Inactive instead. Entries remain in FormForge > Entries, but the shortcode renders an empty message on the front end.
Can one page have multiple forms?
Yes. Paste multiple shortcodes on the same page, each with a different form ID. Each form is independent, has its own entries, and fires its own notifications. If you use the same form ID twice on one page, both instances submit to the same form.