Overview
A published form is completely anonymous: the person opens the link, fills in the fields, passes one visible security check, and submits. No account, no login, no app to install — it works in any modern browser, on desktop or mobile.
This page walks through that experience so you know what to expect when you share a link (and what to tell people who ask).
Opening the form
The link shows a brief spinner while the form loads, then the form itself on a clean page — no navigation, no chrome, just the Hubstream logo above the fields (hide it with a link parameter if the surrounding page carries its own branding).
If the form can’t load, the page says so plainly — for example “Could not load form (404)” for a link that doesn’t exist. See Troubleshooting for what each message means.
The fields
Forms render whatever you built in Hubstream, grouped the way the form defines:
- Text — single-line and multi-line boxes.
- Dropdowns and multi-selects — including cascading dropdowns, where one field’s choices depend on another’s.
- Checkboxes and date/time pickers (dates can default to “now”).
- Image and PDF uploads — thumbnail grids with add/remove controls. See Image and PDF Uploads.
- Conditional fields — fields with visibility rules appear and disappear as the person makes choices; hidden fields aren’t validated or submitted.
Required fields are marked with a *. Fields arriving from a prefilled link are already filled in but stay editable.
The security check
A Cloudflare security check widget sits just above the Submit button — usually a single checkbox, occasionally a short challenge. Submitting without completing it shows: “Please complete the security check above the Submit button, then try again.”
This is the only visible piece of the anti-abuse pipeline; the rest runs behind the scenes. See How Submissions Are Protected.
Submitting
Validation runs on Submit. Missing or malformed required fields are flagged inline (“Field is required”), with a summary banner above the buttons.
Once everything passes, a brief overlay covers the form while it sends. Forms with attachments upload the files first, then the submission — still one Submit from the person’s perspective.
- Success: the form is replaced by a confirmation — “Thank you — your response has been submitted.” The record is now in your Hubstream instance.
- Failure: an error banner appears at the top of the page and the form stays filled in, so the person can fix the issue and retry (the security check resets and must be completed again).
Good to know
- One link, one submission at a time. After the thank-you message there’s no “submit another” button — to file again, reopen the link.
- Don’t leave the form open for days. A form left open for 8+ hours (or across a maintenance deployment) asks the person to reload before submitting — reloading fixes it, but anything typed is lost, so long-running answers are better drafted elsewhere.
- Nothing sensitive reaches the browser. The page never sees your Hubstream server address or any credentials — only the form’s fields.