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Overview

The Organization tab allows you to add an organization picker field to your public form. When enabled, form submitters can search for and select an existing organization from your project rather than entering free text.

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Why add an organization picker?

An organization picker is useful when you want form submitters to associate themselves or their submission with an organization that already exists in your project. For example:

• An employer wanting to register their company
• A shop representative identifying their workplace
• A community member selecting their neighborhood association

Without an org picker, submitters cannot link their submission to an existing organization record. The picker ensures form submissions are tied to the correct, pre-existing organization in Broadstripes rather than creating unmatched or duplicate records.

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Configure the organization picker

Follow these steps to set up an organization picker on your public form:

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Step 1: Navigate to the Organization tab

Open the public form editor and select the Organization tab.

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Step 2: Enable the organization picker

Check the “Allow submitters to select an existing organization from the project?” checkbox to add the org picker field to your form. When enabled:

• An organization search field appears on the public form
• Submitters can search for and select an organization from your project
• The selected organization is recorded with the form submission

When unchecked, no organization picker is shown on the form.

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Step 3: Set a custom label (optional)

Enter a descriptive label for the organization picker field using the Custom label field. Default: “Organization” Custom label examples:

• “Your workplace”
• “Select your employer”
• “Which chapter are you with?”
• “Your local”

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Step 4: Choose the selection method

Use the “Choose the method by which the organization will be selected” dropdown to control how submitters search for their organization. Three options are available:

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Tiered drop-downs

Submitters choose from cascading dropdown menus, starting at the top of the organization hierarchy and drilling down to sub-organizations. How it works:

• Multiple dropdown menus appear on the form
• The first dropdown shows top-level organizations
• Subsequent dropdowns show child organizations within the selected parent
• The hierarchy depth matches your project’s organization structure

Best for:

• Projects with a clear, well-known organizational hierarchy
• Forms where you want to guide submitters step-by-step through the structure

Advantages:

• Structured data entry prevents typos and name variations
• Works well when submitters know their place in the hierarchy

Disadvantages:

• Can be slow or confusing if the hierarchy is deep or unfamiliar to submitters

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Autocomplete

Submitters type into a search field and select a matching organization from the suggestions. Matches against organization names at all levels of the hierarchy. How it works:

• A text input with autocomplete appears on the form
• As the submitter types, matching organization names appear in a dropdown
• The submitter selects their organization from the list

Best for:

• Projects with many organizations
• Submitters who know their organization’s name but not its place in the hierarchy
• Mobile-friendly forms

Example:

• Submitter types “union”
• Autocomplete shows: “Union Local 42”, “Tri-State Union”, “Union Hall West”
• Submitter selects the correct one

Advantages:

• Fast and intuitive
• No need to understand the full organizational hierarchy

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Autocomplete, matching only against the lowest level of the org structure

A variant of autocomplete that only suggests organizations at the lowest (leaf) level of the hierarchy. Parent and intermediate organizations are excluded from the results. How it works:

• Same text-input autocomplete as above, but search results only include organizations with no children

Best for:

• Projects where submitters should always be linked to a specific location rather than a parent umbrella organization
• Avoiding ambiguity when parent and child organizations have similar names

Example:

• Organization hierarchy: Regional Council > Local 42 > Shop Floor B
• Regular autocomplete would show all three when the submitter types “42”
• Leaf node autocomplete only shows “Shop Floor B”

Advantages:

• Prevents submitters from accidentally selecting a parent instead of their specific location
• Produces cleaner, more precise data

Disadvantages:

• Requires a well-structured organization hierarchy in Broadstripes
• May return no results if the hierarchy has not been set up correctly

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Step 5: Position the field on the form

After saving the Organization tab settings, the organization picker field appears in the Standard fields tab as an item in the selected fields panel. You can drag it to reorder it relative to other fields on the form.

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Step 6: Save your work

Click Save to apply your changes. The organization picker will now appear on the public form.

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How the field appears on the submitted form summary

After a submitter completes the form, the confirmation summary page shows the selected organization. If you chose Autocomplete or Tiered drop-downs, the full hierarchical name is displayed. If you chose Leaf node autocomplete, only the organization’s own name is shown.

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Next steps

Here are links to the other documentation pages for public forms:

• Create a new public form
• The “Standard fields” tab
• The “Timeline” tab
• The “Employment” tab (person forms only)
• The “Form content” tab
• The “Email” tab
• The “Other options” tab
• Viewing and downloading public forms