Chat alerts
Post a message to a channel whenever a form receives an inquiry, or a poll or survey you’ve ticked receives a response. Each message links to the inquiry or response; for inquiries in Slack and Microsoft Teams you can choose to include the answers too.
On this page
All guides
Add an alert
Only the account owner can add, change or delete alerts. Members can see which alerts exist, but not their links.
- Copy a webhook link from Slack, Microsoft Teams or Discord (steps below).
- In makeform.live, open Settings → Integrations and choose Add an alert.
- Choose where alerts go, paste the link and name the alert, for example after the channel.
- Choose All contact forms, including new ones, or Only some projects or forms.
- For Slack or Microsoft Teams, choose what the message includes: Link only, or Include inquiry details.
- Choose Send test and add. A test message appears in your channel, and the alert is saved once the service accepts it.
Copy a webhook link
Slack
You need permission to add apps to your Slack workspace. Some workspaces ask an admin to approve new apps.
- In makeform.live, open Settings → Integrations, choose Add an alert and Slack, then choose Open Slack. Slack opens with our app settings filled in.
- Choose your workspace and Next, check the app, then choose Create and Install. If your workspace needs an admin’s approval, Slack says so.
- Choose Go to App Settings, open Incoming Webhooks and choose Add New Webhook. Pick the channel and allow it.
- Copy the new webhook link and paste it into makeform.live. It starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/.
Prefer to set it up yourself?
At api.slack.com/apps, create an app from scratch, turn on Incoming Webhooks and add a webhook for the channel.
More channels, Workflow Builder links and removing a webhook
- Each link posts to one channel. To post to another channel on Pro, add another webhook in the same Slack app and a second alert.
- Slack Workflow Builder links (hooks.slack.com/workflows/…) don’t work here.
- Deleting the alert in makeform.live doesn’t remove the webhook from Slack. Remove it in your Slack app if you no longer need it.
Microsoft Teams
Alerts use the Workflows app in Microsoft Teams. This works with work or school Microsoft 365 accounts that include Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams (free) and personal Microsoft accounts usually can’t create these workflows, and your organisation’s admin may have turned Workflows off.
- In Microsoft Teams, go to the channel, choose More options (…) next to its name, then Workflows.
- Choose the template “Send webhook alerts to a channel”.
- Name the workflow, for example “makeform.live alerts”, and choose Next.
- Check the team and channel, then choose Add workflow.
- Copy the link Microsoft Teams shows, then choose Done.
Microsoft Teams adds a line under each card saying a Workflow template sent it.
If Microsoft Teams refuses or delays alerts
- If you open the workflow in Power Automate later, keep Who can trigger the flow set to Anyone. Otherwise Microsoft Teams refuses our alerts.
- Links from the old Office 365 Incoming Webhook connector no longer work, because Microsoft retired them. Create a Workflows link instead.
- If the workflow is turned off, Microsoft Teams refuses our alerts; after 3 in a row we stop the alert and email you. If its creator leaves, Microsoft Teams may accept alerts without posting them, so check the channel if alerts stop appearing. Create the workflow with an account that stays with the business.
- Microsoft Teams limits how many cards one workflow can post in a few minutes. If many inquiries arrive at once, some alerts may arrive a few minutes late.
- Use a standard channel: private channels may not support this workflow.
Discord
You need the Manage Webhooks permission on the server.
- In Discord, open Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks and choose New Webhook.
- Open the new webhook, name it, for example “makeform.live”, and choose the channel.
- Choose Copy Webhook URL. The link starts with https://discord.com/api/webhooks/.
Alerts never mention @everyone or anyone else. To stop the link working, delete the webhook in Discord.
What an alert says
Each alert says “New inquiry”, with the form’s internal name, its project if it has one, the time it arrived (UTC) and a private View inquiry link.
Only people who can sign in to your makeform.live account can open the link. Invite the people who handle inquiries as Members in Settings → Team.
The chat service keeps alerts under its own terms. Link-only alerts contain no answers, but they show your form’s internal name, so choose names you’re happy for the channel to see.
Include inquiry details
For Slack and Microsoft Teams, the account owner can choose Include inquiry details: the message then also shows the answers, shortened if long, never files. Everyone in the channel can read them, and they stay in the channel after you delete the inquiry in makeform.live. Link only is the default, and Discord alerts are always link only.
When you include details, the privacy notice makeform.live hosts for the forms the alert covers says that answers may be posted to your team chat. If a form uses your own privacy notice, add that yourself. A form added to the alert later gets the sentence when you next review its privacy notice; until then its alerts are link only.
Adding an alert doesn’t change email notifications: they keep going to each form’s notification emails, unless that form turns email off. Including details in emails doesn’t add them to alerts.
Plans
One alert can cover all your forms, or only the projects and forms you choose. In a form’s Settings → Notifications, you can skip an alert or turn off all notifications for that form only.
If your account moves to Free
Free sends 1 chat alert: the first one you added. Your other alerts are paused, not deleted, and start again if you upgrade to Pro. If that first alert is paused or stopped, Free sends no alerts until you resume it, replace its link or delete it.
Good to know
- Alerts go out as soon as an inquiry arrives, so marking it as spam later doesn’t remove an alert already posted. Test messages sent from a form’s preview don’t create alerts. Send a message through the live form to see a real alert.
- Alerts start with inquiries that arrive after you add them.
If an alert stops
If the service says the link no longer works, or refuses our alerts, we stop the alert straight away. If it rejects a message, we don’t send that message again. If it doesn’t answer or has a temporary problem, we try again for about an hour. If 3 alerts in a row can’t be delivered, we stop the alert.
A stopped alert shows as Stopped in Settings → Integrations, and we email your account’s notification address. New inquiries are still saved in your inbox, and email notifications carry on.
To start it again, create a new link in the service and choose Replace link. If the problem was temporary, choose Try again. Inquiries that arrived while the alert was stopped aren’t posted later.
Pause or delete an alert
Pause stops an alert without deleting it; Resume starts it again. Inquiries that arrive while it’s paused aren’t posted later. Deleting an alert doesn’t delete messages already in the channel.