After over 17 years of community requests, I'm hoping the Zoho team can finally address the lack of native multi-page form support in Zoho Creator. This has been one of the longest-standing feature requests in the community, with threads spanning nearly two decades:
The Issue
Zoho Creator currently has no native support for multi-page forms (also known as wizard forms, step forms, or tabbed forms). When building applications with complex data entry requirements—employee onboarding, loan applications, patient intake, vendor registration—developers have no built-in way to break a single form into logical, digestible steps.
Meanwhile, Zoho Forms has had robust multi-page form support for years, including page breaks, progress indicators, conditional page navigation, and page rules. This creates an inconsistency within Zoho's own product ecosystem.
The Product Asymmetry
The disparity between Zoho Forms and Zoho Creator is striking:
| Capability |
Zoho Forms |
Zoho Creator |
| Page Break field type |
✓ Native support Drag-and-drop page breaks |
✗ Not available |
| Progress indicator / Step bar |
✓ Built-in Shows respondent progress |
✗ Not available |
| Page navigation (Next/Previous) |
✓ Automatic Customizable button labels |
✗ Not available |
| Conditional page skipping |
✓ Page Rules Skip pages based on answers |
✗ Not available |
| Page-level validation |
✓ Validates before advancing |
✗ Not available |
| Single form, single record |
✓ Yes |
✗ Requires multiple forms |
The irony: Zoho Forms—a standalone form builder—has more sophisticated form UX capabilities than Zoho Creator—a full application development platform. Developers building enterprise applications in Creator are stuck with inferior form experiences compared to a simple survey tool.
Example Use Case
Consider an Employee Onboarding Form with 40+ fields across these logical sections:
- Step 1: Personal Information (name, contact, emergency contacts)
- Step 2: Employment Details (position, department, start date, manager)
- Step 3: Payroll & Banking (bank account, tax forms, direct deposit)
- Step 4: Benefits Selection (health insurance, retirement plans)
- Step 5: IT & Equipment (laptop preference, software access, badge photo)
- Step 6: Policies & Acknowledgments (handbook, NDA, consent forms)
Desired behavior: User completes each step, sees their progress, and can navigate back to review previous sections—all within a single form that creates a single record.
Current reality: User is presented with a massive scrolling form with 40+ fields, or developers must implement complex workarounds using multiple forms, lookups, and Deluge scripts.
The Current Workarounds (All Suboptimal)
To achieve multi-page form behavior, developers are forced into one of these suboptimal approaches:
Workaround 1: Multiple Related Forms ("Form Chain")
Create separate forms for each "step" and link them via lookups. Use Deluge scripts to pass record IDs between forms and auto-populate fields.
// Step 1 form On Success:
step2_url = "#Form:Step_2_Employment?Employee_Lookup=" + input.ID;
openUrl(step2_url, "same window");
// Step 2 form On Load:
if(input.Employee_Lookup != null)
{
emp = Employee[ID == input.Employee_Lookup];
input.Name = emp.Name;
input.Email = emp.Email;
// ... populate all fields from Step 1
}
- Problem: Data is scattered across multiple tables
- Problem: Complex lookup relationships and Deluge scripting required
- Problem: No "go back" functionality—user must start over if they need to edit Step 1
- Problem: Reporting requires joining multiple forms
- Problem: Breaks the single-record-per-entity principle
Workaround 2: Stateless Form Daisy Chain
To avoid creating "junk" records when users abandon the form mid-process, advanced developers use Stateless Forms for intermediate steps, passing all field values via URL parameters, and only writing to the database on final submit.
// Step 1 Stateless Form - "Next" button:
step2_url = "#Form:Step_2_Stateless?"
+ "Name=" + encodeUrl(input.Name)
+ "&Email=" + encodeUrl(input.Email)
+ "&Phone=" + encodeUrl(input.Phone)
+ "&Address=" + encodeUrl(input.Address)
+ "&City=" + encodeUrl(input.City)
+ "&State=" + encodeUrl(input.State)
+ "&Zip=" + encodeUrl(input.Zip);
// ... repeat for EVERY field
openUrl(step2_url, "same window");
// Step 2 Stateless Form - "Next" button:
step3_url = "#Form:Step_3_Stateless?"
// Pass ALL fields from Step 1 again...
+ "Name=" + encodeUrl(input.Name)
+ "&Email=" + encodeUrl(input.Email)
// ... plus all Step 2 fields
+ "&Department=" + encodeUrl(input.Department)
+ "&Manager=" + encodeUrl(input.Manager);
openUrl(step3_url, "same window");
// Final Form - actually saves the record
- Problem: Stateless forms cannot use advanced field types including Subforms, File Upload, Signature, Image, and Audio—severely limiting data collection capabilities
- Problem: Every single field must be manually mapped in URL strings
- Problem: Adding one field to the schema requires updating scripts on every "Next" button
- Problem: URL length limits restrict how many fields can be passed
- Problem: No "go back" functionality—previous values are lost unless passed forward
- Problem: Extremely brittle—maintenance nightmare for forms with 30+ fields
Workaround 3: CSS Hacks ("Fake Tabs")
Use Notes fields with custom HTML/CSS to create tab-like visual navigation, combined with hide/show field rules triggered by a radio button "step selector." This can work with individual fields or Section fields (to hide/show groups at once).
// Radio field "Current_Step" with options: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3...
// On User Input of Current_Step:
if(input.Current_Step == "Step 1")
{
show Section_Personal_Info;
hide Section_Employment;
hide Section_Banking;
}
else if(input.Current_Step == "Step 2")
{
hide Section_Personal_Info;
show Section_Employment;
hide Section_Banking;
}
// ... repeat for each step
- Problem: Requires hiding/showing every field or section individually—maintenance overhead
- Problem: CSS styling is fragile and may break with Creator UI updates
- Problem: No native progress indicator—must build custom UI in Notes fields
- Problem: Validation doesn't prevent "next step" navigation if current step has errors
- Problem: All fields still load in DOM regardless of visibility, impacting performance
- Problem: Collapsible sections are all visible simultaneously—not a true wizard experience with enforced linear progression
Workaround 4: Zoho Forms Integration
Build the multi-step form in Zoho Forms (which has native support), then push data to Creator via webhooks or integrations.
- Problem: Requires additional Zoho Forms subscription
- Problem: For in-app forms, users must leave the Creator application entirely, complete the form in Zoho Forms, then return to Creator—a jarring, disconnected experience
- Problem: Data synchronization is not instantaneous—there can be delays before records appear in Creator
- Problem: Loses Creator-specific field types (lookups to existing data, formulas, subforms)
- Problem: Integration complexity and potential sync failures
- Problem: Cannot use Creator's built-in workflows on form submit—must rely on integrations
Workaround 5: Custom JavaScript Widget
Build a completely custom multi-step form interface using a JavaScript Widget that handles the UI, then submits data to Creator via API.
- Problem: Requires JavaScript development expertise—completely inaccessible to citizen developers and new users who chose Creator specifically for its low-code promise
- Problem: Must build and maintain custom form validation, navigation, progress indicators from scratch
- Problem: Loses all native Creator field types and behaviors—must recreate lookups, dropdowns, validations in JavaScript
- Problem: API authentication and connection management adds complexity
- Problem: Widget UI doesn't automatically match Creator's styling or theme changes
- Problem: Significant development time for what should be a basic platform feature
What Should Happen Instead
Proposed Solution 1: Page Break Field Type
Add a "Page Break" field type to the Form Builder (matching Zoho Forms functionality):
Form Builder → Field Types → Page Elements → Page Break
Drag the Page Break field between sections to create multi-page forms.
Each page displays with Next/Previous navigation buttons automatically.
Proposed Solution 2: Progress Indicator Configuration
Allow developers to configure a progress bar or step indicator:
Form Properties → Multi-Page Settings:
☑ Enable progress indicator
○ Progress bar style
○ Numbered steps style
○ Named steps style
Step Labels:
Page 1: "Personal Info"
Page 2: "Employment"
Page 3: "Payroll"
...
Proposed Solution 3: Page-Level Validation
Validate required fields on the current page before allowing navigation to the next page:
// Deluge: On Page Change (new event)
if(input.Current_Page == 1 && input.Email == null)
{
alert "Please enter your email address before continuing.";
cancel page change;
}
Proposed Solution 4: Conditional Page Navigation (Page Rules)
Allow pages to be skipped based on field values (matching Zoho Forms' Page Rules):
Page Rules:
IF Employment_Type == "Contractor" THEN skip "Benefits Selection" page
IF Country != "USA" THEN skip "US Tax Forms" page
Real-World Impact
This limitation affects any application requiring:
- Employee onboarding — HR systems with 30-50+ fields across multiple categories
- Customer applications — Loan applications, insurance quotes, account opening
- Patient intake — Medical history, insurance, consent forms, symptoms
- Vendor registration — Company info, compliance documents, banking details
- Event registration — Attendee info, session selection, dietary requirements, payment
- Grant applications — Project details, budget, team info, supporting documents
- Any complex data collection — Where form abandonment due to length is a concern
User Experience Impact: Research consistently shows that multi-step forms have significantly higher completion rates than single long forms. This is due to the "Goal Gradient Effect"—users are psychologically more motivated to complete a task as they see progress toward the finish line. A progress bar creates momentum; an endless scroll creates cognitive overload and abandonment.
Database Architecture Impact:
The workarounds described above force developers to fragment a single logical entity (e.g., "Employee") into multiple physical tables (Personal_Info, Employment_Details, Banking_Info, IT_Equipment) just to achieve visual pagination.
- Reporting nightmare: Every report requires complex joins across multiple forms
- Integration complexity: External systems expect a single record, not fragments across tables
- Data integrity risk: Orphaned records when users abandon mid-process
- API overhead: Multiple API calls required to fetch what should be one record
The desired state is simple: one logical entity = one database table, with the UI handling pagination visually—not structurally.
The Business Case for Zoho
Why this benefits Zoho:
- Product consistency: Aligns Creator with Forms and other Zoho products that already support multi-step data entry
- Competitive positioning: Platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft Power Apps, and OutSystems offer native wizard/multi-step form capabilities
- Reduced support burden: Eliminates community posts and support requests for workarounds for this basic functionality
- Enterprise readiness: Complex enterprise applications require sophisticated form UX—this is table stakes for enterprise adoption
- Developer productivity: Native wizard capabilities remove the overhead of building UI workarounds from scratch, cutting development cycles by hours. Instead of troubleshooting custom flow-control scripts, developers can focus on optimizing user experience and accelerating time-to-market for core business features.
Request to Zoho Team
Can this finally be addressed?
After over 17 years of community requests, the need is clear and well-documented. The current implementation forces developers to choose between:
1. Poor User Experience
Present users with overwhelming, scroll-heavy single-page forms that increase abandonment rates
|
2. Excessive Complexity
Spend days implementing fragile workarounds using multiple forms, CSS hacks, or external integrations
|
We shouldn't have to make this choice—especially when Zoho Forms already has this capability built-in.
Community Input Requested: What workaround have you used in the absence of native support? Please add your voice to this long-standing request.
📚 Documentation References:
🔗 Related Community Discussions (17+ years of requests):
Recent Topics
Different form submission results for submitter and internal users
I'm looking for suggestions on how to show an external submitter a few results while sending internal users all the results from the answers provided by the external user. The final page of our form has a section with detailed results and a section with
Help Desk Services Solution
I am here looking for Help Desk services solution for organization. I also searched this on many different website and found many solutions. We are bit confused to which one to choose. One of my friend suggest me this platform, and i am hoping i will
Facing Issues with Sites Mobile font sizes
my page renediaz.com is facing issues mobile view, when i try to lower font sizes in home page, instead of changing the size, it changes the line space
Remove 'This is an automated mail from Zoho Sign' in footer
Hi there, Is it possible to remove or change the text under the e-mail templates? I can't figure out how to do that: Would love to hear from you. Kind regards, Tristan
Formatting and slow
Creating campaigns are difficult. I'm fairly computer literate but some of the way Zoho Campaigns formatting works is painful. Images fail to upload or are very slow. To top it off, syncing the contacts is a pain as well as temperamental links to create Segments. At this rate I'm afraid we might need to migrate back to Mailchimp.
Default Ticket View - Table?
Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV
Boost your Zoho Desk's performance by archiving tickets!
The longer your help desk operations are, the more likely it is to accumulate tickets that are no longer relevant. For example, ticket records from a year ago are typically less relevant than currently open tickets. Such old tickets may eventually lead
Paste emails to create segment
We are moving over from Mailchimp to ZOHO. However Mailchimp allows me to create a segment by pasting in emails from excel (or importing a .csv) can I do the same in Mailchimp?
COQL API in JS Widget only pulling 200 records
Hello! We've been building a custom homepage widget using the Zoho JS SDK, and it seems that this https://help.zwidgets.com/help/latest/ZOHO.CRM.API.html#.coql only allows 200 records. I thought the limit was 2000 for COQL queries, but am I mistaken?
Getting the Record ID of a form once it is submitted - so that form can be edited later
In Zoho Forms, where can I access the record ID of a form once the form is submitted? - Record ID is not available in webhook payloads - It is not available to form fields, including in formulas - It is not available as a parameter in a thankyou page
Auto-Generate Line Numbers in Item Table Using HTML & CSS Counters (Zoho Books & Zoho Inventory Custom Templates)
<div> <style> /* Start counter from 0 inside tbody */ tbody#lineitem { counter-reset: rowNumber; } /* Increment counter for each row */ tbody#lineitem tr { counter-increment: rowNumber; } /* Show counter value in first column */ tbody#lineitem tr td:first-child::before
Possible to define default font and size in Zoho Campaigns?
Is it possible to define a default font (font, size and colour) for the text, H1 and H2 in Zoho Campaigns? For example: In a campaign, I add a text block, and the text is automatically century gothic, size 11, grey (6f6f6e) by default? Thank you!
Zoho Sites - General Feedback
Hi Everyone-- Quick question for discussion: is it me or is working with Zoho Sites like entering the Twilight Zone? I've built many sites over the years, but this platform seems impossible. I've spent an entire day and a half trying to get a simple one-color
File Upload field not showing in workflow
Hi, I have added a field on Zoho CRM. I want to use it in a workflow where that particular field is updated based on another field, however it is not showing up in the field list to select it in the workflow. Why is this please?
You cannot send this email campaign as it doesn't have any eligible contacts in the selected mailing list. You can try adding contacts or choose other mailing lists.
please help
Strengthening the capabilities of CommandCenter in Zoho CRM Plus
When you look at the prospect-to-customer journey in most businesses 10 to 15 years ago, it was relatively straightforward. Many of us remember walking into a store, sharing our requirements with a sales associate, reviewing a few options, and making
World date & time format
Hello, Is there a timeline to get the worldwide used date and time format ? I mean not the american one... I mean day month year, and 24 hours clock. Regards
How can Data Enrichment be automatically triggered when a new Lead is created in Zoho CRM?
Hi, I have a pipeline where a Lead is created automatically through the Zoho API and I've been trying to look for a way to automatically apply Data Enrichment on this created lead. 1) I did not find any way to do this through the Zoho API; it seems like
Announcing Kiosk 1.1 - Customize screen titles, configure new fields & actions, use values from your Kiosk to update fields, and more.
Hello all We are back again with more enhancements to Kiosk. So what's new? Enhancements made to the Components Add titles for your Kiosk screens and adjust its width to suit your viewing preferences. Three new fields can be added to your screen: Percentage,
Any recommendations for Australian Telephony Integration providers?
HI, I am looking for some advice on phone providers as we are looking to upgrade our phone system, does anybody have experience with any of the Australian providers that integrate with CRM Telephony? So far we are looking at RingCentral and Amazon Connect, and would love to hear feedback on any of the other providers you might have tried. Thank you
CRM Cadences recognise auto-responses
I have leads in a Cadence. I get an auto-responder reply "I'm out of the office..." Normally Cadences seems to know that isn't a real reply and keeps the lead enrolled in the cadence. However, today, Cadences has UNENROLLED a Lead who sent an auto-reponse
Zoho Campaigns Workspaces
Hi, I’m currently working on a Zoho CRM + Zoho Campaigns setup for a franchisee-based organization, where each franchise must only see and use its own contacts. At the moment, franchisees cannot properly access their contact lists in Zoho Campaigns unless
Limited System because of Limited Number of Fields for Car Dealership
Dear Zoho Support, we want to have all the information about a car inside of a car record. We want to have Zoho CRM as our single source of truth for our data, but the limited number of fields are not allowing that. The data consist of: technical data
Automatically Update Form Attachment Service with Newly added Fields
Hi, When I have a Form Setup and connected to a 3rd Party Service such as OneDrive for Form Attachments, when I later add a new Upload Field I have to remove and redo the entire 3rd Party Setup from scratch. This needs to be improved, such as when new
Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade
Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
Newsletter in multiple languages
Hi We are planning on starting to use Zoho Campaigns for our newsletters. Since we send our newsletters in three languages, I would need the "unsubscribe page" and other pages related to the NL (Thank you page and so on) to be available in different languages
Fixed assets in Zoho One?
Hi, We use Zoho Books and have the fixed asset option in it. I started a trial for Zoho One and I do not see that as an option. Is the books that is part of zoho one equivalent to Zoho Books Elite subscription or is it a lesser version? Thanks, Matt
Set Default Status of Assembly to "Assembled" When Entered in UI
I've just discovered the new "confirmed" status of Assemblies within Inventory. While I understand the intent of this (allowing for manufacturing planning and raw material stock allocation), it was initially confusing to me when manually entering some
I need to Record Vatable amount and non vatable amount separately in zoho books in a single line
I need to Record Vatable amount and non vatable amount separately in zoho books in a single line give me the customisation option and in invoice copy to customer the total amount should be inclusive 5%vat and no need to show the vatable and non vatable
Sort Legend & stacked bar chart by value
I'd love to see an option added to sort the legend of graphs by the value that is being represented. This way the items with the largest value in the graph are displayed top down in the legend. For example, let's say I have a large sales team and I create
Scanned Doc - selecting Item overwrites Rate
I have a Vendor Invoice which was uploaded to Documents. I select Add To > New Bill. The OCR is actually quite good, but it is reading an Item Description instead of an Item Number. I remove the description and select the correct Item Number... and it
Timesheet invalid data error
Getting the "Invalid Date" error when trying to add a time sheet to an appointment in a work order. I initially though the work order was corrupt or something so I deleted the work order and recreated it. I added the first time sheet to the AP and saved
Convert invoice from zoho to xml with all details
How to convert an Invoice to XML format with all details
Any update on adding New Customer Payment Providers who support in store terminal devices?
Currently there is only one Customer payment provider listed for terminal devices in USA- Everyware. They charge a monthly fee of almost $149 minimum. Will you add other providers - like Zoho Payments or Stripe or Worldpay that would allow integrated
Dealing With One-Time Customers on Zoho Books
Hello there! I am trying to figure out a way to handle One-Time customers without having to create multiple accounts for every single one on Zoho Books. I understand that I can create a placeholder account called "Walk-In Customer", for example, but I
Customizing Helpcenter texts
I’m customizing the Zoho Desk Help Center and I’d like to change the wording of the standard widgets – for example, the text in the “Submit Ticket” banner that appears in the footer, or other built-in widget labels and messages. So far, I haven’t found
Passing the image/file uploaded in form to openai api
I'm trying to use the OpenAI's new vision feature where we can send image through Api. What I want is the user to upload an image in the form and send this image to OpenAI. But I can't access this image properly in deluge script. There are also some constraints
"Temporary" Field Value?
I have a custom action in Form A report Detail View that passes the Rec ID and updates a Temp Record ID lookup field in the Form B record via openURL (and opens the Form B report in popup) . The updated Temp Record ID field value in Form B is then used
File Upload field automatically replaces spaces with underscores – support experience
Hi everyone, I want to share my recent experience regarding the File Upload field behavior in Zoho Creator and my interaction with the Zoho support team. When a user uploads a file, the system automatically renames the document by replacing spaces in
We Asked, Zoho Delivered: The New Early Access Program is Here
For years, the Zoho Creator community has requested a more transparent and participatory approach to beta testing and feature previews. Today, I'm thrilled to highlight that Zoho has delivered exactly what we asked for with the launch of the Early Access
Next Page