Stop the Workarounds: We Need Native Multi-Step Forms

Stop the Workarounds: We Need Native Multi-Step Forms

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.



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • How do I copy an email message to one or more other folders?

                                    I can move a message to another folder using the "move to" option but I can't figure out how to copy a message. 

                                  • New feature request: Allow copy of email message to another folder

                                    Hello Zoho team, This is a suggested new feature to allow copy an email message to either another folder or the same folder. Within the same Zoho account. This is not a support request about "label". This is a suggested new feature to allow copies of

                                  • Hotmail is blocking the zoho mail IP

                                    Greetings, Since last Tuesday (5 days ago today) I wrote to Zoho support and I still haven't received a single response (Ticket ID: 2056917). Is this how you treat people who pay for your email service? I am making this public so that those who want to

                                  • Creator Simplified #11: Create a custom button to download files

                                    Hey there! This time, let's see how to create custom buttons to download the files uploaded in the file upload field. Sample use-case A training app has a module that provides the materials for all the available courses. Students can click on the corresponding

                                  • Hide horizontal lines at bottom of form

                                    Hi I have a page with 3 forms embedded in html snippets. On each of the forms I can hide the submit button easily but I am left with the horizontal lines that bound that section and I cannot figure out to remove them (see below for the two sets of horizontal

                                  • Autosaving of Form Field

                                    HI can anyone suggest a way of autosaving or simulating an autosave function for a specific field in a form. The story is as follows. I have a bunch of technicians who write notes on how they do a repair. Sometimes they write for a couple of hours the troubleshooting process. If they click incorrectly, press ESC, Cancel or the browser crashes the information is lost which can be heartbreaking so my guys use notepad and then copy the information in. The only way around this is to click submit on the

                                  • Ask the Experts 26: Brighten every customer interaction with Zoho Desk all year long

                                    Hello everyone, Greetings and welcome to Ask the Experts 26. As we wrap up 2025, we are excited to invite you to the 26th episode of our Ask the Expert series. 🎄The Merry Metrics Edition = Best of Zoho Desk [Best Practices + Holiday Automation + Year-End

                                  • Pricing calculator

                                    Alright, so I'm trying to create a pricing calculator/pricing report generator to use in a cabinet shop. I did all the logic and such, and the calculator works. I have a few other things that I would need it to be able to do though, I'll do my best to

                                  • Bug Details

                                    In the Bug detail the milestoneid is missing

                                  • Stop completed task lists from disappearing?

                                    Is there any way to stop projects from making tasks lists disappear when all the tasks in the list are completed? That's one of those little things where we're constantly fighting the product. For instance we have some projects which are ongoing - no start and end date. We use Kanban view to show the various task lists. We don't want the kanban list to disappear every time the items on it happen to be closed out. Thanks

                                  • Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

                                    My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these

                                  • Booking outside of scheduled availability

                                    Is there a way for staff (such as the secretary) to book appointments outside of the scheduled availability? Right now to do this special hours must be set each time. There should be a quicker way. Am I missing something?

                                  • Operation Questions.

                                    Hello, I hope you are well. To explain a little, we are a company that sells services and products with a technical team responsible for installation and maintenance. Zoho FSM can be useful for the technical team, namely for the technical coordinator

                                  • Direct Access and Better Search for Zoho Quartz Recordings

                                    Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request a few enhancements to improve how Zoho Quartz recordings are accessed and managed after being submitted to Zoho Support. Current Limitation: After submitting a Quartz recording, the related Zoho Support ticket displays

                                  • Update date & time when a cell is edited

                                    Hi All, I am desiring to have a cell update with the current date and time when another cell is edited. Any ideas?  Thank you

                                  • Add "Groups" to "Share With" on Reports & All Entries

                                    Hi, On Forms we can share Publicly, with Specific Users And/Or Specific Groups or All Users. With Reports and All Entries we lack the "Groups" option, please add this as with many users this saves a lot of work. Thanks Dan

                                  • Add Pause / Resume Option to Zoho Quartz Recordings

                                    Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Quartz recordings: the ability to pause and resume an ongoing recording. Current Limitation: At the moment, when recording an issue with Zoho Quartz, the recording continues even when we are

                                  • Custom Fields Not Showing Up in Invoice PDF Template Document Information

                                    I have added 2 custom fields under Sales > Invoices > Manage Custom Fields. They are set to show in all PDFs. However when I am editing my Invoice PDF template, i do not see the custom fields under Document Information.

                                  • ZOHO Books

                                    Hi there, Why after I upgrade my Zoho invoice > Books then i wanted to add plugin which i cannot do. Please advise.

                                  • How is Your eCommerce Experience w/Zoho Inventory?

                                    First off, I'm SUPER grateful for the advent of Zoho Inventory and now the Zoho Commerce Suite. Overall, Inventory is a great product, especially for customers without an eCommerce presence. For eCommerce companies (especially those shipping more than ~10 packages/day), however, there are certain drawbacks that keep my clients from moving over to Zoho Inventory: Cons: 1. Invoice + Package Creation from Shopify/Other eCommerce Integrations: Zoho Inventory makes the somewhat perplexing decision to

                                  • Simplify Mass Replies with Predefined Templates and Snippets

                                    Hello everyone, We are happy to introduce a new enhancement to Mass Reply that helps agents respond to customers quickly and consistently. With the addition of Email Templates and Snippets in the reply window, agents can use predefined messages while

                                  • Mapping custom fields from one module to another

                                    I have a custom field, "Subscription Period" that appears as a required field in every Opportunity (Potential). I want that field to appear on any Quotes derived from that Opportunity (and have created a custom field of the same name in Quotes for that

                                  • The Social Wall: November 2025

                                    We’re nearing the end of the year, and the holiday season is officially kicking in! It’s that time when sales peak and your social media game needs to be stronger than ever. We’re back with exciting new updates across AI, analytics, and the mobile app

                                  • Item name special charaters <>

                                    Im trying to input speical characters such as < and > into item name and item description but comes up with following error: Invalid value passed for Item Name and Invalid value passed for Item Description How do i allow speical characters?

                                  • How to update Multi File upload field

                                    Assume that i have a multi file upload field,how can i update the same field again?

                                  • Customer Address Not on Standard Invoice when Address is on Contact Record

                                    Hi,  I entered the customer billing and shipping address in Zoho CRM. I created an invoice in Zoho Books with the same customer contact. The contact is correctly in Zoho Books with the billing and shipping address. The invoice for the customer does not

                                  • Apply partial payments to invoices from the Banking Module

                                    We need this! Why is this not possible?

                                  • Welcome to the Zoho Show Community Forums page!

                                    Hello everyone, The Zoho Show community is a place for you to discuss and share anything and everything related to Zoho Show Presentations, our online presentation software. It includes users from all over the globe and all walks of life. Our community helps answer your Zoho Show questions with responses from other knowledgeable community members to give you the best experience creating and designing exciting presentations. Along the way, you'll meet recognized experts from our software team and

                                  • How can I convert an existing contact into a lead?

                                    I imported many contacts into ZOHO CRM. In order to select a few of them as leads, I want to mark or convert a few hundred as Leads. Who can I do that?

                                  • Price book functionality enhancement

                                    A common use of price books is to create a price book for a given customer level or contract with a specific company. Given that this is done at a company/customer level it would be great to see a way to associate a price book to a given customer and

                                  • Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

                                    Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

                                  • Important update about notification security in Business Messaging SDK

                                    As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the security of notification data, we have enhanced how notifications are processed and protected in our applications. These improvements ensure that all notification related data follows the most up-to-date

                                  • Sync Zoho Marketing Automation with Zoho Forms

                                    I can't find a section where the integration between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho form is explained. And how form subscription works with opt-in and consents.

                                  • What is the difference between Zoho Campaigns and marketing hub?

                                    Zoho Campaigns is a permission-based email marketing tool for sending marketing emails and mass emails. Marketing Automation is a multichannel marketing automation tool that caters to organizations looking for tools to engage their users across multiple

                                  • Webhook not firing.

                                    I created a webhook using the Web UI, it looks very nice and the testing worked without an issue, but when i save/ update a ticket, the webhook is not firing. Here are the details of the web-hook i get from using the API "modifiedTime": "2019-10-22T09:23:37.380Z",

                                  • Duplicate customers being created in Desk

                                    Hi I've trying to work out why I've getting duplicated customers being created in my desk. I have an external booking system that generates an email when I get a customer booking a job. A booking email gets sent to Desk where I manage the booking and

                                  • Creating a custom CSV file using deluge script/

                                    I have an application I have developed and the client wants us to place an export file in csv onto an ftp server daily. Now I don't see au options in creator to change the separator to anything else. The client wants the separator to be the pipe symbol "|"  I think i would be able to create schedule with some code to create the appropriate data in a string using deluge script but I haven't seen any functionality that would allow me to deposit that data as a file anywhere or attach it to an email

                                  • Can we add custom fields to portal community profiles?

                                    How do we add custom fields to our profile pages in our portal community? If we have the ability to add custom fields, will we be able to access those fields via API? We want to use our Desk community in our help portal as our primary community and would

                                  • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Billing

                                    Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. Invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing works

                                  • delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)

                                    Hi Team, I'm not receiving any email. Seems to be an issue. Sender sent me the error message they received: "delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)" Please advise.

                                  • Next Page