Style Your Podio Webforms to Match the Look of Your Website

07.08.12 Posted in Product News by Lilly Hanscom

What good is your best webform if it’s not connected to your workflow? To date, more than 150,000 workflows have been started by a Podio webform. That means around 150,000 sales leads, feedback submissions, new hires and info requests have come through a Podio webform before being managed in a Podio App in a Podio Workspace.

But importantly, what good is a webform if it doesn’t cleverly blend with your uniquely designed website? That’s a question we’ve been hearing more and more recently, and today we have an answer. You can now style your webforms to fit the design of any website!

We believe you can fly, we believe you can customize

If you’ve never created a webform on Podio, check out this tutorial video to see how it’s done in three minutes! As for getting started with adding custom styling – it’s so easy even this guy (we think) can do it. When configuring your webform, click Theme and Use custom CSS. Then, import your CSS properties and you’re good to go. For a little inspiration, check out how Oval Business Solutions, the winners of our recent Webform Beauty Contest created this great design for UK-based start-up, Field Lover.

Oval Business Solutions offers a mix of expertise in web development, collaboration technology and business support services for companies of all sizes, including its very own offshoot, Field Lover, a new startup that helps anyone find outdoor fields to rent, from horticulturists to horse-owners, event organisers to kite flyers.

Oval’s CEO, Adrian Griffith explains, they got to work on the Field Lovers’ website a few months ago, using Podio to manage the project and collaborate on design, web development and marketing initiatives. Oval built their very own apps for the Field Lovers project, using the Podio App Builder, to handle the product backlog (feature list), bugs, enhancements, development sprints, feedback and documentation.

To gather feedback from Field Lovers’ precious early adopters, Podio webforms were used from the very beginning of the website’s launch. Using Podio webforms, Oval was able to collect contact details of Field Lovers’ pre-beta users, by enabling people to register interest in the service. Each completed form instantly dropped into a Podio CRM app so the team could start to build a mailing list.

Field Lovers also added an automated task to their CRM app, prompting a team member to follow up on each new registration in case any queries needed a quick response. Later, the same app was used to collect general feedback from people interested in learning more about Field Lovers.

Oval’s Field Lover project (still ramping up) has been an excellent study in how Podio can be used to pull together all the processes involved in building a new web startup. The Oval team, based in locations all over the world, has been able to work seamlessly on Podio without having rely on email, while creating the apps they need to work the way they want to.

Metonymy Media: Behind every great story, there’s a great webform

Today, we’re also bringing you an inspiring webform tale from Metonymy Media, a talented bunch of writers based in Indianapolis that specialize in creating content for websites, blogs, press releases, and print materials.

As Metonymy Media’s CEO, Ryan Brock explains, their most powerful webform, aptly named the “Fastball App” came about as a way for the Metonymy team to more efficiently collaborate with their clients on story ideas, blog post themes and other creative content pursuits.

Clients with different content needs submit their requests quickly and on-the-fly using Fastball, reducing the need for meetings, team briefings and lengthy discussions and leaving more time for the Metonym team to do what they do best – write.

Right away Ryan receives a notification on Podio or a push notification from the Podio iPhone App and he can assign the blog pitch to a writer who can start work immediately. With clients all over the U.S., Podio webforms have made it easier for Metonymy to meet the needs of its growing customer base.

Recently Ryan sent us a video showing how Metonymy collaborate on Podio and how his Fastball App works, check it out: