A custom field is a value your form keeps for each respondent, such as a score, a counter or a label. Picture David, who is writing a thesis on study habits and uses a five-item scale to measure how engaged each student is. Instead of adding up the points by hand in a spreadsheet later, he lets the form add one point for every statement a student agrees with. The total is ready the moment the response arrives, so he can sort, filter and export it straight away.
Custom fields come in two types, Number and Text. A number field can be changed by logic as people answer, and both types can be checked in conditions and shown back to respondents. Custom fields are free on every plan.
How to create a calculated field
- Open your form in the studio, click Add block and pick Custom field under Structure. A new field starts as "Custom value", a number with the value 0.
- Give the field a clear name, such as "Engagement score", because that name becomes its column in the Responses tab and in your export.
- Choose the Type. Changing the type resets the value.
- Set the Initial computed value, the number or text every response starts with.
- Add a Logic block after the question that should change the score. Under If, add a condition (for example, "Statement 1 is any of Agree, Strongly agree").
- Under Do, choose Update custom field, pick your number field, choose Add, Subtract, Multiply or Divide, and enter a value or pick another number field to calculate with.
- Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each question that adds to the score. Each Logic block holds one action, so a five-item scale needs five blocks.
For the full set of conditions you can use, see conditional logic.
Use the total in your form
Once the score exists, it works anywhere a question answer works.
- In conditions. A Logic block can check "Engagement score is at least 4" and Set Result to a result section written for highly engaged students.
- In text. Type @ in a question, a message or a result section and pick the field from the list (it shows as "Custom · Engagement score"), so the respondent sees their own number. Read more in show a result page after submit.
- In your data. Every custom field gets its own column in the Responses tab and in the CSV export, after the question columns. See view and export responses.
- In duplicate checks. A custom field can be one of the parts that decide whether a response is a duplicate. See prevent duplicate responses.
- In prefill links. You can give a custom field a starting value in a prefill link, which is useful for tagging where a respondent came from.
Fields that stay on the server
When nothing the respondent sees while answering uses a field (say it only appears on the result page), the studio marks it "Server-only". That means it is calculated when the response is submitted and is not sent to the respondent's browser. It still works on the result page and in your data. To use it during the form, insert it in a question or message, or refer to it in a Logic block's If condition.
Limits
- A form can't publish when custom fields refer to each other in a loop ("Custom fields contain a recursive reference").
- Calculations are made through Update custom field actions. Other kinds of expressions can't be edited in the studio and show only as "Expression".
- Ask AI never reads custom fields, so ask about the questions behind them instead.
Frequently asked questions
Can a custom field hold text?
Yes. Pick Text as the type and set the initial value. Text fields can be checked in conditions and shown with @, while calculations only change number fields.
Do respondents see the score while they answer?
Only where you show it. A field appears to respondents when you insert it with @ in a question, message or result section.
Can I score a quiz this way?
Yes, and it's the same pattern David uses for his scale. For a questionnaire built from start to finish, see how to create a thesis questionnaire.
