Using the Replicator on Forms

What Is the Replicator?

When you’re building an online form, most fields are set up to collect one answer from one person. But sometimes you need to gather the same set of information from a different number of people—and you don’t know ahead of time how many that will be. That’s exactly where the Replicator comes in.

The Replicator is a special field type in the eCatholic Forms module. It lets your visitors duplicate a set of fields right on the fly—as many times as they need. Instead of you having to build separate sections for things like “Child 1,” “Child 2,” “Child 3,” and so on, your visitor can simply tell the form how many entries they need, and the form expands automatically.

A simple example

Say you’re building a parish registration form. You want to collect a person’s name, date of birth, and sacramental history for every family member. Instead of trying to guess how many children a family might have—and then creating duplicate sections for every possible number—you can use a Replicator.

With a Replicator, the visitor simply selects something like “3 additional family members,” and the form instantly updates to show three matching sets of fields—one set for each person. This keeps things cleaner, saves time, and makes the experience much easier for families to complete.

When should I use the Replicator?

The Replicator is a great choice any time the number of "entries" you need can vary from one visitor to the next. In other words, it’s ideal when different people end up submitting a different number of items in the same kind of form. Common parish use cases include:

• Family or parish registration forms — collecting information for each family member
• Religious Education enrollment — registering multiple children in a single submission
• Event registration — registering multiple attendees (for example, couples retreat, youth group trip)
• Volunteer sign-ups — listing multiple available dates or ministry preferences
• Mass intention requests — submitting multiple intentions in one form

On the other hand, if the number of entries is always the same for every visitor (for example, you always need exactly one emergency contact), then a regular Group is the better fit. The Replicator is specifically designed for situations where that number can change.

Replicator Group Settings

When you add a Replicator to your form, you'll configure a few options:

Replicator Counter Name — The label shown above the number selector. This is the question you're asking the visitor. For example: "Number of Additional Family Members" or "How many children are you registering?"

Replicated Group Name — The label for each duplicated set of fields. For example: "Family Member" or "Child" — the form will label each instance as "Family Member 1," "Family Member 2," etc.

Minimum — The lowest number a visitor can select. Set to 0 if it's possible that a visitor needs zero additional entries (e.g., someone registering just themselves).

Maximum — The highest number a visitor can select. Set this to a reasonable upper limit for your situation.

Initial Number — How many groups are shown when the form first loads. Setting this to 0 means the form starts empty and only expands when the visitor selects a number.

What fields can go inside a Replicator?

Any field from the Basic or Prebuilt tabs can be added inside a Replicator group — text fields, checkboxes, date fields, dropdowns, name fields, and more. You add fields to the group the same way you add them to the rest of the form: drag and drop.

Ready to build one?

See the step-by-step guide: How to create a replicator group