Every form is private by default: only the clients you assign it to can answer. Public access changes that. The description is exact: anyone with the link can answer, and no Workout Titan account is needed.
Forms are labelled Public or Private in your list, so you can always see which is which.
What it is genuinely good for
- Enquiry forms on your website or in your bio, so prospective clients can tell you what they want before you ever speak.
- Pre-session screening for people who are not clients yet. That matters, because you cannot assign a form to somebody who has not been invited.
- Feedback after a workshop or a group session, where invites do not make sense.
Anyone means anyone
There is no password and no sign-in. A public link that gets shared beyond who you sent it to is answerable by whoever now has it, and responses can arrive anonymously. They are labelled as such in your responses list.
Two consequences worth thinking about before you turn it on. Do not ask for anything sensitive on a public form (no health histories, no dates of birth, no addresses), because you cannot verify who is answering or control who sees the link. And expect the occasional junk submission, which you can delete.
Keep public forms short and low-stakes: name, what they are looking for, how to reach them. Everything sensitive belongs on a private form after somebody is a client.
The link
Built from the unique name you chose when you created the form, which is why that name is permanent. Changing it would break every link you had already shared. Copy URL puts it on your clipboard, and Basecamp confirms it copied.
A public form must have a unique name. Try to turn public access on without one and you are told.
Previewing it
You can open the public form in a new tab to see exactly what a stranger sees. Basecamp warns you first that you are leaving it for an external site, with a short delay on the button. That is a deliberate pause, not a bug.
Always preview before you share a link publicly. It is the only way to see whether your questions read sensibly to somebody with no context about you.
Turning it off again
Switch public access off and the link stops working for people outside your client list. Responses you already collected stay, and turning off access does not delete anything.