The Parent Experience

This article walks through what parents see when they open your registration link and fill out the form. Understanding the parent experience helps you configure the form in a way that makes sense for your families.

Opening the Form

When a parent clicks your registration link, they see a clean, branded form with your camp’s name and logo. If you’ve written intro text, it appears at the top.

If the registration window hasn’t opened yet or has already closed, they’ll see a message that registration is currently unavailable, along with your camp’s contact information.

Returning Families

If the link includes a family identifier (like the personalized links sent through the built-in email sender), the form pre-fills with the family’s information from the previous season. A “Welcome back!” banner appears at the top.

If the family started filling out the form previously but didn’t finish, a banner offers to restore their saved progress. They can click Continue to pick up where they left off, or Start fresh to begin a new form.

Sections of the Form

The form is organized into collapsible sections. The exact sections a parent sees depend on which fields you’ve enabled, but here’s what a typical form looks like:

Family Information

The first section collects the family’s basic details — last name, phone numbers, and email addresses. If you’ve enabled colony selection, it appears here too.

Address

Home address fields appear in their own section. If you’ve enabled secondary addresses, parents can enter a summer or winter address as well.

Parent Information

Father’s and mother’s information appear in separate sections — names, phone numbers, email addresses, and occupations (depending on which fields you’ve enabled).

Additional Information

If you’ve set up custom fields for the family level, they appear in their own section.

Emergency Contacts

Up to two emergency contacts, each with name, phone, relationship, email, and address fields (depending on what you’ve enabled).

Campers

This is where parents add their children. Each camper section includes:

• Name and basic info — first name, last name, date of birth, gender
• Grade — parents select from the grades you’ve configured in your camp settings
• Term — full season, first half, second half, or custom dates (if you’ve enabled custom terms)
• School/medical info — school name, allergies, doctor information
• Shirt and shoe sizes — if you’ve configured size options in your camp settings
• Profile photo — if enabled, parents can upload a photo of the camper
• Custom fields — any camper-level or enrollment-level custom fields you’ve created
• Optional fees — if your season has optional fees (like a trip or special program), parents can select them here

Parents can add multiple campers by clicking Add Camper. If they registered campers in a previous season, a picker appears letting them select a returning camper — this pre-fills the camper’s information so they don’t have to re-enter everything.

To remove a camper, they click the remove button on that camper’s section.

Documents

If you’ve set up registration documents, they appear in their own section. Depending on the document type:

• Upload documents show a file upload area
• Template documents show a download button for the template, plus an upload area for the completed form
• Info Only documents show a view/download button — no upload needed

Camper-scoped documents repeat for each camper. Parents can see which documents they’ve already submitted (from a previous registration) and which still need to be uploaded.

Disclosures

Disclosure checkboxes appear near the bottom of the form. Required disclosures must be checked before the form can be submitted.

Signature

If you’ve enabled the signature field, parents sign their name using a signature pad and enter the date. The signature is stored with the family’s invoice.

Payment

The payment section appears at the bottom of the form (unless you’ve set the maximum deposit to $0, which hides it entirely). What parents see depends on your payment configuration:

• Payment amount — either a free-form input (with minimum and maximum limits) or a fixed amount, depending on your deposit settings
• Payment plans — if you’ve configured payment plan options, parents choose a plan instead of entering an amount
• Payment method — parents select from the payment methods you’ve enabled (credit card, check, Zelle, ACH, etc.)
• Payment policy text — if you’ve written payment policy text, it appears above the payment method selection

For credit card and ACH payments, parents enter their card or bank details securely. Depending on your payment method saving settings, they may also be asked to save their payment method on file for future charges.

Privacy Consent

Every registration includes a privacy consent checkbox that parents must agree to before submitting.

Submitting the Form

When parents click Submit Registration (or Submit & Pay if they’re making a payment), Campflow validates all the fields, processes the payment, and saves everything. If there are any errors — like missing required fields or a payment issue — a message appears explaining what needs to be fixed.

After a successful submission, parents see a confirmation page and receive a confirmation email (if you’ve enabled registration notifications).

Good to Know

• The form works on phones, tablets, and computers. It’s designed to be easy to use on any device.
• Parents can save their progress at any time using the Save for later button at the top of the form. Their data is saved in the browser and restored when they return. Saving progress is a convenience feature, not a guarantee. It only works on the same device and browser the parent originally used. It’s meant as a safety net in case they accidentally close the page or need to step away — not as a way to start on one device and finish on another. We recommend parents complete the form in one sitting when possible.
• Uploaded files (photos and documents) are not included in the saved progress — they’ll need to be re-uploaded if the parent returns later.
• If a payment fails, the parent is not charged and their registration is not submitted. They can try again with a different payment method or amount.