How do I share a preview of a form?

Last updated: May 4, 2026

Onboarded gives you two ways to open a shareable preview link for a form — one from inside the form builder, one from the form's version list. Either path lands on a public URL you can copy and send. No Onboarded login is required to view it.

Before you start

  • The form has at least one published language. Preview won't load until you've published at least one language version of the form.

  • You're far enough along to want feedback — fields added, PDF mapped (if you uploaded one), and any rules in place.

Steps

Pick the path that matches where you are. The end result is the same: a new tab opens on a shareable URL.

Option A — from the form builder

Use this while you're actively editing the form. It previews whatever version you have open in the editor.

  1. Open the form in the form builder. This works whether you built the form from scratch or uploaded a PDF and mapped fields against it — the preview surface is the same.

  2. Click Preview in the top-right of the form builder header.

    A new tab opens with the form rendered the way an employee would see it. The form builder generates a fresh preview link in the background each time you click.

  3. Copy the URL from the new tab's address bar. The link looks like https://app.onboarded.com/onboarding/preview/{form_id}?token=....

  4. Share the URL wherever the reviewer is — Slack, email, a ticket comment. They click the link and walk the form themselves.

Option B — from the form's version list

Use this when you want to share a preview of a specific version — a published one that's already live, a deprecated one for an audit, or a draft you don't want to open in the editor.

  1. Open the form from your forms library. The version list shows every version on this form along with its status (Draft, Published, Deployed, or Deprecated).

  2. Find the version you want to share.

  3. Click Preview on that version's row.

    • For a Published, Deployed, or Deprecated version, Preview shows as a button on the row — to the left of Deploy or New Draft.

    • For a Draft version, click the ⋮ menu on the row and choose Preview.

  4. A new tab opens. Copy the URL and share it the same way you would from the builder.

Preview links expire after 24 hours. Each click of Preview generates a new token that's valid for 24 hours. If a reviewer hits the URL after that, the page won't load. Click Preview again and re-share to issue a fresh link.

What the reviewer sees

When you preview from the builder, the link reflects the form's current draft state. If you keep editing after sharing — adding a field, fixing a label, adjusting a rule — the reviewer sees those changes the next time they reload. You don't need to re-share for content edits, only when the link itself has expired.

When you preview from a published or deprecated version row, the link is locked to that specific version's content. Useful when a stakeholder wants to see exactly what's live today, or compare a new draft against the version it would replace.

In both cases the preview ships with placeholder data for the employee, employer, job, and client so anything that uses variables (content blocks, prefilled fields) renders end-to-end. The reviewer can fill in answers, change the locale, and walk every page just like a real onboarding experience.

Verify

Open the preview URL yourself in an incognito window before sending it. If the form loads and you can step through every page, the link is good to share.

If the link doesn't load, the two most common causes are:

  • The form has no published language yet — publish a language and try again.

  • The token is more than 24 hours old — click Preview again to get a new URL.

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