How do I add a timer to a form page?

Last updated: September 25, 2026

A Timer field puts a countdown on the page and keeps the employee from advancing until it runs out. It's how you hold someone on a page for the length of a video or a policy document.

Add the timer

  1. Open your form in the editor and drag a Timer field onto the page you want to hold.

  2. Set Duration (mins) to the number of minutes the page stays locked. Fractions work — 1.5 is ninety seconds.

  3. Mark the field required. This is the step that makes the timer block anything: an optional timer still counts down on screen, but it won't disable the button.

  4. Save the form and open the preview link.

Employees see a large MM:SS countdown with a progress bar underneath. When it reaches zero the field switches to Timer Complete with a green check, and the button to move forward unlocks.

A timer measures elapsed time, not attention.

It confirms the page stayed open for the duration you set. It doesn't confirm the employee watched a video, read a document, or was even at the screen. If you need evidence they absorbed the content, add a graded quiz. If you're paying employees for training time, treat the timer as a record of time on the page rather than a substitute for your own timekeeping.

Match the duration to the content

Set the duration to the runtime of whatever is on the page. A timer longer than the video leaves the employee staring at a finished player and wondering whether the form is broken. A timer shorter than the video lets them move on part-way through, which defeats the point.

Nothing links the two, so if you swap in a longer cut of the video later, update the duration in the same pass.

A note on translations

The timer's on-screen label is fixed and isn't part of a form's translations, so it reads the same in every language. Anything you need the employee to read in their own language — why they're waiting, what they should be doing — belongs in a Content field above the timer, where the body is translated.

Verify

Open the form's preview link and try to advance immediately. You should see:

  • The button to continue disabled while the countdown runs.

  • The countdown decreasing once per second.

  • Timer Complete and an enabled button when it reaches zero.

If the button stays live the whole way through, the field isn't marked required — that's the cause in nearly every case. If no countdown appears, confirm Duration (mins) has a value; an empty duration gives the field nothing to count.

Once an employee finishes the timer, the completion saves with the rest of their answers. If they come back to the page later in the same task, the timer shows as already complete rather than starting over.

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