Search Setup Settings
Introduction
The Search Setup tab contains the core settings that define how your Search Form connects to a Target Form and how location data is handled throughout the search experience.
These settings should typically be configured before working with field mappings, filters, search results, maps, or details views.
The Search Setup Tab
The Search Setup tab is the starting point for configuring a Search Form. It allows you to select the Target Form, configure location data handling, and control the overall search form layout.
Most Search Forms only need to configure these settings once during initial setup.
Target Form
The Target Form is the Gravity Form containing the entries that will be searched. Every Search Form must be connected to a Target Form. When users perform searches, Gravity Search queries entries stored in this form and returns matching results.
The selected Target Form also determines which fields, entry metadata, creator filters, and location sources are available throughout the Search Settings pages.
Target Forms can store one or multiple geocoded location sources that can later be used for proximity searches, maps, and distance-based queries.
In most cases, the Target Form is selected when the Search Form is first created.
Unlock Target Form
By default, the Target Form selection is locked after a Search Form is created. This helps prevent accidental changes that could break existing field mappings, filters, search settings, and result layouts.
If you need to connect the Search Form to a different Target Form, enable the Unlock Target Form option and select a new form.
Important: Changing the Target Form may require updating field mappings and other Search Settings.
Location Data Scope
Location Data Scope determines which geocoded location sources stored with Target Form entries are used when performing proximity searches, distance calculations, and map-based searches.
A Target Form can store multiple location sources for each entry. This allows a single entry to participate in searches using different locations such as a home address, work address, warehouse location, retail location, or any other geocoded source.
Location sources can originate from Geocoder Fields, Address Fields, or other geocoded fields configured on the Target Form.
To learn how location data is geocoded, indexed, and made available to Search Forms, see Understanding Location Data & Proximity Search.
If your Target Form already contains entries, you may need to import their locations before they become available to proximity searches and maps. See Importing Existing Entry Locations.
Single Location Source
Limit searches to a specific location source stored with Target Form entries. This is useful when searches should only consider one type of location, such as a retail store location or office location.
Multiple Location Sources
Configure the Search Form to search against multiple location sources. Gravity Search will use all selected locations when performing proximity searches and distance calculations.
Example
A Target Form stores three geocoded locations for each entry:
- Home Location
- Work Location
- Gym Location
One Search Form may search only Work Locations, while another Search Form searches all three location sources. This allows multiple Search Forms connected to the same Target Form to provide different location-based search experiences while using the same underlying data.
Not sure how location data is created and stored? See Understanding Location Data & Proximity Search for an overview of the geocoding and location indexing process used by Gravity Search.
Hide Entries Without Location
Exclude entries that do not contain valid location data in any of the selected Location Source Fields. This setting is useful when building location-based directories where every result must have a valid geocoded location.
Next Steps
Now that your Search Form is connected to a Target Form, continue with the following guides: