# Using Form Templates in a private support capacity

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-form-templates-in-a-private-support-capacity/286253
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** form-templates
**Created:** [November 20, 2023, 12:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-form-templates-in-a-private-support-capacity/286253 "2023-11-20T12:46:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

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### Author: ![Simon\_Manning](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/simon_manning/32/198596_2.png) [@Simon\_Manning](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Simon_Manning)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-form-templates-in-a-private-support-capacity/286253/4 "2023-11-20T20:11:12Z")

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> [@JamesTheClarke](#):
>
> To me that is not an adequate solution. This would mean that all new recruits would see the applications of other recruits, making their private information (email, age etc.) far more visible than it should be.

This sounds like group messaging might be more appropriate for you, i.e. applications are made by sending a message to a group rather than creating a topic in a category and only members of that group (plus the sender) can see the messages.

Unfortunately form templates aren’t available for group messaging. I think I asked about this in the context of support enquiries, someone did, but I don’t know whether or not that’s something intended for the future.

> [@JamesTheClarke](#):
>
> EDIT: one way this could work if there was a category setting which makes it possible that topic authors can only see their own topics.

This has been discussed in other topics, e.g. #4 (and subsequent replies) in [Offering "private support" as part of a public support community](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-private-support-as-part-of-a-public-support-community/215151), where my impression has been that they don’t want to do it as it would add a lot of complexity to category permissions for something which is already there with group messaging.

It’s also more flexible with group messaging because participants can be added/removed as appropriate. E.g. if recruiting for a technical role, you might have applications go to an HR group and once they’ve done sanity checks on the application, they could add the relevant technical group as a participant.

I would definitely like to see form templates extended into group messaging eventually for scenarios like these.

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