Gravity Forms
+ Matrix Grid Field

Some questions are naturally a table: hours per project per weekday, quantities per size and colour, room-by-room measurements, a monthly budget, or a skills self-assessment with notes. Building them from dozens of separate fields is slow and the result is hard to read. The Gravity Forms Matrix Grid add-on adds one field that is a real table: you define fixed, labelled rows and columns, and every column has its own input type — text, number, currency, drop-down, a single checkbox, a radio choice across the row, or a date.

Numeric columns add up: the grid shows row totals, column totals and a grand total that update while people type, and you can use any cell, row total, column total or the grand total in Number field calculations, in conditional logic and in notifications through merge tags such as {Hours:7:r2:c3} or {Hours:7:total}. The table is accessible, can be navigated with the arrow keys and becomes one card per row on a phone.

Everything is checked again on the server: required cells, number ranges and steps, decimals, drop-down choices, dates, “at least N cells filled” and “each row complete once started”. Entries are stored as JSON with a stable schema, shown as a table on the entry screen and in {Hours:7}, and the CSV export gets one column per cell plus the totals. Unlike the official Survey Add-On Likert field (one radio choice per row on a shared scale) or the core List field (visitors add free rows of text boxes), Matrix Grid gives you fixed labelled rows, typed cells and totals. Everything runs on your own server, with no outside connection. For Gravity Forms 2.9 and newer.

The grid set-up is saved with the field: rows (label, optional value, in totals) and typed columns (label, type, width, required, limits, choices, score, default) plus the totals and validation options. Each row and column gets a short id such as r2 or c3 that never changes, so merge tags and exports keep working when you rename them. On the page the field is a real HTML table with row and column headers and a hidden label for every cell; a small script updates the totals, checks cells as people type and gives Gravity Forms the cell and total values for calculations and conditional logic. When the form is submitted the add-on reads the cells on the server, checks every rule again (the browser is never trusted), works out the totals itself and stores the grid as JSON with a stable schema: the rows and columns with their labels, the cells and the totals. Number field calculations that use the grid are recomputed on the server from those cells. The entry screen, notifications, the entries list and the CSV export all read the stored JSON. Everything happens on your own server — the add-on makes no outside HTTP request beyond the licence and update checks.