Discord application bot: forms for staff, clan or partner requests

As soon as a server grows, the requests start coming in: people want to join the moderation team or the clan, or want a partnership with their own server. If these requests arrive as DMs to individual team members or as loose messages in a channel, they get lost, nobody knows who has already replied, and the decision depends on whoever happened to be online.

An application form solves this. Everyone answers the same questions, every application lands in one fixed place, and the team votes and decides in a way everyone can follow. In this guide you plan your questions, prepare the channels in Discord and set up a Discord application bot with Lizbot, from the template to automatic role assignment.

When an application form is worth it

Not every request needs a form. A rule of thumb:

• Form: You regularly get requests of the same kind and want to compare them, such as staff applications, clan join requests, partnerships, beta testers or content creators.
• Ticket: Every request is different and needs a conversation, for example individual collaborations or support. A ticket system is the better fit for that.
• Nothing at all: If you bring someone onto the team twice a year, a personal conversation is enough.

Discord itself can ask new members questions before they join. That is access control for the whole server. For applications to your team, your clan or for partnerships, which happen after someone has joined, you need a form of your own.

Plan questions and field types

The quality of your applications depends almost entirely on the questions. Lizbot offers five field types:

A form holds up to 15 questions. Every question can be required, text questions get a minimum and maximum length, numbers an allowed range, and choice questions 2 to 25 options. A question label can be at most 45 characters long; that limit comes from Discord. For longer hints there is the Explanation field below the question.

How to plan good questions:

• Decision first, then the question: Think about how you recognise a good application and ask exactly that. "Tell us about yourself" rarely produces anything useful.
• Scenarios instead of self-praise: For moderation teams, questions like "A friend breaks the rules. What do you do?" say more than "Why would you be a good moderator?". You will find more examples in the guide on questions for moderator applications.
• Choice instead of free text where possible: You can filter fixed options later and sort them in the export.
• Minimum lengths for motivation questions: 20 to 30 characters prevent answers like "just because".
• Few questions: Five to eight good questions beat fifteen mediocre ones. Discord shows at most five fields per page, and every extra page is one more click.

Filling out in Discord or on the website

Applicants can fill out your form in two ways.

In Discord they click the button on the panel or use /community apply. A Discord dialog opens with at most five fields. If your form has more questions, they continue to the next page with Next after saving. Progress is saved, and if something is invalid, Lizbot names the affected field while the valid answers are kept.

On the website applicants log in with Discord and fill out the form step by step in the browser, also with automatic progress saving. That is more comfortable for long answers and on mobile. You find the link in the form editor under Link to the web form and can share it, for example on your clan website.

Both ways are on by default. If you only need Discord, turn off Fill out on the website under Requirements.

1. Prepare the channels in Discord

You need two channels:

• #applications for the panel with the button. All members may see the channel but not write in it. To do this, deny @everyone the Send Messages permission. How these per-channel restrictions work is shown in the guide on channel permissions.
• #applications-review as a private team channel. Deny @everyone View Channel and allow it for your reviewer roles. How overwrites work in detail is explained in the guide Set up Discord roles.

Lizbot needs the View Channel, Send Messages and Embed Links permissions in both channels. In the review channel, Lizbot must also be allowed to create public threads and send messages in threads, so that follow-up questions appear as a thread under the application. Since the channel is private, only your team sees the thread too. If Lizbot should add or remove roles on acceptance, the bot also needs the Manage Roles permission on the server.

2. Turn on the module and create a form

Open the dashboard, choose your server and turn on the Applications module under Modules. After that, /community apply and /server applications are available in Discord.

On the Applications page, in the Forms tab, you have two options:

• New form starts empty.
• From template starts with ready-made questions. Lizbot comes with 13 templates: Staff application, Moderator application, Support team, Developer application, Event team, Esports player, coach, analyst, caster and streamer, Clan join request, Content creator, Beta tester and Partnership. Under Template language you choose the language of the questions.

Templates start closed. That way you can adjust the questions at your own pace, set the review channel and only then open the form.

Under Basics you set the name, description, the language of the default texts and the Button text, for example "Apply to the team". Applicants see the description above the form. Write what happens next, such as "We will get back to you by DM within a week".

3. Set requirements against spam

Under Requirements you decide who may apply and how often:

• Wait time between submissions: in hours, 168 hours is one week.
• Only one open submission: stops someone from submitting five times in a row.
• Minimum Discord account age and Minimum time on the server in days.
• Required roles: applicants need at least one of them, for example the role from verification or a certain level from the level system.
• Allow withdrawing: applicants can withdraw open submissions via a DM button or on the website.

The team templates are deliberately strict by default: two weeks of wait time, an account at least 30 days old and at least 14 days on the server. The other templates use one week of wait time and an account age of 7 days. If someone does not meet a requirement, Lizbot tells them why and from when they can apply.

4. Set up the review channel, voting and follow-up questions

In the Review section you choose the Review channel, the Reviewer roles that may vote and decide, and optionally Ping roles that are mentioned on every new application. Admins can always review: members with Administrator or Manage Server and the admin roles you set for the dashboard in Lizbot. Without a review channel you only see submissions in the dashboard.

Every application appears in the review channel as a message with the answers, the account age, the join date and the source (Discord or website). Below it are the buttons:

• Thumbs up and down: With the Voting option, every team member casts a vote, and the counter shows something like "3 for, 0 against". A second click takes the vote back.
• Ask a question: Lizbot creates a thread under the application, posts your question there and sends it to the applicant by DM. They answer with the Reply button, and the reply appears in the thread.
• Accept and Reject: each with an optional reason that the applicant receives by DM.

A proven process for teams: every application stays open for 48 hours, at least three votes are needed, and a decision is only made if nobody has a well-founded veto. Lizbot counts the votes; you set the rule yourselves. Write it in your team channel so everyone follows the same process. Tips on working together as a team are in the guide Discord moderation team.

In the dashboard, in the Submissions tab, you filter by status and form, open the detail view and write Internal notes that only the team sees. You can accept and reject there as well. To let your review team work there without being administrators, give them dashboard access per role.

5. Assign roles automatically on acceptance

Under On acceptance you decide which roles are added and which are removed. A typical case: for a clan application the "Clan" role is added and the "Guest" role is removed.

Under Roles on acceptance you choose between two modes:

• Assign automatically: Lizbot assigns the roles right away. Lizbot only assigns roles with staff permissions if the person accepting could assign them in Discord themselves. Otherwise there is a reminder to assign them by hand.
• Assign by hand: Lizbot assigns nothing but reminds the team on acceptance which roles to give. Roles to remove are still removed by Lizbot.

For moderation and staff roles, Assign by hand is the safe choice, which is why the team templates are set that way. For clan or tester roles without special permissions, Assign automatically fits. In both cases, the Lizbot role must sit above the roles it should add or remove in the server settings. If assigning still fails, the guide on missing bot permissions helps. Once accepted, onboarding begins: how to guide new mods through their first weeks with a handbook and gradually growing permissions is explained in Onboarding new Discord moderators.

There is a shortcut for esports teams: if the form is linked to a team from the Esports module, the person joins the roster with trial status on acceptance. More on this in the guide Esports team on Discord.

6. Customise direct messages

Under Direct messages every form gets its own texts for After submitting, On acceptance and On rejection. If left empty, Lizbot uses a friendly default text in the form language. The placeholders are {user.mention}, {user.name}, {guild.name}, {form} and {reason}.

An example for acceptance:

Welcome to the team, {user.name}! Your application for {form} has been accepted. Check #team-start, where you will find everything for your first days.

Include {reason} in the rejection if you give reasons. A short, factual reason helps applicants do better next time.

7. Post the panel and open the form

Save the form and, in the Post panel section, post the message with the button in #applications. Alternatively, you can do this in Discord with /server applications panel. Posting again updates the existing panel.

Open the form with the Form open switch or with /server applications open. With /server applications close you take it offline temporarily, for example when the team is full. The button stays visible, but applicants are then told that no applications are being accepted right now. By default, the /server applications commands are available to members with the Manage Server permission.

Test the form yourself once, ideally with a second account that meets the requirements. That is the only way to see whether the page split, review channel and DMs work as intended.

Templates: staff, partnership, clan join request

Three templates cover the most common cases:

• Staff application: area (Moderation, Support, Events, Tech, Content), age, time zone, hours per week, previous team experience, strengths and motivation. Roles are assigned by hand.
• Partnership: name of the server, permanent invite link, member count, topic, what they offer in return and whether the person is the owner or an admin there. Check the invite link yourself before accepting. What else matters for partnerships is covered in the guide on Discord partnerships.
• Clan join request: player name, current rank, preferred role in the team, playing days, voice chat yes or no and an optional introduction. Works well with automatic role assignment. How to build the rest of the server for your clan is explained in the guide on building a clan Discord.

Adapt every template to your server. A partnership request for a roleplay server needs different questions from one for a gaming clan. Tournament sign-ups also work well through a form. The full process with check-in and schedule is described in Organizing a Discord tournament.

Limits by plan

All features in this guide are already included in the Free plan. Pro and Studio only raise the number of forms. You find the CSV export in the form editor under Export or in the Submissions tab. It contains status, dates, votes and all answers, handy for analysis in a spreadsheet. More details on the Applications page.

Checklist

• Questions planned, at most 15, as few pages as possible
• #applications readable for everyone, but without permission to write
• #applications-review visible only to the team, Lizbot may create threads there
• Reviewer roles and ping roles set, voting on
• Requirements such as wait time and account age set
• Roles on acceptance chosen, Lizbot role sits above them
• DM texts checked, panel posted, form opened
• Tested once yourself

Common mistakes

• Template never opened: Templates start closed. Until you open it, everyone only gets the notice that no applications are being accepted.
• No review channel: Applications then only land in the dashboard, and nobody on the team notices them.
• Public review channel: Answers often contain personal details such as age or time zone. The channel belongs to the team only.
• Lizbot role too low or without Manage Roles: Role assignment then fails, and Lizbot reports which roles could not be updated.
• Closed DMs: If an applicant has turned off DMs from the server, decisions and follow-up questions do not reach them. Lizbot shows this, and you get in touch another way.
• Too many required questions: Anyone who sees three pages of required fields gives up. Make minor questions optional.