Use URL Parameters to Prepopulate a Customer Feedback Form

If you want to prepopulate a Customer Feedback form with information, you can “pass” this information to the form in the URL. This topic describes how to enable URL Encoding at the form level and how to add parameter values to the auto-generated URL.

Available as standard on the Enterprise tier and as an add-on to the Advanced tier:

Why use the URL to prepopulate answers?

If your organization provides a service, such as equipment repairs and maintenance, you might want to send your customers a feedback form. When you add parameters to the URL, you can include the technician’s name and other details of the service performed. You can use the URL with parameters for a QR code on a business card that the technician leaves with the customer.

First, you set up the form to accept URL-encoded parameters. Then, you construct a URL that includes the values you want to pass.

Tip:You could also create multiple, dispatched versions of the form, each with a single-use URL. The URL parameter functionality, by contrast, enables you to create a static, multi-use URL.

Structure of a URL dispatch

URLs require UTF-8 percent encoding for all special characters and spaces, except for parentheses ( ), which you don’t need to encode.

Structure the URL as shown in this example:

https://app.prontoforms.com/form/MKLMBRB5QMMAK7OL5WKHVXOC7E5PWBGG6QZWROK6PJIBSLRUPODFDFLDARC3SJ2I?Technician=Maya%20Natale&ServiceDate=2021%2D11%2D12

where:

• https://app.prontoforms.com/form/MKLMBRB5QMMAK7OL5WKHVXOC7E5PWBGG6QZWROK6PJIBSLRUPODFDFLDARC3SJ2I is the distribution URL provided by TrueContext.

  Info:We’re now TrueContext.

  • To support existing integrations, some items will continue to use “prontoforms” or “pf” in the domain or code.

  • For more detailed information about what’s changing, visit https://support.truecontext.com/hc/en-us/articles/19516168513556

• ? indicates that there are additional parameters.

• Technician=Maya%20Natale prepopulates the question Technician with the value Maya Natale.

• & indicates that there is another parameter.

• ServiceDate=2021%2D11%2D12 prepopulates the question ServiceDate with the value 2021-11-12.

Note:Dispatched values override default values configured for the form.

Steps to prepopulate form values with a URL

Prerequisites

• You must be an Admin user or a user in a group with Can Create FormSpace permissions FormSpace Permissions control the permissions that a user group has in a particular FormSpace. These are primarily used to control the forms (and the state of form) users can access on their mobile devices. Less commonly, FormSpace permissions give non-admin Users some administrative access to a particular FormSpace without giving them full Admin access to all FormSpaces..

• Your TrueContext account must be in the Enterprise tier, or in the Advanced tier with Customer Feedback forms as an add-on.

• You must have a Customer Feedback form with the target questions already configured.

  Info:The topic Create or Edit a Customer Feedback Form describes how to create and add questions to a Customer Feedback form.

Limitations

• URLs require UTF-8 percent encoding for all special characters and spaces, except for parentheses ( ), which you don’t need to encode.

• For each value passed by the URL, the format must match the data type of the related question. If the format is wrong, the user sees a blank or default value when they open the form. For example, if the data type is Integer, you must pass a numeric value.

• The form processes the URL parameters in the same order as the questions in the form. This ensures that the form respects Conditional Logic and dependencies between questions, regardless of the order of the URL parameters.

• You must add the parameters to the Distribution URL, not to a single-use URL.

• URL dispatch is supported for the following question types:

  • Date/Time Stamp (in ISO format)

  • Dropdown

  • Radio Button

  • Single Checkbox (send a value of 0 or 1, true or false)

  • Text Area

  • Text Field

  • Button Group (send the actual value)

  • Slider

  • Stepper

  • Multiselect (use the same unique identifier more than once with a different value each time):

    https://app.pf.com/form/XYZ?multi=a&multi=b

Construct a dispatch URL

1. Go to Forms & Integrations > List Forms, and then select the form you want to set up.

2. To enable URL Encoding, go to

   Edit Form > Settings > Advanced Properties > URL Encoding.

3. Select the option to Allow URL-encoded values to populate the form.

4. Save and deploy the form.

   Result: The system displays the Form Diagram The Form Diagram is a visual overview of a selected form version found in the TrueContext Web Portal. The diagram provides details on the form's inputs and outputs and displays the user groups that can access the form..

5. At the top of the page, locate and copy the Distribution URL.

   

6. Paste the URL into the app of your choice, and then add the parameter values that you want to pass to the customer. The structure of the URL must be:

   https://DistributionURL?UniqueID=Value

   where

   • DistributionURL is the value that you just copied.

   • ? indicates that there are additional parameters.

   • UniqueID is the unique identifier of the question that you want to prepopulate.

   • Value is the URL-encoded value for the answer.

   Tip:To send more than one value, use & before the next unique ID.

7. Use the URL that you constructed in an email, QR code, or as needed.