Creating a Second Form Field to Confirm Email Address

  • Updated

With Act-On Forms, you can easily create two form fields required to match. The second form field asks users to confirm the values they've provided.

By asking a contact to confirm their email twice, you reduce the possibility that someone enters their email address incorrectly. This prevents problems such as hard bounces to bad email addresses and ensures that every contact's information is faithfully recorded.

To make a confirmation field in an Act-On form, your form should have the following:

  • A copy of an existing field that you want to confirm, that has a different name than the original
  • Add Match validation to the second/copied field so that it must match the first field
  • The fields should both be required to ensure they are completed and match when the form is submitted

In this guide, we will create a confirmation field for "Email". However, you can do this for other fields such as a phone number field (e.g. for SMS), or any other field value that you want to confirm by asking your contact to enter it twice.

Tips when using Match Validation

  • Field Mapping for a matching field is not necessary. When you add Match validation to a field, it will remove the field mapping settings from the available options. Values entered on this field serve only to confirm the value of the first field and do not submit data to the form submission list or any other form data posts.
  • Email Validation is not necessary to use when matching, because the field must match the first field, therefore if you need email validation you will only need to add it to the "Email" field (not to "Confirm Email").
  • Required Field Validation is also not necessary, but using it will add an asterisk to the field to indicate to the contact that it is required.
  • Change the font color of validation messages by going to Design > Form Properties > Validation.

 

Instructions

To create a confirmation field in your form:

  1. Go to Content > Forms and open your Form.
  2. Go to the Design tab.
  3. Click on the form field from which you'd like to create a second confirmation field — this will open the Edit Input Field panel.
  4. Click the asterisk   at the top right to make the field required.
  5. Click Copy Block   at the top right to make a copy:

    copy-block.png

  6. Click Cancel to close the edit panel
  7. Click on the new copy of the field to open its settings
  8. Update the Text Label to indicate that the duplicate field is a confirmation field. A placeholder label is optional to provide instructions on the form. Field mapping is not required for the match fields. Here, we use "Confirm Email":
    confirm-email-field.png
  9. In the Validation tab, click  to create a new field validation
  10. Select Match from your new validation rule's drop-down menu, then set Match Field to the original field
  11. Enter an error message for your contact to see so they know what to do if there is an error.
    match-validation.png
  12. Click OK.

Your Form will now show a second confirmation field to confirm your original field's value:

confirm-email-validation-error.png

Classic Form Instructions

To create confirmation form fields in a Classic Form:

  1. In your Act-On account, go to Content > Forms > Forms tab >Form Manager > Form Type > Classic Forms (check box).
  2. Select a Classic Form to edit or create a new classic Form (Create form (top right) > Additional options > Build a Classic form > Create).
  3. In the Forms Composer, hover over any form field section and click New
  4. Insert a Confirm Values field and click OK.
  5. The Field Editor will appear, where you'll need to enter the following:
    • Display Settings – Enter both Prompt and Confirm Prompt labels (e.g., Email Address and Confirm Email Address). Adjust the Width if desired.
    • Input Validation – You can require users to fill out your Confirm Values fields or require users to provide specific types of data. In the Contents drop-down menu, you have the option to require that form values should be a number, should be a phone number, or should be an email address. Check the Make Required box to simply require that the fields cannot be empty before submitting the Form.
    • Data Field Name – Map these fields to one of the standard field names in your Act-On account by clicking  . You can also manually enter a new field name to create one in the form submission list if you prefer.

      Screen_Shot_2022-01-13_at_11.54.19_AM.png
  6. Click Submit.

Once submitted, your Confirm Values fields will resemble the below examples in your Classic Forms Composer:

Creating a Second Form Field to Confirm Email Address 01.png

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