Syncing Form Submissions to Act-On Contacts

Here's how to add your contacts' Form submission data into All Contacts.

Selecting Your Form Submission List

When building or editing your Act-On Form in the Forms Composer, you'll see one of the following options, depending on your account settings.

Option 1 (Beta)

• Select Send to Act-On Contacts to ensure that all new contacts get added to the All Contacts list.
• Enter a Form submission list name. This list will sync contact data with Form-specific submission data, such as the submission date, Form URL, referral data, and any Form-specific fields. You'll access this Form data in the All Contacts area by clicking on the All Contacts drop-down:

• Optionally, you can also create a segment of the All Contacts list to identify contacts who've submitted this Form.
• The Send to Form Submission List option will not add contacts to Act-On Contacts and will instead create a stand-alone list in Contacts > Other Lists > Form Submissions.

Option 2

Alternatively, you may see these options in your account:

In this configuration, all Form submissions are sent to a list in Contacts > Other Lists > Form Submissions. If you check the Send to Act-On Contacts box, contact data will also be added to the All Contacts list. Optionally, you can also create a segment of the All Contacts list to identify contacts who've submitted this Form.

Contact Record Update Properties

Forms that submit data to All Contacts must have a Contact Record Update policy set. You'll see this activated in the Properties > Response section of the Form composer:

Options for contact record updates include the following (note that this picture does not necessarily represent your default settings):

For Existing Contacts (Same Email), choose to allow Form data to overwrite existing data on the contact record (update all fields) or only to populate blank fields on the contact record. For example, if an existing contact submits a new Form with a different job title, do you want this data to be updated?

(BETA) For Multiple Contacts (Same Email), choose to update all the contacts with the new Form submission data, just the newest contact, or the oldest contact.  

(BETA) For Duplicate Form Submissions (Same Email), choose to view only the most recent Form submission on the Form list, or to view all Form submissions.

Mapping Form Fields

In the Design tab of the Forms Composer, you can add fields to your Form. When adding a field, you can choose either a Contact Field or a Form Data Field:

The Contact Field drop-down includes all the standard contact fields you've defined for Act-On Contacts. Select the field from the drop-down if you want this data to be added to your All Contacts list in addition to the Form submission list. If a field does not appear in the drop-down, it could be because it's not a compatible data type with the Form field you've selected (i.e. a date field can not populate a boolean or number field).

Some Forms may contain fields that are not appropriate to add to your All Contacts list. For instance, if you are asking for feedback on a particular event, or collecting data regarding a short-term project, you may not want to add this field to your standard contact list. For these fields, select the Form Data Field option and enter a field name. These fields will be added to the Form submission list but not to the All Contacts list.

Fill out the remaining fields. The selected Contact field will be the "Column name". 

The Field name is used for external system mapping. It will default to the proper name for CRM mapping if you have a CRM. If your Form is used for external Form posts, be sure to enter the correct field name to match the external Form.

CRM Settings for Act-On Contacts Forms

If you have a connected CRM, the CRM settings tab allows you to push Form data to your CRM, add a note or task, add to a campaign, etc. In the setting area, you can choose to create new records as leads or contacts (for SalesForce) with similar options for other CRMs. 

When you have a CRM connected, the Field Name is used to map data to the CRM. 

For existing contacts, you can control what data is overwritten:

• The contact record update policy in Form Settings controls how updates affect existing contacts in the All Contacts list. It lets you choose if Form submission data should overwrite existing data in a field, or just write to blank fields.
• The Act-On Contacts push policy controls whether data can be sent to your CRM. This is set in Settings > Data Management. If a field is set to not push, it will not update the CRM on an existing contact even if the field is currently blank.
• The Form CRM settings default to "Use sign up list's push settings to select fields". This means the Data Management push settings are enforced. If you uncheck this option, it will enable the Form to push data according to the Form's contact record update policy to the CRM.  

Example: I have a field called "Original Lead source" in my CRM. I don't want it to be updated once it's populated, so I've turned off the "Push" option in Data Management. However, if I get a new contact via Form submit, I'd like to populate this field. Set the Form Contact Record update policy to "Update only blank fields" and uncheck the "Use sign up list's push settings" in the CRM settings.

Updating An Existing Form to Submit to Act-On Contacts

You can edit existing Forms (see note below) to activate the "Send to Act-On Contacts" feature. This is quick & easy via the Form Upgrade Assistant.

To manually upgrade a Form: 

• For any standard contact field on the Form, edit that field and set it to a Contact field, selecting the proper field from the drop-down.
• For Form fields that you don't want to submit to All Contacts, no editing is necessary. 
• Set the Contact Update Properties.