Ability for form submission to update a record
planned
Nate Montgomery @ SmartSuite
Merged in a post:
New Form Type - Update Record
A
Amanda Bullock
Have a secondary Form Type that allows updating a record instead of a creating a new one. The current could be Form - Create New Record or something & the new one could be Form - Update Record. Or it could be a toggle on the current Form view?
At the top the person completing the form would select which record to update, but you could still have customizable option for what fields then show below to be completed.
We currently use Fillout for this, but having an innate Form option in SS would be better :)
Jon Darbyshire
Hiya Amanda Bullock, thanks for this post! I have a few more questions for you:
- Can you provide more details on how you envision the selection process for the record to be updated?
- What specific customizable options for fields would you like to see in the updated form?
- Could you elaborate on the limitations you're experiencing with Fillout that you hope to overcome with this new feature?
A
Amanda Bullock
Jon Darbyshire
1) My vision was a drop down of record choices like your Record Selector Widget offers with a search bar so you could search the record you want to update and select it at the top of the Form. This would be under the Form Name and Form Description, but above all the fields of the Form
2) I think the current customizable options for fields would suffice, just that entries into those Form fields would replace the current information the record field instead of inputting new data into a new record.
3)
- Being able to manage SS records all inside of SS via Forms. Forms assist in making extensive records clearer in what information is needed from the team. (Plus that submit button does wonders for understanding a process is completed)
- I'm having difficult embedding Fillout forms into the dashboard whereas the SS Forms are easy to embed.
- Reduce need for additional external softwares
- Currently unable to redirect using Fillout upon completion due to limitations of their free plan.
- Reduce need for increased costs due to needing the redirect option or having too many responses and needing to upgrade to a paid plan
A
Amanda Bullock
Jon Darbyshire Additionally upon further review for #3 - We can only integrate/sync the Fillout Forms to 1 table at a time in SmartSuite. Which is a huge limitation - that would be my #1 reason now after seeing that this feature would overcome!
D
Daniel Halenko
This is an amazing feature, and i second most of what was said.
My summary would be:
- UNIQUE URL FORM
A form that is representing data, which means you can see the existing data on the form already or no data if its blank, and simply update it. Fillout does this well, it solves the problem by giving every record in any table a unique URL. provide this url to the end user and they can update their data. Useful when you have a method of distributing the link to all end users.
- UPDATE RECORD
A form that updates data, but this time logic determines which record to update. Useful if you have a mixture of existing and new clients that will use the form. So existing clients you want the existing record updated, but new clients you want a new record creating. Can use the same logic you use now for automation, so that the form performs the search but PLEASE do allow something that allows an output if a record is NOT found. Currently you dont do this and I have to make clunky workarounds to try to catch any problems
- CREATE FORM FROM GRID VIEW
Making a form takes a long time, esp if its quite large. Allow us to convert either a grid view or as Yocheved Zelishovsky showed...
Make it from a section. Then all we have to do is edit the video. This would be super useful in speeding up the process.
- FORM USER SELECTS RECORD
Whilst building, its also useful to allow a field to be a record selector. For one of my uses, my end users all know each other and the data is not sensitive. So an end user could just click a drop down, and select a record that they want to update. This same process could be used when giving an end user a link to THEIR record, and the form might represent the same data sets of multiple records. So now from one form, the end user can update the data for multiple records of a table.
Hope this helps.
Im tried of the volume of automation I have to do to make forms update. And for me fillout forms is great...but I have to MAKE the variable on single selects, it doesnt auto populate them, which is just even more time consuming. Smart suite is fantastic, i loved airtable but in a few weeks ive fallen in love with smart suite. But things like this would just make it so much more versatile and flexible.
Thanks
Dani
Brian Dollen
F
Federico Gonzalez
This is already possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehrktmg8cmw&ab_channel=DanLeeman
R
Ruben Uzan
Federico Gonzalez Tried it but it doesnt work, it creates a new record, I dont know why, + the video is outdated Smartsuite has been updated, could it be linkedin?
F
Federico Gonzalez
You can already do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehrktmg8cmw
Y
YES Integrations
Federico Gonzalez: yes, but this method doesn't let you view information from the record you are updating
N
Natalie Spivak
Would also like the ability to preselect or mark items as default in forms similar to the way it works in grid view with multi-select fields.
Y
YES Integrations
By the way - you can do this with https://www.fillout.com/smartsuite
Brian Dollen
R
Ricardo Rodriguez
Would be very useful, indeed.
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