Autofill
The Autofill feature allows to pre-populate some of the form questions on behalf of respondents. You can also pre-populate hidden questions, and later use the autofilled data to set up a filter in reports or to track respondents.
To set up Autofill, follow the steps below:
Create a .CSV (comma separated values) Data file in UTF-8 encoding containing information you want to import.
The CSV File requirements:
This file should not contain the field headings (such as Email, Name, etc.).
This file must contain the Email field. You can use only Latin alphabet and numbers (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) for correct email address syntax. Do not use spaces or any other symbols (like &$ ; ,etc.). Your form/survey will be sent to the email addresses indicated in this field.
If you send the same form/survey later using the option Email form to addresses I enter manually to email addresses indicated in the data source file, the autofilled information associated with them will be removed.
Only commas can serve as delimiters/list separators (If your file contains other separators, you may need to change Regional Settings on your computer).
If you autofill questions of Multiline or Single Line types, or text fields of other question types, no more than 1024 characters can be imported. The characters that exceed this limit will be cut off.
2. Select a form to import the Data to.
3. Bring the form questions in correspondence with the fields of the Data File you are going to import.
It is recommended to place the questions you autofill at the beginning of your form/survey.
To autofill open ended questions, use a separate answer line for each field to be imported. For example, you can have only one Single Line question asking about 'demographic' information (name, email address, age etc.). The question will have three answer options, which correspond to three separate columns in the data file.
When autofilling the Single Line, Multiline, 'Other' fields, place the quotation marks around the comment, if the text includes any delimiters (such as , ; |, etc.)
To autofill questions with predefined answer choices where 1 selection is allowed, specify the exact label of the answer option which should be selected. For instance, if you are going to import information about respondent's gender and your answer choices are 'Male' and 'Female', the 'Gender' field of your data file should contain only one of these labels.
4. Go to the Forms/Surveys > Launch page.
5. Click on the Send email invitation with individual Survey links option.
6. Choose Import email list for bulk form distribution option under the second step and click the Format Data File button.
7. Specify the questions to which the data should be imported. To do it, select the questions in the Accessible Form Questions column and add them to Autofill These Questions column. Your import file has to match this structure.
8. Indicate the number of the column, which stores Respondents' Emails. If you need to send more than one unique link to the same email address, use Allow duplicate email addresses feature, and specify the number of the file column which stores unique codes (passwords).
9. Select the Overwrite option if you wish to allow respondents to edit the pre-populated data. If this option is not selected, your respondents will be able to see the autofilled data (if the questions are visible) but won't be able to edit it.
If the question is hidden, the Overwrite option will automatically unhide the corresponding question on the Questions page. If you would like to hide the question, you should first apply the settings on Format Data File page and after that activate the Hide option on the Edit Form/Survey page.
10. Make sure your file has the same number of fields as listed below on the Format Data File page. For instance, if you need to autofill a Single Line question with three answer options, and a Pick One or Other question, your file should have four columns:
11. Click the Save button to save the Autofill settings.
12. Click Back to return to the Email Form/Survey page.
13. Import your Data File and click Send Email.
See the table to know how each question type is autofilled:
Type of Question | How to Autofill | Number of Columns in the File |
Section Header | Does not have answer fields, so is not supported | - |
Pick One or Other | Specify the exact text of the selected option | 1 field for the answer, 1 for 'Other' text |
Pick One or Comment | Specify the exact text of the selected option; | 1 |
Check All that Apply | Specify the responses as 0 or 1 (0 - unselected answer, 1 - selected answer). | As many as answer options in the question; |
Dropdown Box | Specify the exact text of the selected option | 1 |
List Box | Specify the responses as 0 or 1 (0 - unselected answer, 1 - selected answer). | As many as answer options in the question |
Single Line text with Pre-format Options | Specify the answer to each question field in a separate column | As many as answer options in the question |
Multiline Text Response | Specify the text that should be autofilled. | 1 |
Rate Different Items along the Scale of Your Choice | Specify the number of the selected column for each answer option | As many as answer options in the question |
Compare One Against Another | Specify the rating of each answer (how many times it was selected) | As many as answer options in the question |
3D Matrix | not supported; can be autofilled using the Autofiller for Matrix Questions plugin | - |
Numeric Allocation | Specify the numeric value for each answer | As many as answer options in the question plus the Total field. |
Object Lookup | Specify the Unique Key of the selected data object | 1 |
Multiple Object Lookup | Specify the Unique Keys of the selected data objects | 1 (multiple objects should be separated with the | symbol) |
File Upload | To pre-fill the File upload question type, use the following methods:
| As many as answer options in the question |
ℹ️ Here is the information stored in your Data Source, which you want to import to your form:
Previous Ratings | ||||||||||
Name | Phone Number | Department | Attended Trainings on | Manager | Company policy | Product overview | Work processes | Best Practices | File | |
John Smith | 674-67-61 | Marketing | Wednesday, Friday | Carly Marks | Very Good | Excellent | Very Good | Very Good | Practical_Task1.docx | |
Barbara Brown | 786-44-09 | Sales | Monday, Tuesday | Alexa Obrien | Excellent | Very Good | Fair | Excellent | Practical_Task2.docx | |
Peter Young | 534-94-23 | Sales | Wednesday, Thursday, Friday | Brynn Boyd | Fair | Fair | Very Good | Fair | Practical_Task3.docx | |
Mary Jordan | 634-32-21 | Accounting | Monday | Tara E. Cherry | Excellent | Excellent | Very Good | N/A | Practical_Task4.docx | |
Helen Williams | 674-67-54 | Consulting | Tuesday, Friday | John Burns | Fair | Very Good | Fair | Excellent | Practical_Task5.docx | |
Your form questions, which will be pre-populated may be set up like this:
Your .CSV Data file should be configured the following way:(Note that the order of Data file fields corresponds to the order of questions):
Your Format Data File page settings will look like this:
If you use the Autofill feature together with Logic transitions, please note that Autofilled data will not be displayed in reports if respondent skips autofilled questions while filling out a form. To avoid this, place the autofilled questions at the beginning of your form, and make sure that logical transitions do not affect them.