How to secure prepopulated form fields not to edit them again?

  • uqvets
    Asked on April 15, 2019 at 7:19 PM

    Hi,

    I only stumbled across jotform yesterday, and in the space of a day went from trial to paid account to talking through implementation with our client liaison teams. 

    The primary use case for our site is as an estimating and consent form for equine veterinarian use. 

    1. Veterinarian completes an estimate template form and submits its

    2. Reception receives an autoresponder email with a prepopulated HTML link to Form number 2 where relevant details of the estimate populates sections of an 'owner declaration and consent for procedures' form. Reception forwards this email to the client. 

    3. Client completes the form using the prefilled information. 

    4. Reception, finance and client receive a PDF version of the form. 

    My only concern is with the html pre-population - i'm concerned clients can still modify the estimate text fields (for example, to lower their estimate). Is there a way to lock or secure pre-populated fields? I've looked at this link (https://www.jotform.com/answers/85171-protect-URL-pre-populated-fields) but dont think the suggested fix is possible, in the short term we will need these forms to live on jotform and not as an embedded form so I dont think I can modify the underlying code. 

    I thought I'd ask if there was any other way to protect these fields from editing if they are pre-populated from another form - or some sort of workaround you might have in mind? 

    Or - am I going about this in a silly way? Maybe there's a better way to have a section of a form prefilled by someone before it's emailed to a client. 

    Thanks in advance - very impressed with the product so far. 



  • uqvets
    Replied on April 15, 2019 at 8:58 PM

    Well I tried using the read only setting again and it worked! The fields prepopulated by HTML are now locked.

    So for anyone following along, or landing here from a search, 

    1. Prepopulate the form using HTML paramaters as pet the user guide, taking info from Form 1 to Form 2.

    2. Create an HTML link in an autoresponder/notificaiton email that generates a link to form 2 with the requisite info from form 1. 

    3. In form 2, the fields that need to be static/locked should be set to read only in the advanced field settings

    3. Test it by generating a test submission on form 1, opening the link in the autoresponder email and checking the fields arent editable. 

    I'm not sure what i did wrong yesterday, but this is now a seriously robust solution to a long term problem. 

    Thanks!


  • Kiran Support Team Lead
    Replied on April 15, 2019 at 10:45 PM

    As I tested your second form, the following fields are not editable from the link in the email.


    155538255916042019 080414 Screenshot 10

    Since the fields are set as read only, the values in these fields cannot be edited and it seems to be working normally. Are you experiencing any issue with the form or the read only fields? 

    If you need any further assistance, please let us know. We will be happy to assist.  

  • uqvets
    Replied on April 15, 2019 at 10:48 PM

    Thanks Kiran - see the update above. I'm still not sure why it was behaving differently yesterday but I'm confident it was user error on my behalf :-)

    It's working very well now.

  • Kiran Support Team Lead
    Replied on April 15, 2019 at 11:30 PM

    This might have happened due to browser cache. Glad to see the issue is now resolved for you. Please do not hesitate to get back to us if you need any further assistance. We will be happy to help. 

    Thank you for using JotForm!