Using save and continue when the form needs to be emailed and finished on a different computer

Hello,

I am attempting to use the save and continue feature as I have a form below that requires one user in one location to fill out information and the rest of the form to be completed by another user at a different location.  I don't know if I'm going about this the right way, but when opening the link on the second machine, the form is blank.  Could you offer any advice on how I may be able to achieve this?

Hi,

You can achieve this using the session email method to continue forms later.

Here is the user guide: -How-to-Save-Forms-and-Continue-Later

You can test the demo form http://form.jotform.co/form/32927314628862 also.

Hope this help. Let us know if you need further assistance.

Thank you for your reply.  That is the process that I am using, but when I open the link on a different machine or after clearing my browsing data I get a blank form.  Here is the form I am using which to get the user data and send the emails with the links, then sends the user to the second form to complete.  I did just edit it to add the "edit link" info to the bottom of the email since I saw that in another thread with the same question that I hadn't found earlier.  The method mentioned does work if I am on the same machine and haven't cleared out the history.

https://form.jotform.com/53365686324159

Thank you.

The edit link allows a submissions to be edited multiple times and does not lock.

Using the Save and Continue later option will lock the data after submissions since the session on the server is cleared on submission and it wont be possible to edit it unless you provide the edit link.

Ok, thank you very much for the information.  Is there anything that sort of lives in between the two.  Where something can be saved and filled out by a different person on a different machine and be locked when completed?

When using the save & continue later option a temporary session is saved on JotForm servers, this makes it possible to continue filling the form on a different machine. If a different person fills the form they will be require to access it via the session link generated from the first form as described in the guide (Save forms & continue later) and not go to the second form's URL directly.

This session is cleared from our server when the user submits the form so you can use this approach to emulate the submission lock.

Kindly let us know if you need additional information or clarification regarding this.

Strange, I couldn't get the save and continue later to work like that yesterday.  If I cleared my browsing data or tried on another machine, everything that I had submitted was gone.  I will try again today.  That would definitely solve my issue.  Is the length of time it stays on the servers defined by the "Time To Live" setting? 

Thank you very much.

You can refer to the form link provided earlier by my colleague as you starting base

http://form.jotform.co/form/32927314628862%20a

Here is a link I generated with it when you load it to you browser it should prepopulate with data I have entered earlier.

http://form.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session=barsamms@gmail.com

Ideally the recommend ed time the sessions is stored is 30 days, so the user can access the information within this time period.

Do let us know if your run into any difficulties

I just tried filling out the form again, then clearing my browsing data and upon reopening the link the form is missing everything I entered. 

The initial form I am using is at this link - https://form.jotform.com/53365686324159

I followed the same instructions you posted a link to, but I did change the field appended to the end of the link to be the service order number instead of the email address.  When I fill out the initial form I do get a link with the session information on the end and if I do go back to the session without clearing my browsing info I am able to continue the form.  An example of one of the links I got is:

https://form.jotform.com/53276887560165/?session=123456

Thank you.

The link you sent worked perfectly, I saw the data you filled in.  Could the problem be my use of a field that is not an email address?

Actually you will need to use the email field to set up the sessions, since emails are unique and using normal text-field might result in conflicts since the chances of a similar record existing are high.

Ok. I will test with that.  One question that does create for me though is I'm looking to use this form for sales reps to input information and they will be using the form for multiple customers.  I would think that this would wind up with having the URL for each form be the same form number with their email address on the end.  Would that cause one form to overwrite the previous customers form?  I was hoping to use the SO # to give each a unique field so the same form can be used by the same person with different customers. 

What I am looking to accomplish is below.

-Sales rep makes sale to a customer and fills out certain information on the form.  Leaving some information blank to be filled out at the time the installer is doing the work at the customers location.

-Using the sent link (that has been copied into order notes for the installer), the installer can go to the form(using their own computer or mobile device) and fill out the remaining sections once the work is complete.  The installer will then submit the form at which time the completed form should be locked and I will have it emailed to various addresses.

-I need the form to stay unlocked until it is submitted by the technician.  There are times when this may exceed 30 days due to customer requirements.  I did not see where to set this at.

Thank you for all of the help.

If the sessions is tied to a sales rep emails, we can append a uniqid number at the end of the session link for the emails as follows.

http://form.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session={email4}{uniqe}

Here is a link to the demo starter form that you can test

https://form.jotform.com/53374696308970

Hers is  sample edit link sessions I generated as a proof o concept the number at the end is appended form the unique id field.

http://form.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session=barsamms@gmail.com2

I also confirmed the duration period for the sessions and it is 6months, apologies for the incorrect time-span I had earlier told you.

Awesome.  Thank you very much.  I imported the page that you created with the uniqueID to test.  The page is https://form.jotform.com/53375418810153

I filled out the info and got the following on the thank you page.  Which doesn't seem to have the uniqueID attached(I probably just need to change that though)

Thank You!

Hi,

Please take note that the method described on the user guide: 

-How-to-Save-Forms-and-Continue-Later

requires the existence of Page Break field on the 2nd form.

I checked the destination 2nd form https://form.jotform.com/form/53276887560165?session=jon2jotform@gmail.comsubid=SCF-1&so=3333&email=jon2jotform@gmail.com

and it doesn't have a Page Break field. The session can only be saved with the page break field.

Try making a multi-page form by inserting page break field in between.

Hope this help. Let us know how we can be of further assistance.

Ah ok.  So the info is only saved when someone clicks a "Next" button?  I apologize for mis-understanding that part.  I kept thinking it was the submit button as the pictures threw me off a bit.  So I should do 1 form that just has multiple pages?  Use the first form as the first page and the second form as the second page?

Thank you

So I updated the second form adding a page break and I fill out the first form and get my thank you page with the following link

https://form.jotform.com/53366205628154?session=tnt@cccomm.netsubid=SCF-4&so=2222222&email=tnt@cccomm.net&number=2222222

But when I click on the link I get sent to the following URL.

http://form.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session=&name=&email=

If I copy and past the URL that I got from the thank you page, it opens the correct page and auto fills the number field with the info defined in the URL.

I got the same result when I emailed the form to my phone and tried from there.

Thank you

Please try my test form https://form.jotform.com/53375460194963

It was working for me as intended.. here is the link with saved session

http://www.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session=jon2jotform@gmail.comSCF-4&number=323232&email=jon2jotform@gmail.com

Let us know if the test form did not work for you as well and we will investigate furher.

Thanks.

That definitely seems to work the way I am looking more or less.  Not sure why mine opened the other form even with the link I received being different.  I changed to using a different email address on my form and it did open the correct page, but now each time I try to get a different session, even if I enter the different URL's it opens the same session.  It looks like the URL's, when clicked, are actually getting shortened to something that doesn't have all of the info in the URL.  For example, after I copied the URL in and clicked a different link, the URL just looked like https://form.jotform.com/53276887560165/?session=tj.rowland@cccomm.co with none of the other info.

I tried opening some that I had just done not long ago and now they open to the URL I got from your test form.  I tried both of the following URL's and both of them took me to the same URL of http://form.jotformpro.com/form/32917583090963?session=&name=&email=

The email links I clicked on are:

https://form.jotform.com/53276887560165?session=tj.rowland@cccomm.cosubid=SCF-6&so=6543210&email=tj.rowland@cccomm.co

and

https://form.jotform.com/53276887560165?session=tj.rowland@cccomm.cosubid=SCF-7&so=987654&email=tj.rowland@cccomm.co

I have applied a fixed to your jotform http://www.jotform.us/form/53366577562163

Please test it again.

The 2nd form also have conflict because it uses in-browser saving session.

I have disabled it already.

Test again from 1st form... submit and check if 2nd Form is properly saving session even when on different browser/computer.

Let us know if still not resolve.

Thanks.

Ahhhhhh.  I knew I had to be doing something wrong.  Thank you very much.  I apologize for missing that.  It definitely seems to work correctly.  Thank you again.

With the page breaks, does a save take place when either "Next" or "Back" is clicked or is it only when "Next" is clicked?

Thank you

In testing with using the next and back buttons.  The 2nd form has a large number of required fields.  These are required to be finished before the form is submitted, but with using those buttons, is there a way to make the "Next" button ignore checking that all required fields are completed?

Thank you.

> With the page breaks, does a save take place when either "Next" or "Back" is clicked or is it only when "Next" is clicked?

The entered data is saved whenever either the Next or the Back button is clicked.

> is there a way to make the "Next" button ignore checking that all required fields are completed?

I'm afraid not, the validation of required fields on the page is a required part of the process when Next button is clicked. In order to navigate to the next page, the current page has to be filled correctly - with all the required fields being filled.

With that said, there is a possible workaround by using the Form Tabs widget, but it has drawbacks that the session is not saved when navigating through the tabs - it is saved only when clicking on the Next and Back buttons.

What this means is that your sales reps can navigate through the pages by clicking on the tabs of the widget, where each tab represents a page of the form, but the sales reps absolutely must click on one of the form's Next or Back buttons before they finish in order to save the currently entered values on the form.

If this workaround is OK for you, you can add the Form Tabs widget by following this guide: How to Add a Widget to your Form

You will also need to configure the Form Tabs widget to ignore validation when you are navigating through tabs, as shown in the image below:

I have saved a session in a demo form, so that you can see that this workaround allows us to save sessions even with partially filled data on each page, as long as we use one of the form's Next or Back buttons at the end to save the session. You can see the demo session with Form tabs allowing page navigation here:

https://form.jotformpro.com/53381603788968?session=thread717401

Please let us know if you need further clarifications or assistance, and we will be happy to help.

Thank you very much for the detailed information.  I will test using the tabbed option as well.  I thank you again for the wonderful support you guys offer.

On behalf of my colleagues you are very much welcome.

Do let us know if you run into any difficulties, we will gladly assist you.