Spreadsheet or configurable list not preserving entries

I need to create a 'volunteering' form where we ask people to volunteer for some things.

I created the following form

https://form.jotform.com/60578468628976

I was trying out two options. I am inclined to go with the configurable list (bottom one) vs. the spreadsheet (top one). I need to make some columns read-only which I managed to make with configurable CSS for both.

I prefer the configurable list because I can create textarea columns allowing me text overflow.

The biggest hurdle I am facing right now is the entries are not preserved for either option. For example, if somebody enters his/her name for the 'Serving Volunteer 1' column, I expect it to be saved after submitting. i.e next time somebody goes to the above link, they should see that cell already populated. The entry is saved in the database but next time the form comes up, it shows up empty, whcih is not what I want.

How can I achieve this? I tried the matrix widget but it does not quite give me the flexibility the above widgets give me.

Hello,

I checked your form and I couldn't find how you insert your data from form. Could you please shed some light on how you connected with your database and what is the structure of database?

You can also check this guide how to send submissions to your SQL database.

We'll wait for your respond.

Thank you.

I may not have conveyed what I meant exactly. There is no special database. What I meant is - after I do a submit, and then see submissions for the form, I can see them. However, if I go to the above URL to make new entries, I expect to see entries that were made before. For example, let's say, I enter 'John Doe john.doe@myemail.com', in the first row under 'Serving Volunteer1', I want to see that next time the form comes up. 

Database may have been the wrong term to use - I mean the jotform submissions.

Are you referring to the edit URL which does not show the previous data populated on the config list widget? If yes, I can't reproduce the problem. Make sure to use the edit URL just like the following. The long string numbers mark in bold is the submission ID of the previous submission.

Here's an example edit URL which shows the previous information. https://www.jotform.com/edit/333065764040591370

However, if you mean why they don't show up when opening the same form URL after submitting the first entry then this is how the form fields works specially the config list widget. You have to use the edit URL in order to fetch the existing data submitted on the form. And if you want to add more data, just fill the edit form and resubmit it.

Hope this gives some clarifications.

Thanks a lot. I can use the submission id in combination with the edit URL to achieve what I want.

BTW, I found a convoluted way to find the submission id. What is the easiest way to get it?

Two more questions regarding the form:

(1) With the edit URL, how can I suppress the last column where the submitter can delete the rows? My  form has min and max the same and I tried to make the delete field empty. It still shows the x in the last column

(2) How can I make the label for the form (the global label for the configurable list) wider?

Hello,

You can get your submission ID by following:

1. Log in to your JotForm, click on the form and go to Submissions:

2. On new screen  you can click on small gearbox on the right side and check ID:

Submission ID is generated after the form is submitted. Each submission made via a particular form has a different (unique) ID from all other submissions made via that same form.

You can access your submission ID by following:

1. Go to your JotForm form builder and click Emails:

2. Than click Edit:

3. On new page you can choose to add your submission ID to go with each submission to your email:

If you wish to customize your submission ID you can probably use Unique ID, please check this link about it.

Please let me know if you have more questions regarding this issue.

For other two questions I'll get back to you with the answer.

Thank you.

Thanks. Actually, the above way is also the way I was using for the submission id. I thought it was convoluted so I thought there might be an easier way :-)

Regarding the other two questions - I did find how to make the label wider in the form designer.

Regarding not showing the remove button, tried custom CSS by setting display: none for the cells but that did not work.

Hello,

You're welcome, I solved the second one as well, I understand you solved it as well, but here is my solution in case you need it:

You can inject this CSS in Custom CSS field by going to Preferences-Form styles and insert this CSS code:

.form-label-left {

width: 300px !important;

}

Regarding the removal of Remove buttons, try to inject this in Custom CSS for your Configurable list widget:

button.remove {

visibility: hidden;

}

Please let me know how this works for you.

Best regards.

Thanks. I also solved the first problem. I solved it slightly differently. I made that whole column hidden (that is actually what I want) using something like

.col4 { display: none !important; }

Great! Glad to know that it worked for you.

Cheers!

Thanks for the great support so far.

Now, I have one final question. I want an auto response sent to the form submitter. That would require an email field added. I know how to create an autoresponder notification. However, since I am using the edit URL, the email id would be populated with the previous submission.

Is there a way to only use the email field for autoresponding and not to actually make it part of the submission? Or to clear it from submission after the autoresponse is sent.

You're welcome!

You can accomplish that by following:

Create autoresponding that will send email to desired the email that is in email field, but do not send that email value through submissions. I'll try to picture what I mean:

I created Notifier and Autoresponder. In both I removed email value, but email will go to submitter's email address(autoresponder).

Please let me know if this can work for you and if it is what you had in mind.

Best regards.

Actually, what I want is not exactly this. email id shown in autoresponder and notification email is OK. What I don't want is that next time the edit URL is brought up, the last submission value for email field should be cleared and it should show up empty.

This is the usecase: People are volunteering for things with this form. One person volunteers and enters his email in the email field. Next time somebody volunteers, he should see the previous entries for other fields (so that there is no duplication for the same task). However, the next volunteer should see an empty value for the email field and should enter his own before submission. So the question is, since I have to use the edit URL, how can I clear the email field?

Hello,

If you would like to have your form submitted through configurable list view but have the values removed upon edit of same form, I'm afraid that it is not possible to do that with configurable list. We would have to have access to each field of configurable list view so we can remove it before editing.

Maybe you could put email address field to be out of the configurable list view, as a textbox, and sent like that with submission but not sent with autoresponder or vice versa. In that way you would have all data from configurable list view submitted with that email but not the email.

Could something like that work for you?

We'll wait for your response.

Thank you.

The field I am using to send the autoresponder and notification emails is not part of the configurable list. It is a separate email field. I have attached the image for this (see the red rectangle). 

How can I clear it when the form comes up for edit? It is a different user that will be bringing up the form every time. The user should be able to see the entries in configurable list. However, the email field should be empty. Otherwise, a user may accidentally hit submit with somebody else's email populated. A user should enter his own email id which is why it is important to have that field empty. In the previous response, you said it is possible to do this with a text field. Can it be done with email field? Can you provide details on how? Thanks.

I am not fully understanding you. So I will re word and see if I got it correct.

I am assuming that you will be sending a notification to another user and include the edit link.

Once the user click the link you would like the form to open, but the email field empty. If this is not correct or you are trying to edit the form in another way, please feel free to correct me.

If this is the case, unfortunately, you will not be able to accomplish this. When you include the edit link it will automatically open the form with all the fields populated.

Another option would be to create a second form (identical to the first) and send the the data you would like to be populated. You may view our users guide for this.

http://www.jotform.com/help/71-Prepopulating-fields-to-your-JotForm-via-URL-parameters

Please let us know if this helps.

You are correct in your understanding. We send the edit link to all the relevant users. Users will use it to see what is already populated in the configurable list and keep adding their own. However, the email field has to be empty because it represents the current user's email so it should not show the previous entry.

The prepopulating fields on form option that you presented above won't work in this case. As you can see in my image, the configurable list is a 6 rows x 10 columns list. Even if I create a second form, how do I populate it with the 60 values from the first form. The example you have is of populating the form with some static values that can be sent through URL parameters. In this case, I need the values from a previous submission.

Is there any javascript that can be written to clear the email field on page load?

Like my colleague said, when you put edit link in your form it will be populated with the same values that were originally inserted.

I'm not sure that you can use prepopulating of fields with custom URL, like you tried. Since, you prepopulated only emal field and not the rest of the form. That's why configurable list is empty.

I'll try to find a workaround and get back to you.

Best regards.

Any workaround found yet? Is there a way to acheive this via custom css? I thought I could put content: none in css to achieve this. However, that did not work either

#input_6{

   content: none;

}

Unfortunately, there's no workaround for that because that is currently not supported. URL parameters on edit URL will not work. It will only break the edit function.

We will forward this thread http://www.jotform.com/answers/790450 to our developers as a feature request. We'll let you know once this is implemented.

Thank you!

Thanks for the efforts so far. Let me know if some other alternative idea strikes you.

Sure, we will let you know on this thread http://www.jotform.com/answers/790450 once this is made possible.

Thanks!