Step by Step Guide on using FormAssembly with Salesforce

FormAssembly is a web application developed to help businesses, design web forms. It is a streamlined process with an all-in-one web form building and data collection platform. The forms can be built using drag and drop functionality and integrate the form with various services.

It is used in various use cases for business needs as the combination of easy to use form builder, robust integration to Salesforce, high security, powerful, customizable, and flexible enough to handle all of the form creation and data collection needs of organizations in all industries, for a wide range of use cases. Companies can save time, money, and effort in their day-to-day processes and get the maximum benefit out of the data collected, you may be wondering just where to begin on your form-building journey. This blog is the perfect place to start!

About:

FormAssembly is an easy-to-use, yet powerful web form platform, built to help organizations streamline processes and drive business results across multiple industries and use cases. Organizations and brands rely on FormAssembly’s highly rated platform, excellent customer service, and uncompromising stance on security and compliance.

The FormAssembly Form Builder has several fields, so deciding which data you want to collect and where you want to send it comes first. Ask yourself what you want this form to accomplish. Who is filling out the form? What information about them do you want to collect? What will you be doing with this data? Does it need to be sent to Salesforce or another location? Will they be filling out this form on a mobile device? How long do you want this form to collect data?

Setup FormAssembly for Salesforce:

Let’s look at how the FormAssembly account is created & configured with Salesforce!

You can use FormAssembly in two ways :
1. FormAssembly for AppExchange is a package that allows us to use FormAssembly in the salesforce itself.
2. Go through the form assembly site http://www.formassembly.com and log in from there with the respective account.

It has a free trial is available for 14 days. To create an account on FormAssembly the username & email should be the same i.e. you should specify email as username. For paid version, they charge $89 per month for 1 user professional plan & $224 per month for 1 user premier plan (as of July 2022)

There are two ways to create forms and connect with salesforce from FormAssembly.

1. Create a form in FormAssembly the setup the connector
2. Import a form from salesforce and build in the FormAssembly then setup the connector

Building New Form:

First, we will look into the first step i.e. Creating a form in FormAssembly, and then setting up the connector for salesforce.
To build the form and integrate with Salesforce :
Click on New Form -> select form type (Blank Form, Template, Salesforce Import, Clone Form)

Fig 1: Build a new Form

Quick ways to create form :

1. Blank Form: As per need user can create a form & do HTML enhancement into this.
2. Template: We can add or create templates, Forms listed as templates are visible in the template library and can be used by any user.
3. Salesforce Import: Simply we can import the form by selecting objects & fields the form will be shown below as a preview(in the salesforce import section) & you can make changes as per layout.
4. Clone form: We can clone the form from existing forms & modify it as per requirement.

Here we create a simple form :

Fig 2: Types of New Form

For example, let us create a blank form. As you click on “Blank Form” you can click on “Add content” and then you can just drag & drop the :
Questions, Sections, Text and image, and Predefined Contents as shown in the image as per your requirement.

Fig 3: Add Contents

The below form is created from Add content section :

Fig 4: Created Personal Detail Form

In View, you can view your Form to check the structure of Form that How it looks. Through ‘Publish’ you can publish form your own by sharing the public Address or else you can publish on your website. While in Response you get all Responses filled by the user in the form.

Fig 5: View Option

Fig 6: Publishing Option

Fig 7: Responses Option

Validation :

Take pointer on that content box where you want to apply validation ->click on Option -> click on the drop-down list of validation options for giving validation, here, for instance, let's keep validation as ‘Expected Input Format’ as Number(0–9) for Phone no field as shown below

Fig 8: Validation Rule

We can see that the validation rule has worked if we enter a value other than a number in that phone no text box it’s showing an error popup.

Fig 9: Working of Validation Rule

Email Notifications:

You receive an email of the responses, as a record is created. As we are using it for a trial period and we have not purchased it, some of the access to functionalities are restricted. If we purchase any of the plans, more functionalities open up to use.

Email Notification Option

So the default template looks like this as shown below(till then we will enjoy the functionalities which are in trials for free 😁)

Email Default Template

Integration with Salesforce On Form Submitted:

For this, we have to first create a form & be in the build section of the form. Then only the connectors option is visible & we can integrate this with Salesforce org.

Fig 10: Connector option

Click on connectors →Form submitted → ‘+Add connector’ for form submission (we want to save the data in org when a form is submitted so we click on the + symbol under the form submitted section)
→ add a connector as Salesforce interface only → click on configure →click on connect to salesforce

Fig 11: Add connector for form submission

Next, add your org details :

Fig 12: Salesforce Access

Once you have selected one of the three options, you will be taken to Salesforce log-in page. Log into your Salesforce account.

After completing your authentication process, you should now see your Salesforce account listed under "connect using":

Fig 13: Connect to Salesforce

You can now proceed with your connector setup!
Jump to :
Enabled the status → to select your object (on which you want to store the form data) →Create & select object ( I have selected object as — Contact in salesforce ) →we have to map each field of form with object field so, we click on Map your first field option.

Click ‘Map Another Field’ for each field in your form that you want.

Any time you add a new field to your form it will need to be mapped in your connector, even if it has the same name as a previously deleted field.

The below image shows the detailed mapping of salesforce fields & form fields

Fig 14: Create a new Contact record and Field Mapping

At this point, we have successfully connected the particular form with Salesforce. Now we check whether the data is stored in org.
Click on back to Form List →select form build option →then click on view option (now fill the form & check in the data in org.
As shown below image the data is successfully stored in salesforce org.

Fig 15: Created New Record With FormAssembly

If you want to update the record then just follow these steps :
Click connectors → Forms Submitted →Instead of creating a drop-down list click the Update option → Select the field which you want to update and click on ok.

Fig 16: For Updating Record Select Update From Update Contact record

Fig 17: Create Lookup Of LastName

Now Click on View → and add the details of the record but keep the lastName same as we have created a lookup for Last Name (As seen in the above example we have created a record as Vedika CHECK and this time I will keep the last name as CHECK and will just update the first Name and you can see below that same record has been updated with Name as Ganesh CHECK and other details are as it is).

Fig 18: Creating New Record by keeping same Last Name as of previews record

Fig 19: Old record Vedika CHECK is Updated with name as Ganesh CHECK

Performing operations on data:

In this, we can convert the field to a variable and perform any operations on it. For example, here we will concatenate the First Name and Last Name and create Full Name with the formula as FirstName+”\u0020"+LastName (Here ”\u0020" is Unicode for space). So make a First Name field as Variable, click on Options →Calculations →Click on Drop down Arrow → turn Toggle Label as Enabled of This is variable →Define a name(Refer Fig 20). Do Similarly for Last Name(Shown in Fig 21).

Fig 20: Calculation For First Name

Fig 21: Calculation For Last Name

Now For Last Name we have written the formula and turned Toggle Label as Enabled of This is a calculated field and this is how it works as shown below (shown Fig 23).

Fig 22: Calculation For Full Name In FormAssembly

Fig 23: In View Mode(you can see that formula has worked and got the expected result)

Integration with Salesforce On Form Opened(Prefill):

Step 1: Add Your Creds
To begin, first, choose a Salesforce profile that has API access and read access to the Salesforce objects you intend to retrieve.
In your connector, select the type of Salesforce account you will be connecting to. You can choose a standard account, a sandbox, or an account with a custom domain as done before for ON SUBMITTED.

Fig 24: Connecting to The Salesforce Org

After completing your authentication process, you can now proceed with your connector setup.

Step 2. Set Up a Lookup Query

First, decide:

• Which record do you want to prefill with?
• Which Salesforce field will you use to identify each record uniquely?

1. Click the Configure your First Lookup button to get started.

2. In the select an object drop-down menu, choose your object to lookup → Click Ok.

Fig 25: Configure Your First Lookup

3. In the area labeled Lookup #1, choose the Salesforce field which you will query →Select the operator in the middle drop-down, i.e., Equals. →Select an unsafe query parameter. A parameter uniquely defines your query (Please note that these parameters are not indeed “unsafe”. They are called “unsafe” parameters because they do not have a signature attached).

4. Enter a value to represent the parameter. This is very flexible, and it’s up to you. In this case, the value is emailadd.

Add additional search conditions, if needed.

Under each lookup, confirm what to do if/when records are found.

Fig 26: Entering the name of the query string Parameter

Step 3. Field Mapping

Next, you will need to map the fields you would like to prefill in the form. Select a field from your form on the left, select the matching field in Salesforce on the right, and click Ok.

Now let us create a new record with the email id is abdce@gmail.com and when you use the query parameter that you set up in your connector and add that after the question mark. Here, we’re using a query parameter that represents the email Id, emailadd. Add an equals sign after the parameter name.

https://www.tfaforms.com/4955380?emailadd=

After the equals sign, you’ll want to enter the data that will prefill the form field. This is called the value. In this example, the value is “abdce@gmail.com”.
So, we have seen here the Integration with Salesforce On Form Opened(Prefill).

Fig 27: Result of Prefill Record

Another method for building form :

You can also build a form directly by clicking on Import (which is present at left side options) drop-down list -> Import from Salesforce -> authorize with you salesforce org.

Fig 28: Creating a form Directly by Import From Salesforce option

Select the object and those fields according to your requirement

Fig 29: Choosing the Objects and fields for New form

and here you go with the result where you get a well-structured form with just a few clicks :

Fig 30: New Form By Import from Salesforce Option

Conclusion:

Now, if you want to build a form you can go with FormAssembly which gives everyone the flexibility to achieve any data collection use case, with multiple years of providing flexible form-building capabilities to Salesforce customers.

Overall, I feel that FormAssembly provides excellent value. They have a cool-looking form builder that has lots of advanced features in a user-friendly package.
You can send an email immediately after form submission, and also get a notification yourself. You can create a form with just by few clicks and integrate it with your salesforce org. Also, you can pre-fill form fields by putting parameters in the form URL.

Let me know in the comments, which of the two ways you will prefer to build an amazing Form Through FormAssembly!
Happy Building! 🎉🙌