Pre-populate form fields

Save your respondent's time by pre-populating questions with data you already have. If you already know someone's name or email address, you can just feed the data into your form and add it as the default answer.

Pre-populating form fields is available for free to all Tally users.

Add a default answer Preselect a multiple choice, multi-select, dropdown, or checkbox Pre-fill a date block Pre-fill a time block Pre-fill a rating Pre-fill questions with hidden fields Example 1: Pre-populate an email field with a hidden field Example 2: Collect feedback in an email and redirect to a pre-filled form

Add a default answer

You can pre-fill all input fields with text or numerical values (except for payment and file upload blocks). If a respondent submits your form without changing the pre-populated answers, these will be included in their form submission.

To add a default answer:

Click ⠿ on the left of your input block

Switch on the Default answer toggle

Type a custom default answer or choose the value you want to pre-fill from the dropdown menu. You can insert data from:

Input fields

Hidden fields

Calculated fields

If you want to add an example text to your input field that disappears when respondents type their answers, use the placeholder text instead.

Preselect a multiple choice, multi-select, dropdown, or checkbox

First, add a multiple choice, multi-select, dropdown or checkbox block in your form. Open the block settings by clicking ⠿ and enabling the Default answer option.

Then either:

Manually type the answer option from your question in the Default answer box

Select another input field as a default answer

In both cases, the default answer input must exactly match your question’s answer option.

Add the default answers separated by a comma to pre-select multiple answer options.

Pre-fill a date block

To pre-fill a date block, the date format needs to follow this structure: YYYY-MM-DD. Example: 2024-05-24 for May 24th, 2024.

Pre-fill a time block

To pre-fill a time block, the time format needs to follow this structure: HH:MM.

Pre-fill a rating

To pre-fill a rating question, add a number as the default answer. This number represents the amount of stars that will be pre-filled in your form.

Pre-fill questions with hidden fields

Hidden fields can pass on data you already own to your form using a URL parameter. You can also use this data to pre-populate questions in your form and save your respondents time.

Hidden fields are case-sensitive. Make sure to write them and your URL parameters exactly the same way.

Example 1: Pre-populate an email field with a hidden field

Create a form and insert an email address field titled “Your email”

Insert a hidden field and name it 'email'

Click ⠿ on the left of your email address input field and switch on the Default answer toggle

Select the hidden field email from the dropdown menu

Add the parameter ?email=xxxx at the end of your form URL before you share it

Replace “xxxx” with the email address you want to pre-populate or with a variable from your CRM or marketing automation tool.

Share your form with the adjusted URL, and the respondent will see a pre-filled value based on your URL parameter

Example 2: Collect feedback in an email and redirect to a pre-filled form

In this example, you might want to collect feedback from your newsletter subscribers with a simple poll and redirect them to a pre-filled form.

You can follow the steps below or have a look at this tutorial:

How to embed a form in an email

Type a question in your newsletter with responses your subscribers can choose from.

Create a Tally form and add a multiple choice block with the same answer options (Awesome, Good and Bad). Then, insert a hidden field with the name “rating”. You can also add multiple hidden fields like “email” or “name” if you want to identify your subscribers in your Tally form responses.

Click ⠿ on the left of your answer block and enable the Default answer toggle. In the dropdown, select rating. Now, you can click to Publish your form and copy the form link.

Add the form link with corresponding URL parameters to each response in your newsletter.

Awesome: tally.so/r/jhk?rating=Awesome
Good: tally.so/r/jkh?rating=Good
Bad: tally.so/r/jkh?rating=Bad

If you want to identify your subscribers in your form results, you can add their name or email address. For example:

Add &email=xxx at the end of your URL and replace the email variable (or Merge tag) from your email marketing tool

Now, you can send your email, and when subscribers click one of the poll options, they’ll be redirected to your Tally form with the pre-filled answer. They just need to click the Submit button to submit their answer.