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 a default answers.
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.
Pre-populating form fields is available for free to all Tally users
Add a default answerPreselect a multiple-choice, dropdown or checkbox Pre-fill a date blockPre-fill a time blockPre-fill a ratingPre-fill questions with hidden fields Example 1: pre-populate an email field with a hidden fieldExample 2: collect feedback in an email and redirect to a pre-filled form
Add a default answer
- Click
⠿on the left of your input block
- Switch on the toggle next to the default answer
- Just 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
If you want to add an example text to your input field that disappears when respondents type, use the placeholder text instead.
Preselect a multiple-choice, dropdown or checkbox
Open the block settings by clicking
⠿ and enable 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 input for the default answer needs to exactly match the answer option of your question.
To pre-select multiple answer options, add the default answers separated by a comma.
Pre-fill a date block
To pre-fill a date block the date format needs to follow this structure:
YYYY-MM-DD
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 a 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 be used to pass on data that 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 in exactly the same way.
Example 1: pre-populate an email field with a hidden field
- Create a form and insert an email address field
- 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
- Choose hidden field
emailfrom the dropdown menu
- Add the parameter
?email=xxxxat the end of your form URL
- Replace 'xxxx' with the email address you want to pre-populate or with a variable (or MERGE tag) 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
You want to collect feedback from your newsletter subscribers with a simple poll and redirect them to a pre-filled form.
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 a set of responses your subscribers can choose from.
- Create a Tally form with the same answer options (Awesome, Good and Bad) and insert a hidden field with the name 'rating'. Add multiple hidden fields like 'email' or 'name' if you wish to identify your subscribers in your Tally form responses.
- Click
⠿on the left of your answer block and choosedefault answer→rating. Publish the form and copy the form link.
- Add the form link with corresponding URL parameters to each response in your email.
- Awesome: tally.so/r/jhk?rating=Awesome
- Good: tally.so/r/jkh?rating=Good
- Bad: tally.so/r/jkh?rating=Bad
- Optional: You can also choose to add the name or email address of your subscriber to identify them in your form results (add &email=xxx at the end of your URL). Replace the xxx with the email variable (or MERGE tag) from your email marketing tool.
- Send your email and when your subscribers click one of the poll results they will be redirected to your Tally form with the pre-filled answer. They just need to click 'confirm' to submit.