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 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.

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

Add a default answer Preselect a multiple-choice, 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

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

Hidden fields

Calculated fields

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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.

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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.

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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 email from the dropdown menu

Add the parameter ?email=xxxx at 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.

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 choose default 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.