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Question

How do I add a 3rd+ form data to custom fields in ActiveCampaign using Zapier?

  • 9 January 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 51 views
D

So this question was asked 10 months ago by @Kate4604 and answered by @nicksimard.

I would like to expand on this question though but the question was closed (original question and answer are below my question).

Here is my additional question to this - what happens when you have the 3rd form and 4th form.  I’m able to import the 1st form in Zap 1 and I’m able to import the 2nd form in Zap 2 into a custom field 1.  I can’t seem to figure out if they fill out a 3rd form or more.  I can add the custom fields in ActiveCampaign but I can’t seem to figure out how Zap 2 will not just write over Custom field 1 each time there is a new form even though I want the new form to go into Custom field 2, 3 , etc.

 

Here is the question originally posed:

I have a Google Sheet that it is being automatically fed into with parsed data (from forms being filled out on a 3rd party site)

eg.  Email  Name   Phone Number   Product   Size   Message

I then want to set up a Zap to bring that information into ActiveCampaign (I’ll set up custom fields for product, size, message etc). That’s simple enough.

However, there is a high chance that one person, with the same email address, will fill out 2 or more forms on the 3rd party site, with different product, size info, thereby creating two or more rows in the Google Sheet. 

As the Zap runs it will bring the first row into ActiveCampaign and create a contact with that information and custom fields. But, when a new row with the same email appears in the GSheet, the contact in ActiveCampaign will update with the new, updating custom fields, losing the data from the first row in the GSheet.

We want to keep all the information from every time the form is completed. Is there a way in Zapier to format the zap so that the information is combined in the custom field in ActiveCampaign - eg. “t-shirt, skirt” and “small, large”, instead of only keeping the latest data?

The answer:

If I’m understanding correctly you’ve got a couple of things to solve for:

  1. If someone has never submitted the form, you want to create the contact (and add information into the custom field).
  2. If someone HAS submitted a form, and you find them in ActiveCampaign, you want to update the custom field with whatever was already there PLUS add the new information.

If I’ve got that right, Paths would indeed be one way to approach it. Otherwise, you can create multiple Zaps, each of which has a filter step in it.

Zap 1: The Contact Does Not Exist

Trigger: Google Sheets — New Row
Action: ActiveCampaign — Find Contact
Filter: Only continue if something is NOT found (choose a field like ID and the ‘does not exist’ option in the filter)
Action: ActiveCampaign — Create Contact

Zap 2: The Contact Does Exist

Trigger: Google Sheets — New Row
Action: ActiveCampaign — Find Contact
Filter: Only continue if something IS found (choose a field like ID and the ‘exists’ option in the filter)
Action: ActiveCampaign — Update Contact (use the custom option for the contact, select the ID of the one you found, and insert the data that’s already there as well as the new data you wish to add).

Hopefully that helps to explain and hasn’t made things more confusing! Please let us know if you need further clarification on anything :)

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

3 replies

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @DarrenGreen, welcome to the Community! 👋

Sharing a link to the other topic that was mentioned here for visibility:


Your use case it sounds like it’s slightly different in that you’d want subsequent form submission data for each person to be added into a different custom field each time the form is filled out rather than the same custom field. Am I correct on that?

If so, is there a limit to the number of form submissions that someone can make? Just wondering as you’d likely need to set up multiple custom fields for every possible number of form submissions as the Zap wouldn’t be able to create additional custom fields to add each new form submission to which may not be the best approach.

If not, and you want all the submission data to be added into the same custom field then the same approach suggested in that other topic should work. So when the third form submission triggers the Zap and it searches for the contact to see the existing value in that custom field - the existing value at that point in time would contain the first and second form submissions. So the Zap would re-add the existing two submissions plus the third form submission data into that field. Meaning that all submissions would then be present in that custom field.

If I’m misunderstanding things here can you please send over some further details and screenshots if possible to help to give us a bit more context on this? Remember to remove/hide any private information (like names, emails, addresses etc.) from any screenshots before sharing.

Thanks, looking forward to your reply! 🙂

D

@SamB Smart idea just share the link.  Thank you!

There could be unlimited but I would be happy with keeping 4 custom fields and I’m happy running multiple zaps.

For example:

Zap #1 - record doesn’t exist import into Custom Field #1

Zap #2 - record exists and Custom Field #2 is empty import into Custom Field #2

Zap #3 - record exists and Custom Field #2 is NOT empty and Custom Field #3 is empty import into Custom Field #3

Zap #4 - record exists and Custom Field #2 is NOT empty and Custom Field #3 is NOT empty and Custom Field #4 is empty import into Custom Field #4

I hope this makes sense.

Darren

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Thanks for getting back to me @DarrenGreen.

For that example to work you’d need to add some branching logic in the Zap to check whether the fields were empty or not. I would recommend using Paths for this as you’d be able to handle this within a single Zap.

You could set up four paths, each checking for certain conditions using the “Does not exist” rule which would check that a specific field does not contain a value. Or the “Exists” rule which would check that a specific field does contain a value. You can learn more about the different rule types available here: Filter and path rules in Zaps. And I’d recommend checking out our Add branching logic to Zaps with paths guide for details on how to set up paths. 

Then within each path you’d have an ActiveCampaign action that adds the information into the relevant custom field for that path.

That said you could create 4 duplicate Zaps that use different filter rules to achieve the same branching logic but with four Zaps instead of one: Add branching logic to Zaps with filters 

Hope that helps to get you pointed in the right direction here. Keen to ensure you’re all set here so please keep us in the loop on how this goes!

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