Embedding a fillout form in Softr to update a record

Is it possible to embed an “update record” fillout form which shows some values of the record being updated in the form?

Using a formula field in airtable and making a button in softr works fine.
For user experience I would like to embed the form in softr (and update the record, not making a new one).

I tried several things (both from this community as from documentation from fillout), but cannot get it to work.
Is this even possible what I am trying to do?
The record being updated is not in the user table but in another table.

Thanks in advance for your advice

Hi @Maaike, why not use Softr’s native editing functionality?

It depends on your data source, but yes, it can be done. However, the majority of what you need has more to do with the setup of your relational database (between the user table and the other table) and how it interacts with Fillout. Once you make it work outside of Softr, then you can figure out how to get Softr to point users to that prefilled form link. In other words, through a relational connection, the prefilled form link needs to be in your users table.

I’ve been looking at ways to do this too. If Softr’s new conditional forms could update records it would be great for onboarding where you need to lead a specific user through a series of onboarding questions, with conditional pathways. The native editing doesn’t accomplish this. For now, I just send the Fillout form link by email to get them to complete the onboarding, but I’d much rather have it all live within the client portal.

Depending on your data source, you could add Fillout’s concat formula within the data set and connect that field to an action button in softer that opens the Fillout form’s URL in a modal window for them to complete that way. Not as ideal either, but keeps it in the portal.

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Thank you for all your suggestions.

@artur That would work too, at the moment I want users not to click an extra button. :wink:
@Kristin update records in a conditional form would be really great. Maybe we could ask this as a feature request.

At the moment I am working on another solution for this use case.
Using a conditional form in Softr a record is created in a seperate table in Airtable and depending on the values in a certain field, different automations will run.
It looks like this is a solution which works for me know.

I’m not ninja in fillout but I will try to help you :slight_smile:

I need to know what exactly you need to do.
If you want write some info and have the same time updated in Softr it will be not possible.
Fillout is sending info after click “send form”. You can make some “form in form”. It is record picker in fillout. But it works the same. You need to click button.

If you would like to embed form to update. It is very easy.
You need to connect with airtable and show record what you would like to update.
It is 2 ways to do it. Or you prepare native form to update only, or you can get record using for example ID or email or another filter. You can also make filter to update a few records (for example all contains the same company name).

Last question what you add. You can connect fillout with one airtable table. That means you need synchronize tables or you need use URL ID to find record what is interested for you.

If you have some question please share screens. I will try to give some info.
Have a nice day.

Yes, what you ask for is 100% possible with native fillout integration without any extra setup.

Display an edit record form, while also displaying user info in the same form.

Totally agree with you Kristin !

I have the same need, but the native editing functionality in Softr is not usable. We need to update phone numbers. Airtable phone number fields do not normally contain the country code. Softr, being more internationally-aware, requires the user to add a country code. This can be very confusing to non-technical users who may not even know what a country code is. We think they are going to fumble around and get frustrated.

Softr doesn’t have a default country code feature. If it did, then this might work.

We’re aware of this issue and will be introducing options to either:

  1. Make country code selectable by end users
  2. Default to a specific country’s phone number format + hide country code

Quick question: In case of 2, would you expect the actual phone number saved to the data source to have country code included?

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Hi all, we do want to introduce a conditional form for edit/add record actions. No exact timeline yet, but hopefully before end of year :wink:

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@austinyang For our use case, we would choose to not save the country code back to Airtable because Airtable’s phone number field automatically formats phone numbers for U.S./North America. I think Softr to make this a configurable choice, however. I can easily imagine many other customers or data sources needing the country code. Give us the flexibility, please.

This would be really amazing to have!

Can the current conditional form edit records or is it only for new records?

Only for new records as far as I know. I use fillout to edit records. Still waiting for the inline editing feature.