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What is a URL Prefill (Pre-Populated Fields) and How to Use Them in On2Air Forms

What is a URL Prefill (Pre-Populated Fields) and How to Use Them in On2Air Forms

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You can add pre-populated data to your form fields with URL Prefills in On2Air Forms. We’ve made it easy for you to do! With URL Prefills, you can share your form URL with anyone and have it automatically pre-populate data into your form fields.

Example: You can send a form to someone with their first and last name already filled in on the form.

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There are many ways you can use URL Prefills to make it a more seamless process for your form users.

In this article

Video Tutorial - URL Prefills for “Creating” New Records

What are URL Prefill Parameters?

A URL Prefill Parameter is a way to pass information through a URL to modify content or track information. You can add single or multiple URL prefills to your form. 

What are URL Prefills Used for in Airtable and On2Air Forms?

Using URL Prefill Parameters with On2Air Forms allows you to automatically add data from Airtable or Static data to a form field with the URL you share.

URL Prefill Formatting

URL Prefills, also known as URL Parameters, are made of a key and a value separated by an equals sign (=). The first prefill parameter always comes after a question mark in a URL.

Key/Value: ?key=value

On2Air Forms Prefilled URL Format: www.on2air.com/form/youruniqueformcode?key=value

When you share a prefilled URL with a form user, the values from your URL are added to the corresponding form field.

On2Air Forms Prefill Example

In the Name example above, the URL Prefill Key in On2Air Forms for the Name field is name

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We then added the Prefill value of James Thompson in the Name field in the URL Prefill Settings

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We clicked Share Form

Share Form
Share Form

Then clicked Include Prefills

The URL Prefill value was automatically added to the URL. You can now share the prefill link with James Thompson and it will add his name to the field automatically.

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Final URL and form

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There is a URL Prefill Key setting in every field option and in the Create Configuration option in On2Air Forms. With the URL Prefill, you can set a single field’s default value or the entire form’s default values.

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Example of a URL Prefill and How to Add a URL Prefill to a Field

In On2Air Forms, you can add a Key to the URL Prefill Key field. By default, the URL Prefill Key is the name of your Airtable field.

Click on your field, open Field Configuration > URL Prefill Settings

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To disable URL Prefill Keys from being used at all for a field, delete the URL Prefill Key value.

Once you have a URL Prefill Key, click Set Prefill to add a value to the field in the URL Prefill Settings.

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A URL will be automatically generated for you based on your key and value.

Example:

For text fields like the Caption field below, we can set the URL Prefill Key to caption in the URL Prefill key field

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  • Click the URL Prefills/Filters Settings
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  • Add a value in the field where you need the data
    • In this case, we added the text “This is my caption”
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  • Click Done
  • Click Share Form
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  • Click Include Prefills
  • You’ll see a new URL display with your prefill value
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  • When you share this URL with someone, the Caption value will be automatically added to the field on their form

Other Field Types

Select Fields

  • In Select Fields, add a value of a Select option already in your field in Airtable.
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How to Use URL Prefills for Linked Records

How to Add URL Prefills for an Entire Form

You can use a record from your Airtable base with data already in the record to prefill an entire form or multiple specific fields.

DOCUMENTATION COMING SOON

What are Dynamic URL Filters and How to Use Them for Linked Records