How to update custom contribution progress bar with check contributions

3 replies
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I’ve created a custom contribution form with a progress bar. We know we will receive a few checks in the mail that we want to count towards our goal in the progress bar. I was hoping it would automatically update if I assigned a check contribution with the same source code/campaign as the custom contribution form. However, when I tried testing this it didn’t work. Is there a way to have check contributions trigger a progress bar update?

Rebekah EslaoAnswer

Community Manager

Instead of creating multiple forms, you could keep one form and track where gifts come from using hidden metadata fields.
Create a special field in your Online Actions settings (check out this article for detailed steps).

Then, when you share your form link on different channels, add tracking info to each one. For example:

Instagram link: ?oa_social_media_ref=instagram
Email link: ?oa_email_ref=email
Appeal letter: ?oa_appeal_letter=mailer

Since the source information comes from the link itself, you don’t need separate forms – everything feeds into one progress bar that counts toward your goal. Let us know if this works for you!!

Rebekah at Bonterra

Rebekah Eslao

Community Manager

Hi @Callie! Great question. You can manually add offline contributions to the Preset Values on your form. This way, when you log those check contributions, you can include them in the form’s preset values, and they’ll count toward your progress bar goal.

Here’s the flow: When a check comes in, you add that contribution amount to the Preset Values, and it updates the progress bar accordingly.

It’s not fully automatic, but it gets those offline gifts counted toward your goal. Hope this helps! :)

Rebekah at Bonterra

C

CallieAuthor

Explorer

Hi Rebekah, thanks for the info! I was wondering if this was the only way. I do have a follow up question related to the progress bar. Originally, I was planning to duplicate the same form for use in different places (social media, email, appeal letter) to easily be able to track where donations came from, but if I do this, am I correct that each copy will have it’s own progress update bar? If so, that won’t work so I am curious if you have any other suggestions or resources on tracking where the donation is coming from.

Rebekah EslaoAnswer

Community Manager

Instead of creating multiple forms, you could keep one form and track where gifts come from using hidden metadata fields.
Create a special field in your Online Actions settings (check out this article for detailed steps).

Then, when you share your form link on different channels, add tracking info to each one. For example:

Instagram link: ?oa_social_media_ref=instagram
Email link: ?oa_email_ref=email
Appeal letter: ?oa_appeal_letter=mailer

Since the source information comes from the link itself, you don’t need separate forms – everything feeds into one progress bar that counts toward your goal. Let us know if this works for you!!

Rebekah at Bonterra

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