Conditionally set Activist Code from Online Action form

Thanks so much!  I didn’t realize you could search for people who completed an online form.  I’ll look into it.

Yep! The beginning of any workflow automation is a Saved Search, which you could create for contacts who complete your form.

If you want to ensure you capture only new opt-ins on this form, rather than people who might already have been opted in in the past, you could also include the “Added Since” Email data parameter in your saved search criteria. 

thanks ​@Sally Heaven I was also going to recommend workflow automation to accomplish this too. Automations are so powerful and I wish more customers would use them. Would love to do a webinar on this feature, I may reach out to you to get some advice on your favorite automated workflows! 

They’re definitely a hidden gem for data management, assignments, and notifications. 💎 

I appreciate the help on this!  I don’t think I’m able to determine whether they actually checked the box to receive our newsletter (at least not that I could find) from the Saved Search, but it looks like when a new email is created when filling out the online form, the status is set to Subscribed in some cases and Not Subscribed in others which I’m assuming happens based on whether the donor checks the box to receive our newsletter (the ‘Email Signup parameter of the Online Action form).  So I can check for newly created emails with the a status of Subscribed to get my answer.

The Online Forms Custom Questions section of the Saved Search did look promising, but was not helpful because it just lists the Source Codes that will always be set when someone submits the form.  As was confirmed earlier in this thread, it is not possible to conditionally set Source Codes, so what is the purpose of this section of the Saved Search creation with regard to the Source Codes that are set?  I suppose we could add a Follow-Up Question on the Online Action form which could be used in the Saved Search, but that would require the donor to request a newsletter email in 2 places which isn’t ideal.

You are correct about why some people who fill out the form would be set to Subscribed or Not Subscribed. That’s based on the global opt-in to email checkbox. 

Are you using overall opt-in status to determine the newsletter subscribers, or an Email Interest? Email Interests are special types of Activist Codes that are constituent-facing, and are used for people to indicate what types of emails they want to receive. Some organizations use them to offer a menu of subscription options: Newsletter, Action Alerts, Event Invitations, etc. Here’s a help file with a brief mention of Email Interests:

The Online Forms Custom Questions would only be useful if you asked a question on your form like “Would you like us to email you a custom wallpaper? Yes/No” and then emailed people a link to download wallpaper if they said yes. But it would not be useful for source codes that are globally applied, you’re right.

If you want to specifically target newsletter opt-ins separately from global opt-ins to email and your organization doesn’t yet use Email Interests, then Email Interests might be the way to go. I would recommend learning about them first and designing a strategy to use them, because it will require making sure you change your Targeted Email setup to use the Email Interests and socializing that among all your staff who use Targeted Email.

If using the current setup of the global opt-in is sufficient for your purposes right now, then you can stick with that until you figure out whether you want to make Email Interests part of your operations. If you do, I recommend starting small, with just one option for Newsletter, even. It’s easier to add options once you have a plan for them than to offer 10-15 options and then take them away. 

Thanks again for the input.  At this point, we just need to determine who checked the box to receive the newsletter while giving a donation via the various Online Action forms we have.  Currently the Activist Code to receive the newsletter that is used by the Targeted Email is assigned to all who donate through the forms.  I believe our best solution is to not automatically assign it and then run an Automation that checks for newly added emails of Subscribed status (indicating that they did check the box for newsletters) for those who used the Online Action forms. 

We don’t currently have a need for multiple email interests to choose from so we won’t take that path, but thanks for the recommendation!