Automatically submit form? (prefilled by URL)

[Nathans]

Is it possible to automatically submit a form?
I’m creating a series of links that have the form input prefilled. Each can take me to the form with the info I want ready and waiting (which is terrific).
At that point I have to click Submit.
I’m using this for class attendance, so it’s a quick rundown of 25 entries at a time. It would be ideal to load the prefilled URL and have that submit automatically. Is that possible?

TIA,
Nathan

[Bill_French]

Nathans:

I’m using this for class attendance, so it’s a quick rundown of 25 entries at a time. It would be ideal to load the prefilled URL and have that submit automatically. Is that possible?

What you’re describing is an automated integration. Why are you sending the data into a form if your real objective is to send the data into Airtable?

[Nathans]

Thanks for the quick reply, Bill. I’m not sure I understand your question.
I’m trying to get three pieces of data into Airtable:

1. student’s email (using this as a unique ID for each student)
2. What date/time they arrived
3. whether they were present/late/absent with excuse/absent without excuse.
   My thought was to use a form because I can enter all three of those at once (using URLs with prefilled data).
   The upshot of this is that I can throw together a simple web page with a picture of each student and their name arranged visually to match where they sit in the room. Underneath each student will be 3 links: present, late, and unexcused absent (I sort out the excused ones later).
   So to take roll, I can look row by row and click one of the choices for each student. This would be much faster than entering each student in Airtable directly, especially since the email field is a linked field and so requires looking up the student.

Did that answer your question?

[Bill_French]

Nathans:

Did that answer your question?

No. :winking_face:

Nathans:

My thought was to use a form because I can enter all three of those at once (using URLs with prefilled data).

I get that - whose form? I guess I’m trying to understand why (if you have all the data in the prefill URL) you would need to post it to a form? Why not simply post it to the table and bypass the need for the form?

Perhaps a little diagram showing the process would be helpful. I don’t completely understand where the prefill data comes from and whose form you are calling into with such prefill data.

[Bill_French]

Nathans:

I can throw together a simple web page with a picture of each student and their name arranged visually to match where they sit in the room. Underneath each student will be 3 links: present, late, and unexcused absent (I sort out the excused ones later).
So to take roll, I can look row by row and click one of the choices for each student.

Yep - I think it’s starting to make sense.

Instead of the links posting to a form, just use the Airtable API to post directly into the table that the form writes into.

[Nathans]

Ooookay - I think I get you now!

So, the API makes perfect sense. I didn’t even know you could do that. And I see why you’d suggest that as a more direct route - it’s just over my head. I don’t know JavaScript.

The form is mine - it’s just an Airtable form. (shared so I can enter the info as described by loading a URL).

I set all the prefill data up in a spreadsheet to create the links, concatenating the Airtable-required parts of the URL with my student records. It’s pretty easy to create the prefilled URLs.

If a diagram would still be helpful, I will give it a go. My art skills are slightly higher than my JavaScript skills.

[Bill_French]

Yep - we get each other!

You are thinking web form and this is not unreasonable - it’s the quickest and easiest pathway. But, it comes at a price - you (a human) must act on the form. In contrast, the API is seamless; it quietly posts the data to the table when you click the link options.

There is a way to force a submit upon opening a web form (using JQuery inside the form itself). But unfortunately, I don’t think this is possible with Airtable’s web form because you do not have an ability to script inside their forms.

My recommendation - find a student who knows javascript and add the ability to script this into your web page. Surely there are students studying javascript near you.

[Bill_French]

There might be a way to do this easier with Zapier webhooks (perhaps) - @Justin_Barrett - is there any way @Nathans can add a simple Zapier call inside a web app that takes some values and sends them on to Airtable?

[Nathans]

I see your point (and clearly with the diagram).

I will ask around about a JS-savvy student.

I can use Google Sheets (with IFTTT to send new entries to Airtable). It’s possible to automatically submit a Google form. It’s just even more indirect / more places for things to go wrong.

[Bill_French]

Nathans:

It’s just even more indirect / more places for things to go wrong.

Yes - the more gears in the machine, the more brittle and/or prone to maintenance it starts to become.