Using forms to add leads automatically

You can use forms created on EducationLink (like Google Forms) to automatically add any new lead to EducationLink

EducationLink has a built-in form generator. You can create forms, like the ones on the "Contact" pages of websites. This form will be available for you to integrate into your website or send it directly to the student.

How to create a form

To create a form, you have to go to "Marketing", in the main menu and then "Forms". You will see a list for forms, if you don't see any, it means your account has no forms. Click in "Add form" at the top right in the page.

EducationLink will open a new form, ready to be customized. These are the things you can customize:

1. Form name (required): Give the form a name, so you can easily find it later on.
2. Action (required): Current there is only one option available, this will change the behavior of the form when is submitted by the student.
3. Visible to the student (required): EducationLink can show your forms in the Student Dashboard (to learn more about it, read our article What is the student dashboard? How to use it?), here you can set if you want this form to be shown to the student or not in their dashboard.
4. Emails address you want to send a notification to when the form is submitted (required): EducationLink will send emails to every email address you add here (separated by comma) whenever the form is submitted.
5. Form fields (required): You can add as many fields as you wish to your form. Common use cases are contact forms, forms to collect information for the visa application or forms for specific events.

Form fields: what are they?

Whenever we fill up any form on the internet, they will have fields. For example, a contact form may have first name, last name, email address, message.

The same applies to EducationLink, you can add the fields you want the student to fill up. These fields can be edited at any time. You can add different options for fields:

• Button: The most common usage is the button that will be pressed to submit the form. You may want to add more buttons. Note that this option is advanced, and may require a developer to make the button actually do something.
• Checkbox Group: Sometimes you may need to require the student to check many things, e.g. the list of countries they've been the last 5 years. Use this field whenever you want to allow the student to check multiple options.
• Date Field: If you want to collect dates, use this field. Depending on the browser and how the form may be being displayed, a mini-calendar will appear for the student to select the date.
• File Upload: If you need the student to send you a file, choose this option.
• Header: Especially in lengthly forms, you may want to separate sections with titles. Use the "Header" option to create a title.
• Hidden Input: This is an advanced field. With this field, you can send more data to EducationLink, data that the student will not see. For example, a special referral or details about the student already collected somewhere else. This field will never be displayed to the student.
• Paragraph: Works basically like the "Header", but with smaller font sizes, so you can write bigger body of text to explain a specific section of the form for the student.
• Number: When you want to collect numbers only, use this feature. No non-numerical character will be allowed.
• Radio Group: It works the same way as the "Checkbox Group" with one major difference, it actually allows the student to choose only one of the options, not multiple.
• Select: Like the "Radio Group", the student will only be capable of select one of the options. Use this field when you have too many options, as the list you provide will be provided in a "drop-down" style of field, which hides all the options until the student clicks on it.
• Text Field: The most common of fields. You can ask the student any information that they may have to type.
• Text Area: Like the "Text Field", the "Text Area" will allow the student to type anything they wish. Use this field when you expect the text to be more text than one line (for example, their job history).

EducationLink also has some pre-maid, easy-to-use fields:

• Nationality: A list of all countries for the student to choose, formatted in a way that EducationLink will safely save their nationality to be used in quotes, and applications/bookings.

The fields below may be only useful if you have to comply with Europe's GDPR.

• Communication preferences (GDPR): Ask and store how the student would like to be communicated in the future.
• Legal basis (GDPR): What is the legal basis for processing information of the student. If not set, EducationLink will use its own internal rules to set it.

How to send a form to a student

After you've created the forms you need, you will see a button named "Open" right next to each one of the forms. Click on this button to open the form. The link EducationLink will open is the URL you should share with the student.

EducationLink's forms on your website

You can embed the form on your website. When the form is integrated into your website, your leads and contact requests will go automatically to EducationLink. And if you choose to change the fields of your form, e.g. adding the date of birth to a form that didn't have it before, it will be automatically updated on your website.

You can have as many forms as you want integrated in as many websites or pages as you would like to.

To embed the form on your website (you may require the help of a developer), click on "Embed" right next to the button "Edit" and "Open". Your website developers will need only this "embed code" to integrate and customize the form in your website, you don't need to provide them access to EducationLink.

Every form has a different embed link, but here it's an example:

<form id="education-link-form-DHzWk2gSNxX62naBG" action="https://app.geteducation.link/api/forms/post?form=DHzWk2gSNxX62naBG"></form><script>window.onload=function(){window.jQuery&&jQuery.getScript("https://app.geteducation.link/resources/forms/form-render.js",function(){jQuery.get("https://api.geteducation.link/forms/get?form=DHzWk2gSNxX62naBG",function(e){var o=$("#education-link-form-DHzWk2gSNxX62naBG"),t=JSON.stringify(e);o.formRender({formData:t}),o.submit(function(e){e.preventDefault(),o.find('button[type="submit"]').prop("disabled",!0);var t=new FormData($(this)[0]);try{var r=ga.getAll()[0].get("clientId");t.append("googleAnalyticsClientId",r)}catch(e){console.warn("[EDULINK FORMS] No Google Analytics detected or error appending id to FormData.")}jQuery.ajax({type:"POST",url:e.target.action,data:t,cache:!1,contentType:!1,processData:!1,success:function(){o.parent().append('<div class="alert alert-success" style="margin-top: 60px;" role="alert"><p class="pull-left">We\'ve received your request and will get back as soon as possible.</p><div class="clearfix"></div></div>')},error:function(e){o.parent().append('<div class="alert alert-danger" style="margin-top: 60px;" role="alert"><p class="pull-left">'+(e&&e.responseJSON.error)||'Something went wrong, and it was not possible to submit your form.</p><div class="clearfix"></div></div>'),setTimeout(function(){jQuery(".js-error-form").remove(),o.find('button[type="submit"]').prop("disabled",!1)},5e3)}})})})})};</script>

Integrating the form in your website is a somewhat advanced feature, we are here to help you at any time.

Geek talk: EducationLink's embed script requires jQuery and FormData in your website/browser to work. If you don't want to have these dependencies you can create your own embed script. Get in touch for more information. Our default CSS classes are based on Bootstrap 3/4, we don't include any default CSS styles. Finally, if you have multiple scripts on window.onload event, you may want to change how EducationLink loads the form to $(document).ready(). One more thing: if you collect consent for Cookies and data processing somewhere else you may need to update the form data manually and/or prevent the form to submit the Google Analytics ID to EducationLink's servers.

How does EducationLink know what student it's supposed to save the data?

EducationLink will find the student based on the email. If you are creating a form without an email field, on submit you will get an error from EducationLink.

If the student does not currently exist in your organization, EducationLink will automatically create it, otherwise, the data will be merged.

What we mean about data being merged is: if your student has the phone number +6141534575 in your database, and in the form they submitted +61423455654, the new phone number will be saved and the old phone number will be replaced by the new one. When accessing the student profile, these custom fields will be available for editing.

PS: Only fields submitted in the form will be changed, other data saved in the student profile will not be changed or removed.

I keep getting an "Email Required" error. What should I do?

EducationLink needs an email to either create the student or merge the data of the form in a current record (lead or student already saved in the system). If you are getting "Email required" error means EducationLink can't find a field with the email, this may due to:

1. When submitting the form, the email field has not being filled up: you can make it required, to force users to fill up this field.
2. You have not added a field with the exact "Name" "email: add a "Text field" with the "Name" "email".

My form does not submit!

Most of the cases of your form not being submitted are due to misconfigured "Submit" button. To make sure your form gets submitted when the student clicks to submit, set your "Button" type as "Submit".

I'm getting the error: "Form misconfiguration error. Please check your field configuration."

When you get this error it means there is something wrong the way the fields have been configured. Usually is due to incorrect naming. Make sure the names of your fields don't have any of the following characters: . $ ,

How many fields can I add?

You can add as many fields as you would like. If you add a field that it's not a standard field of EducationLink, when saving the data, EducationLink will automatically create these fields in the student profile.

Can the student upload documents via the form?

Yes, they can. But use this feature with caution, as receiving a large number of files via form it's not recommended.

Google Analytics integration

The "Forms" tool of EducationLink integrates itself with Google Analytics and it's capable of tracking multiple form submissions from the same student. Get in touch in case you want to integrate with Google Analytics (Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce add-on integration is currently in the early adopter testing phase).

How can I add a "Select" field and leave it empty (no auto select)?

Sometimes you want to give your student a few options, and they can only select one. The "Select" input is perfect for that, whenever they click on it, it will list the options, which they should choose one. By default, browsers will auto-select the first option. In case you don't want this happening:

1. Add an option at the top with the "label" "Select one" and in the "value" you can leave it empty.

The auto selection of the first option is a default behaviour of most browsers, by adding an option like above the browser you select the option "Select one". You can change "Select one" to anything else, even an empty string.

Advanced form settings

Via the "Forms" functionality within EducationLink, it's possible to indirectly manipulate how EducationLink will save the form data in the student profile, potentially automating certain tasks.

Changing the student pipeline status

To automatically change the student pipeline status whenever they submit a specific form add two new fields with the following specifications:

Field number 1:

• Type: Hidden input;
• Name: pipelineStatus; and
• Value: The exact name of the step of the pipeline you want;

Field number 2:

• Type: Hidden input;
• Name: pipelineId; and
• Value: The exact id of the pipeline you want;

You can find the pipeline id in below the name of the pipeline when you go to "Agency settings and then "Sales pipelines".

Failing to put exact pipeline id and status will cause EducationLink to set the student as "Uncategorized".

Changing the student status (Onshore or Offshore)

To automatically change if the students are onshore (in the country they are studying) or offshore (in their home country), add the following field:

• Type: Hidden input;
• Name: status; and
• Value: Onshore or Offshore;

The word Onshore or Offshore must have be capitalized.

Changing counselor assigned to the student

To change the user associated with the student, add the following field:

• Type: Hidden input;
• Name: assignedTo; and
• Value: The user id you want to associate the student to.

To find the student id: ask the user to go to their student profile, below their picture EducationLink will display their unique id (to open their profile, follow this article How to update my name, picture, email and email signature?)

Mapping your fields to EducationLink fields

It's very common to update student information via form, for example, maybe you want to get the up-to-date phone number. But if you create a field called "student phone", EducationLink does not know that this is the "Phone" of the student, due to the way the form and EducationLink work behind the scenes.

To make sure you update the fields, follow the naming below (put these names in the "Name" field):

• Phone: phone;
• Phone 2: phone2;
• First name: firstName;
• Middle name: middleName;
• Last name: lastName;
• Email: email;
• Address: address;
• Goal: goal;
• Nationality: country;
• Comments: remarks;
• Referral source: fromWhere;
• Referral details: referral;
• Status (Onshore/Offshore): status;
• Birth date: birthday;
• Gender: gender;
• Heat level: heatLevel.
• Visa expire date: visas---visaExpireDate.
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---departureDate.
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---arrivalDates---arrivalDate
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---from
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---to
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---bookingRef
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---arrivalTime
• Arrival dates: arrivalDates---flightNumber
• Passport country: passports---country
• Passport issue date: passports---passportIssueDate
• Passport expiry date: passports---passportExpireDate
• Passports number: passports---passportNumber
• GPA: educationDetails--gpa