How to prefill a form with the data form another form?

Hello,

I have created a form for people in my department to fill out before they travel. I want to create a secondary form so that some of the information from the first form will automatically populate to reduce the amount of information asked for in the second form. Is there a guide that can show me how to do this?

Hi Michelle, 

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. Sure, prefilling your form using another form is easy. Let me show you how:

1. In Form Builder, in the orange navigation bar at the top of the page, click on Publish.
2. Now, click on Prefill in the menu on the left side of the page, and then select Form Prefill.
3. Click on the Downward Arrow icon and select the form that you want to prefill from, then match the fields.
4. Click on Save Settings at the right bottom of the Form Prefill section.

Now that you’ve set up the prefill settings, you need to add a new prefill. Let’s do it:

1. Click on Add a New Prefill and select a row or rows you want to create prefill.
2. Then, click on the Create button at the right corner of the page.

That's it. Now, a prefill link will be created, and you can share this link with people. When they open the link, the matched fields will be automatically filled. Check out my screencast to see how it works:

If you want your prefilled fields to be read-only and not editable, you can change their options:

1. In the Form Prefill settings, click on Can edit next to prefill link.
2. In the dropdown menu that opens, select Read only and that's it.

Give it a try and let us know if you need any other help.

Would this work if the pre-fields will change depending on who is filling out the form? My original form will require answers that are not the same for each person completing it. For example, their name and trip details will be unique but I would like that information to carry from the request form I create to the second form that is completed after travel has taken place.

Hi Michelle, 

It will work, but you'll need to manually select the pre-filled field each time to generate a link that you share with your users. You can take a look at the second screencast in Christian Ice's reply, which shows each submission with different names that are used to create a unique prefill link that can be shared with repeating or returning users. You can also check our guide here to learn more about this.

Reach out again if you need any more help.