If you’re new to FormAssembly and you’d like to get a tour of the Salesforce Connector, don’t miss the next webinar in our Getting Started series. The webinar will be on Thursday, May 16, at 2 PM EST. Sign up here for the Salesforce webinar.

We’ll be focusing on creating and updating records in Salesforce. We’ll also cover attachments and relationships, as well as look at the schema.

If you can’t make this one, you can sign up for June 20th or July 18th. Check the registration form for available dates. Can’t wait to see you there!

Fresno Pacific University is a leading Christian university that develops students for leadership and service through excellence in higher education.

An Easy Decision

Before FormAssembly, Fresno Pacific University didn’t have many online forms that integrated with their information systems. “Feedback was often gathered through stand-alone survey tools,” said Jonathan Maher, Director of Systems Analysis.

Jonathan found us through StackExchange, where someone pointed out that it was easy to upload attachments with FormAssembly. After a demo, Jonathan said it was an easy decision — and the right price.

For FPU, FormAssembly’s greatest feature is its Salesforce integration. “The fact that it directly writes into Salesforce, and that you can query the Salesforce database to prefill a survey — makes it easier for so many people on our team.”

Use-Case: Tutoring Center Feedback

Many departments at FPU use FormAssembly in their processes. For example, once a student finishes a session at the Tutoring Center, a feedback survey is automatically triggered in Salesforce and emailed to the student.

Email with Survey Link

Close-Up of FormAssembly Survey

Close-Up of Survey Information in Salesforce

Once the student submits their response, FormAssembly will push the data to Salesforce, where the survey information instantly appears on the student’s record.

Use-Case: Petition of Academic Probation

The university’s process for petitioning academic probation used to involve a paper form. “Last semester, we used a hybrid model of an old-fashioned form and a FormAssembly form,” said Jonathan. The online forms were so successful that FPU switched over completely to FormAssembly.

There’s no data entry for the staff, no copy and paste involved.

On the online form, there are large spaces for essays that explain why the student did not do well in a class. “There’s no data entry for the staff, no copy and paste involved,” Jonathan said. “And we have a permanent record of exactly what the student said. It’s more standardized, and easier to take action.”

Use-Case: Recent Graduates Survey

FPU sends a follow-up survey to all recent graduates. With Salesforce, they can check whether an alum was surveyed, and when they sent email and phone reminders to the alum. FormAssembly can prefill the information from the alumni records, so that it’s much easier for the graduates to check and update their contact info. The data is then automatically passed, and FPU staff can check the new data against possible errors and mis-entry right away.

Looking Ahead with FormAssembly

Now, FPU is looking into further developing their student applications and enhancing their alumni surveys to make even better use of FormAssembly.

“The way FormAssembly works with Salesforce query — we’re really really happy with that. There’s a lot of things we can do. What was slow and old-fashioned before — we can modernize very quickly,” said Jonathan.

Watch our new video right here:

The creative process was fun and involved (Lots of meetings and careful pickin’ at details!). We wanted to explain what we do and how we can help ya, and to showcase FormAssembly’s friendly nature — in about one minute.

So, the team brainstormed. Here’s a peek at the initial storyboards:

We were up against the challenge of keeping it short and interesting, so I kicked off the project with a script, then cut it down with the team. After editorial discussions and revisions, we decided to leave out:

• The feature list. Originally, we wanted to mention at least a couple features, like custom branding and conditional logic, but we didn’t think it would make a big impact, or show much about FormAssembly, in such a compact space.
• A list of the different kinds of companies and organizations who use FormAssembly. Instead, we covered it with the headline “The Form Builder for Everyone” and a map showing that we’ve got awesome customers (like you!) all over the world.
• Tons of screenshots. They’re more useful on the Tour and in a tutorial — but can get pretty boring in a video where you don’t need things step-by-step.

And instead, we focused on:

• The story. A guy who realizes that making online forms from scratch isn’t that easy — as you or your busy IT staff might know.
• The assembly line! You’ll see how fast you can roll out forms.
• Two quick examples of common use-cases: A contact form and a job application. And you can see our drag-and-drop functionality, thanks to the helpful robot arm.
• Our most popular integrations, with apps you already use.

With those key points in mind, our UX Wizard and Designer, Xin, created the illustrations (and we also included Kurtis’s artwork of the assembly line).

And, finally, the awesome Demo Duck team brought it all to life. Their animation and sound design pulled everything together and gave it that extra spark.

We hope you like it! Let us know your thoughts — leave a comment, tweet @FormAssembly, or email us!

Take a look at how Year Up uses FormAssembly!






Year Up is a one-year intensive training program that provides low-income young adults, ages 18-24, with a combination of hands-on skill development, college credits, and corporate internships.

Year Up’s mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing urban young adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Learn more about Year Up here.

The Re-Entry Problem

Before FormAssembly, Year Up used a combination of paper forms and web forms for both student and volunteer records. This process was inefficient, and ran a large risk of error.

“Year Up students spend six months in the classroom developing technical and professional skills, then apply those skill during a six-month internship with one of our over 250 corporate partners,” says Kelly Hardebeck, Director of Application Development. While on internship, students are responsible for completing a weekly timesheet, which includes having their manager sign the form and send it back to Year Up. Not only did the paper timesheets need to be faxed or scanned and sent to Year Up via email, but the process of reconciling the timesheets was time consuming and often involved several staff members.

We were spending a lot of time re-entering data that had already been typed into a form.

Similarly, while volunteer sign up forms were available online, submissions needed to be sent via email. Once the email was received, staff needed to re-enter the data into Salesforce before contacting the potential volunteer. “We were spending a lot of time re-entering data that had already been typed into a form. We were ultimately doing the same work twice,” says Hardebeck.

The process was even complicated for prospective students: Year Up’s paper application form was eight pages long and, like the volunteer form, needed to be re-entered in Salesforce. With handwritten information that was not always legible and the re-entry process for data, the risk of error was high.

The Streamlined Solution

After evaluating different products, Year Up’s IT Department decided on FormAssembly to ease its information collection process. “The process was easy, even when building a fairly complex workflow. It did exactly what we needed. It was such an easy choice,” said Hardebeck.

The process was easy, even when building a fairly complex workflow.

Year Up migrated the internship time sheets to online forms. Now, students fill out their time sheets online, their supervisor signs off, and all the data gets sent directly into Salesforce — no paperwork involved.

Select application forms have also moved online. Hardebeck says the data is now much cleaner: “The names, birth dates, and even the addresses are accurate. There’s been a significant improvement in data quality.”

Year Up has also improved their workflow by converting their student interest forms to FormAssembly. “The interest form is the first step in Year Up’s rigorous application process,” said Hardebeck. “Because an applicant’s interest form is available in Salesforce immediately, staff can more quickly determine if an applicant meets the eligibility requirements and reach out to qualified applicants almost immediately. With FormAssembly, we’ve been able to streamline the initial piece of the admissions process. It’s been great.”

Moving Forward with FormAssembly

Year Up staff have also found FormAssembly’s support team helpful. Hardebeck says her team has called on support several times and were very pleased with both their responsiveness and the quality of their answers.

Year Up is interested in expanding what they can do with FormAssembly by exploring different integrations. Says Hardebeck: “We’re looking into where else we can use it, because we’ve had such great success.”




Huge thanks to Year Up and to Kelly Hardebeck for sharing their use cases with us! We’re proud to be of service to their mission.

We’re excited to introduce our new (and free!) Getting Started Webinar Series! If you’re new to FormAssembly, or if you’re interested in revisiting the basics, these webinars are for you.

Form Building 101

We’ll take you through the most useful (and most used) features in the FormAssembly Form Builder. You’ll be able to gain an understanding of form lingo and building usable forms. Form Building 101 begins on May 9th.

Salesforce: Making a Connection

Here, we’ll focus on creating and updating records in Salesforce. We’ll also cover attachments and repeating fields, as well as look at the schema. This webinar begins on May 16th.
 

Both webinars are recurring and monthly, so if you can’t make the ones in May, you’re welcome to join us in the following months. There’s a limited number of spots, though, so make sure to sign up ASAP to snag your spot!

Ready to sign up? Looking for later sessions? Want to schedule custom training for your organization? Would you like to request different topics? Click right here for the details.

We look forward to having you join us!

Aetna Pharmacy Management is a full-service benefits manager of prescription drug insurance. Aetna’s total health focus helps promote clinically appropriate, cost-effective care. Aetna offers solutions and online tools to help and support pharmacies, pharmacists, patients, and customers.

A more efficient Salesforce solution

Aetna’s customer relations management is powered by Salesforce. “Salesforce is our book of record. We use it in pretty much every aspect,” said Becca Allen, Salesforce Developer and Administrator for Aetna.

Before FormAssembly, the Aetna staff dealt with manual re-entry of Salesforce data. But they needed a more efficient solution. They needed to send the data into Salesforce automatically.

At first, Aetna staff needed just one Web-to-Case form for the internal website. Members would fill out the form to report an issue, and the issue would get sent directly and automatically into Salesforce as a case.

Rolling out forms with FormAssembly

After researching their options, the Aetna staff found FormAssembly, and quickly rolled out the form. “Being able to tie the form to multiple standard and custom objects, being able to do prefills — those were very useful features,” Becca said.

“We were also impressed with how easy it was to create and update the form, and that we were able to post the form on the internal website or have the form available on a public website.”

Aetna Pharmacy Management has now used FormAssembly to roll out multiple Web-to-Case forms and account management surveys with prefilled fields, so that updating records is a smooth and simple process.