Wufoo: HTML forms integration

In this article:

The integration Little Green Light offers with Wufoo HTML Forms makes it possible for you to collect information from your constituents online and have it be automatically entered into your LGL database.

In this article, we walk you through the process of connecting LGL to your Wufoo account and then configuring the forms so that information will flow automatically into your LGL account.

NOTE: Wufoo is not affiliated with LGL in any way. The Wufoo service is completely separate and carries its own pricing structure, terms of service, and privacy policy. Please see http://www.wufoo.com for details.

Integration overview

The integration works like this: You link your Little Green Light and Wufoo accounts together. Once the accounts are connected, you can link specific Wufoo forms with your LGL account and send data through the forms into LGL.

Common integration examples include:

  • Donation forms: Collect donation details and payments from your constituents online. These donations can be set up to automatically create gifts entries in LGL.

  • Event forms: Collect RSVP, additional guest, and payment information for any event.

  • Volunteering forms: Collect information about volunteer interests and/or participation.

  • e-Newsletter signup forms: Particularly useful when working with our MailChimp integration

Connect Wufoo to LGL

NOTE: You must be an Administrator to use this feature in LGL. If you are not an Admin, you will not be able to see any of these features in your account.

Create your Wufoo account

The first step is to create a Wufoo account if you don’t already have one.

Connect your Wufoo account to LGL

After logging into your LGL account, follow these steps to connect your Wufoo and LGL accounts:

  1. Go to Settings and click on the Integration Settings link
  2. Click on the Wufoo Integration link in the left column of the page
  3. Fill in the email address and password for your Wufoo account
  4. Click the Check Credentials button to complete the connection

If there is a problem with your username or password, you will be notified with an error message. If all goes well, you will see something like this (assuming you have at least one form set up in Wufoo already).

If you don’t have any forms in Wufoo already, you probably will want to create at least one. This is easy to do within Wufoo, and you can follow the instructions provided. The interface is pretty straightforward, but we also recommend looking at Wufoo's extensive help documentation if you have any questions.

Map Wufoo forms into LGL

To make the integration for any form complete, we need to tell LGL how to map the data from Wufoo’s form into the appropriate places in LGL. For example, a simple donation form from Wufoo would probably contain information about the following three types of data in LGL, at a minimum:

  • Constituent name information
  • Constituent contact information (phone, email, address)
  • Gift information (amount, received date, notes, etc.)

Connect a new form

To connect a new form, click on the Connect a form button, select the form you want to connect to LGL, and then click the Add form button to configure the integration:

Map the form fields

After choosing a form to integrate, you can select our record matching preferences for the form (how will constituent information from new submissions be matched to existing records in LGL?), and also define the field mapping rules so that the information for each submission will end up in the right place.

Record matching preferences

You can decide if LGL should try to match new records to constituents by email and name, or just name, or both. If neither option is selected, LGL will create new constituents for every submission.

Map fields from source

All of the form fields from the selected Wufoo form will be listed in this section, and you can map them to the appropriate record type and field within LGL. Many of these mappings will happen automatically if you use the standard Wufoo field names, but if a field is not mapped (if the -- Do not import -- option is selected), then it will be left off.

Since this form is a “Donation” form, you would want to check the Include gift fields option, so that you can map the "Payment total" from Wufoo into the "Gift amount" field in LGL. We will cover more advanced topics around field mapping below, but now that you have the basics in place, you can save the form and complete the integration process.

Set form preferences, and activate the connection from Wufoo

Now that the field mapping for this form is saved, you’ll be returned to the Wufoo Integration page, where you should see the new form on your list of active forms:

From this listing, you can toggle a few preferences:

  • Connection: Checking this box will enable the automatic submission of new form entries from Wufoo into LGL. We recommend that you check this box for forms that should have automatic integration (in other words, most forms).

  • Review preferences: Do you want to automatically save new records or add them to a queue for review? We recommend setting this to “Yes” initially to make sure that submissions are happening appropriately. Later on, you can update the settings to process the records automatically.

  • Review Queue: There are four possible queues: Constituent, Gift, Event, and Volunteering. This allows you to review and approve all submissions of a given type more easily.

Reviewing and saving Wufoo form submissions

Now that you have a Wufoo form (or two) mapped to our LGL account, the fun part begins. If you had existing forms in Wufoo, it is quite likely that you have some entries logged there that are not yet in LGL. If so, the first step is to import them all.

Import all existing entries

You can pull all submissions from a given form into LGL at once by clicking on the Import all button in the Entries (in Wufoo) column. This will go out and grab all of the entries in the specified Wufoo form and pull them into LGL for review.

The Integration Queue

The import process will kick off within a minute or two and then start adding all the entries into your integration queue. If you have the Require review? checkbox checked, they will not be saved into your main LGL database. You can access your integration queue by clicking on the Integration queue link in the Settings sub-navigation:

You can also go straight to the queue for a particular form by clicking on the X records link in the Submissions (to LGL) column:

This will bring you into the integration queue with the entries for that form listed:

From here you can perform a number of different actions:

  • Filter results by status, source, and queue
  • Review individual records and save or reject them as appropriate. The information for each record is displayed, so you can see what information will be added
  • Save, reject, or reprocess whole sets of records (as defined by the filters selected)
  • Assign constituents to records that did not find a match but should have
  • Change the constituent if the assignment is not accurate

Saving records

As mentioned above, you can save records individually or in a batch. In both cases, the records will be set to a pending state and then imported into your main LGL database. In many cases, a form will describe multiple types of information, so a single record from Wufoo might create a constituent, related contact information, and one or more gifts. It is also quite typical for categories to be added.

In the case where a record is updating an existing constituent, none of the primary constituent information (names, etc.) will be updated. However, all additional kinds of data will be appended (contact information, categories, gifts, etc.)

To save an individual record, click the Save button in the Record Status column. 

To save a batch of records, select the appropriate action from among the bulk actions options:

If you have 50 or more records queued for review and want to save them all, these bulk actions can be a big time-saver.

Rejecting records

Sometimes you will get submissions from your forms that you don’t want to save. For example, if the submission is not valid or if it contains bogus information (like when you are testing), you probably don’t want to save it all the way into LGL. So, in those cases you can reject the records. This can also be done individually or in bulk.

Editing the constituent assignment for records

All form submissions must be connected to a constituent in one way or another. If a match is not found, then a new constituent record will be created. In the event that LGL does not match the constituent, but it already exists (and you know this) you can override the constituent assignment.

If no constituent was found, you will see a record like this:

To set the constituent, you can click on the Set constituent button and then search for a constituent within the LGL database. Once this is done, you can save the record and the selected constituent will be updated.

Common examples of Wufoo form integrations

 In this section, we’ll review how to set up Wufoo forms to handle donations and events.

Processing donations

Pre-requisites Certain Wufoo plans include the ability to integrate payment processing into your forms, which means you can then accept donations and have those automatically flow through as “Gifts” into your LGL account. These plans start at $29.95 ($14.95 if you qualify for the Wufoo nonprofit discount, which most LGL clients will) per month, and they currently support the following payment processors:

  • PayPal
  • Google Checkout
  • Authorize.net
  • USA ePay

To set up donation processing within Wufoo, you will need to have an account with one of those providers.

Step 1

Build your donation form in Wufoo Once you have the above taken care of, you can build a form in Wufoo that accepts donations. A simple version might look something like this:

It is a three-page form containing basic contact information and donation/sponsorship information.

Step 2

Connect the form to your LGL account With that form set up in Wufoo, the next step is to connect it to your LGL account. Following along with the instructions in section 3 above, you can do this by going to the Wufoo Integration section within the Integration Settings area of your account settings, and adding the form:

As soon as you add the form, you can start mapping the fields (as described above).

NOTE: You will want to be sure to do one thing before we get too far along, which is to confirm that you set the form up to Include gift fields. This will ensure that the "Payment total" and "Payment status" fields from Wufoo get carried over with each form submission:

Some of this is covered in section 6 below, but a few things to consider when setting up the integration with donation forms are:

  • Which campaign, appeal, and/or fund should these donations map to? You can set defaults that will handle that mapping. In the case of funds, you might want to let the constituent choose from a menu of options there, and then set up the field mapping to assign the choices to the appropriate fund.

  • What is the default payment type you want to assign? Something like “Online” or “Credit Card” probably makes sense.

  • What category do you want to assign to these gifts, if any? This is another kind of default you might want to set.

Step 3

Watch the donations roll in. (Well, we hope so, anyway!) As form submissions come through, they will automatically land in your integration queue, at which point you can save them individually or set them to be processed automatically. New gift records will be created for each “paid” donation, and LGL will poll Wufoo for changes in status to any “unpaid” records.

NOTE: LGL will not save any record with donation information that is not in a "paid" state.

Handling events

With or without payment options included, you can connect all form submissions to a particular event. Doing so allows you to collect RSVP information and to take advantage of any custom fields or categories you have defined for that event in LGL, which in turn will cut down on data entry in a major way. With payment information included, you could even handle ticket sales in a fairly basic way.

Step 1

Create your event form in Wufoo. As before, the first step in the process is to create the form for your event in Wufoo. Here’s a basic example:

Step 2

Create the corresponding event in LGL. If you want all submissions to go toward a particular event, you need to make sure that event exists in LGL. We recommend that you do this before you connect the form and start the field mapping process. It’s also a good idea to add any custom fields or categories you’ll need (usually this depends on the fields in the form). Using the above form as a foundation to build from, you would want to create an event named “Simple Event” and then add a custom field to track the number of additional guests for each record.

Here’s a quick summary of how you can do that:

  • Navigate to your Fundraising > Events page and create a new event:

  • After saving the event, click on the Customize Event button

:

From there, click on the Invitation Attributes menu, and then click the Add attribute button to add a custom attribute:

NOTE: you can also add custom categories for an event from this same area, which is a great way to capture menu-driven information from a form. Examples might include sponsorship levels or types that are specific to a given event.

Step 3

Connect the Wufoo form to the LGL event. With your event all set up in LGL, you can now return to the Integration Settings page to connect the form.

First, you will want to connect the form, as described in Section 3 above:

Next, you want to make sure that this form will be connected to your event within LGL. You can do this by clicking the Map fields button for your form:

On the next page, check the Show custom fields for a specific event checkbox, and choosing the appropriate event (in this case, the Simple Event):

Now, you can start mapping the fields. You will notice that many fields are mapped automatically, since LGL can recognize the names, but others will need to be mapped manually. Here is what the mapping might look like when you are done:

With that done, you can save the field mapping and then go back to the Wufoo Integration Settings page in your LGL account and click the Enabled checkbox to connect up the form:

You are all set to begin accepting event registrations for the Simple Event.

Advanced form/field mapping techniques

In this section, we cover several useful but advanced techniques for mapping data from Wufoo forms into LGL.

Applying rules to any field mapping

When mapping fields from Wufoo, rules can be applied to any field mapping. There are currently three types of rules, which can be used to:

  • Set defaults: Any field can have default values connected to it. In some cases, these values will be directly related to the field in question (setting the "Phone Type" appropriately for a “Cell phone” number, for instance), but in other cases they will only be tangentially related (for instance, if you want all constituents submitting a form to be added to a particular group in LGL).

  • Prepend text: Most text fields will allow you to prepend values. A common use for this is if you want to combine multiple fields into one text field in LGL, and then have a way to identify each value with its original source.

  • Map values: Mapping values is useful for connecting up various menu selections from your forms to particular menus within LGL. For example, you can map RSVP statuses from your form to the appropriate LGL RSVP status. This rule is available for any field in LGL that has multiple controlled values (like categories, funds, campaigns, gift categories, payment types, etc.)

To set up a rule for a given mapping, you can click the Add rule button next to the LGL field, and then pick the appropriate value:

Setting default values

As mentioned above, it is often useful to set default values. In the case of an email address, maybe you want it to always be assigned a “Home” type, and then also be marked as the “Preferred” email address:

You can do this by adding two default values to the email address field, and a similar approach can be used for phone numbers and email addresses.

In other cases, you might want to make sure that every constituent gets a particular group, tag, or other category assigned. To do this, pick a field you know will always be present (for example, first name, and then add a few defaults):

Connecting multi-valued Wufoo fields to multi-valued LGL fields

It is quite common for Wufoo forms to have multiple values, either as dropdown menus or multiple-choice selections. These fields can be mapped cleanly to any LGL field that also supports menus (they can be mapped to any field, actually, but we recommend linking them up to known values in LGL, if possible). For instance, you might collect information about a volunteer’s interests through a form, and you would also be able to map each of those values to a corresponding value in a custom constituent category in LGL, such as “Volunteer Interest”.

  • The first step in this process is to make sure you have a Volunteer Interest category. You can set that up on the Settings > Menu Items page in LGL, and then add the appropriate values.


  • Then, when mapping the fields from your volunteer signup form, you can connect the form choices to the LGL Volunteer Interest values by adding a "Map values" rule: 



  • For good measure, you can also set a default so that these constituents will be added to the Volunteer group: 


Now your form submissions will be nicely categorized in LGL.

Wrapping up

We’ve only covered the basics when it comes to what you can do with Wufoo forms and LGL, but you should have enough information now to get up and running with some basic forms.