I have a Webflow form connected to google sheets through zapier. In specific circumstances when information is submitted on my webflow form, new sheet rows are created in sheets. However, if new rows are not created, for any condition that is not met, is there a way for zapier to tell my webflow website to display the error message or that the submission was invalid?
@jakesnake why not make the fields ‘required’ in the webflow form? That should give you the same result
Thanks for the reply! Yes, I do have the fields set as required in the form and this allows for blank fields to be rejected. Then I have zapier create a new sheet row, consisting of their phone number and name, only if their phone number does not already exist in the sheet. My issue is that on the site, I have the form redirect to my home page upon a form submission whether or not a new row is created, and I would like zapier to trigger the error message if the new row isnt created (if the Phone number already exist in the sheets). I hope this makes sense! Thank you. @sarahfrison
ah, I see. I can’t say for sure but I think that’s beyond zapier’s capability. That would mean they would check your, let’s call it a database, each time a form is submitted against the phonenumbers already collected. I’d check with zapier, explain what you’re trying to do and see if that’s an option.
I have talked with someone at zapier and they suggested looking into webhooks and to see if there was a URL endpoint within webflow to send that request to and trigger the error.
Ive been learning about webhooks and searching for a way to find that endpoint or, if it doesnt exist, possibly manually make the webhook to connect the two. If not, Im curious if maybe there was a way for zapier to redirect the page if it fails, or display an image, or just any other form of signal that could replace the error.
@jakesnake webflow does allow webhooks so that could work. I wonder if someone like @rileyrichter could help out? I’m not super familiar with using webhooks.
@jakesnake - I believe the post you just referred to was spam.
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That would be great!
Here is a general description of what is happening.
Webflow’s webhooks are used to send data upon an event, to a remote endpoint (Zapier for example) that would then process the data and potentially act upon it. In this case, it is the form submission event that triggers the webhook. Webflow does not validate the data contents of form fields. Nor does it make logic decisions upon them. Form fields can be marked as required. Form fields can also have client-side validations depending on the type. There is no validation or logic you can control after the form submission to Webflow. It takes what was submitted, processes the data internally, stores the data, then sends off an email notification if set. When you integrate Zapier, and set up an automation based on a Webflow submission, the submission triggers a webhook. Then Zapier gets whatever Webflow received via the webhook.
So at this point, if you can perform logic based on field values within Zapier, that is where you would do it. The problem is you can’t then circle back to the submitter of the form based on a value received. They are technically not there as the connection is closed. This is why complex form processing is generally handled by a dynamic app that you code on the server that handles the logic and state with the submitter. Something that can’t be done with Webflow since one has no access to the backend application process.
What is one to do? Well, that depends. Here are some options.
If you can add the logic and data to a third party form processor that supports advanced form processing, that is an option.
Another would be to write custom JavaScript code that performed all the validations and provided the logic handling/processing before the submission event. In this case, the validation info would need to exist on the page that you could grab, or in the script itself or it would need to integrate remote data.
Yet another potentially more capable solution would be to build an endpoint that could process the data, the all the logic, and error handling, including populating a google sheet after submission. That would be probably be expensive however.
If this sounds verbose, it is only because the process itself is complicated. I am hopeful that the clarity I am adding here benefits you and others with similar issues in the future.
TLDR;
Investigate third party form processors that you can embed on the page. There are some very capable products shown in the University integrations page → form processing. Need something that does not exist? Hire a developer.
Note: If anyone has a comment or sees an error, please feel free to share it or let me know. Thanks!