I’m using Fillout to build a tool that enables clients to book an automation sprint for a date that suits them, and the kick-off call.

I manage my clients and sprints in Airtable (which I love). Fillout integrates directly with Airtable, and has the best integration I have seen.

This is what the first page of the scheduler looks like.

To make this automation sprint scheduling tool as smooth as possible for the client, I don’t want them to have to manually add their name and email address. After all, I already know that and have that data in Airtable. Pre-filling this sort of information in forms is standard practice with most form builders these days, but Fillout takes this a step further. With Fillout, you can get data from any field in an Airtable table, even if you haven’t passed that to the form directly. All you need to pass to Fillout is the ID of the record for the specific client in Airtable.

To illustrate this, I need to explain how I’ve set this up.

Airtable table

In Airtable, I have a table called “Clients” and another table called “Sprints”. The Fillout form is connected to the Sprints table because it will add a new sprint for every client that books one. But the Clients table is the one I need for this purpose.

Fillout clients hidden field

On the first page of Fillout, have a hidden field, which is connected to the Clients Airtable table. This field has a default value, which is the ID of the record in Airtable. This field is set to “Hide always”, as I don’t want the client to see it. It just needs to exist.

That ID is passed in as a URL parameter. This needs to be added to Settings -> URL parameters. All you have to do is add the name client as a parameter. This allows you to pass the ID from Airtable to the Fillout form, and then Fillout allows you to get any field from the client table.

Airtable button

The next step is to add a button to Airtable, which links to the Fillout form with the client URL parameter included. You can then simply copy and paste that URL and send it to the client.

To add the button:

  • Add a new button field
  • Leave the Action as Open URL
  • In the URL formula, add the following formula:
CONCATENATE("https://forms.fillout.com/t/1234567?client=",RECORD_ID())

You’ll need to get the form link of your Fillout form. You can get this from the Share tab on your form in Fillout.

The formula will take this URL along with the client parameter, and add the ID of the Airtable record.

Now that Fillout has the ID, you can get any field value for a specific client on any step in the form. In my case, I have it in these places:

  • First name and email on the first page
  • First name and email on a call schedule step

Pre-fill scheduler name and email

Here’s an example, where I’m getting the name and email on the scheduler step from Airtable.

Under Advanced, you’ll see the option to pre-fill the fields. You can choose Clients, which is the field on the first page that autopopulates with the client name from the ID.

You can then drill in and select any field from the Clients table in Airtable. In this case, I’m selecting Email.

This is what it will look like after pre-filling email and first name.

This means that when the client uses this form to schedule their sprint, they do not have to enter their name or email address. All they need to do is schedule the dates they want.

Updating Airtable records

In the example above, a record is created in Airtable every time someone fills in the Fillout form. You can also update existing records. To achieve that, head over to the Integrate section (top menu) in Fillout, click on your Airtable connection and change it to Update record.

This will give you the value for the formula field in Airtable. You can use this to create the button that I created above. You don’t need to create a hidden clients field like I did above when using the Update record option.

Wrapping up

Fillout has the best integration with Airtable that I have seen. It allows you to quickly create a step-by-step process for clients (or anyone) and pass data back and forth with Airtable with ease. This is a great experience for clients, and a real-time saver for you.

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