How to Use Query Parameters
Query parameters allow Blitzen forms to categorize inbound traffic. By adding query parameters you can categorize form submissions by source, coupon code, and many other factors. We need two parts to make this happen: a unique form URL and a hidden field.
URL Primer
Before we begin here, let’s brush up on your understanding of URLs. A URL, otherwise known as a Web Site Address has up to five main parts in the following order: protocol, host, path, query string, and fragment.
In this article we will be focusing on the query string.
It is important to note that query strings do not change the look of a page. All they do is attach extra information to the URL.
The query string is identified by the first question mark “?” in the URL. What follows is what is called a "key-value pair" separated by the equals character “=”.
When there are multiple key-value pairs they are separated by the ampersand character “&”
Think of the key as a category and the value as an item in that category
The ‘key’ in our example is ‘campaign’ (campaign referral)
The ‘value’ in our example is ‘facebook’
The benefit to having unique URLs like this is that you can segment form submissions based on the values. Now that you understand the theory, let’s put it into practice.
1. Generate Unique URLs for Your Form
For the moment this needs a bit of manual work.
Go to the ‘Forms’ section in Blitzen and navigate to your desired form.
In the right panel, below the form name, there will be a link to your form. Copy that address.
This is the first part of your unique URL. Paste it into a basic text editor (TextEdit, Notepad) , or any app that will easily allow you to manipulate the url text (Evernote, MS Word, etc.)
Now type out your query parameters.
Add a “?” and type in your key-value relationship. Make sure to follow the format “key=value”
What we are doing here is creating a unique URL for a specific occasion. In this example, we want to create a link designated for a Facebook post. When people click on it, the form will capture that the click came from Facebook.
The words you use are arbitrary; the only important thing is that they mean something to you. Think ahead to when you will be analyzing your form analytics.
Let’s say we want to create unique URLs for twitter and Instagram as well. All we have to do is keep the key and change the value like so:
Now that we have that done, feel free to save this file for future use. We will eventually use the URLs to create links on these specific platforms. But before we do that we need to tell your form to capture these values through a hidden field.
2. Create a Hidden Field on Your Form
Open the form you want to use query parameters with (How to Access a Form) and insert a Single Line Text field into your form (How to Add a Field).
It does not matter what you call this field. For the sake of continuity, we will call it ‘Campaign’. (How to Name a Field).
Open the field and go to the 'Design' menu.
Check the box that says ‘Do Not Display This Field’
This action ensures your respondents do not see the field on your form.
Now go into the ‘Validation and Autofill’ menu and check ‘Autofill this field with a value from a query parameter’
In the text box you will need to type out the following formula:
{{x ? x : ''}} where x = the key you specified the unique URL . In our example the key was ‘campaign’.
This tells your form to look for the key in the URL, autofill it with the value, or otherwise fill it with nothing. Now that we have our form ready we can distribute our URLs!
3. Link the URLs
This is the easiest step of all. In our example we created three unique URLs because we want to disseminate the form on three different platforms and have the ability to review the sources in the form analytics.
Naturally all that is left to do is post the links on their platforms!
Now every time someone clicks on these links, the sources will be captured in your form submissions like so (How to See Form Submissions):
Great job! This is only one example of a use-case for query parameters. Now that you have it down, we’d love to see what you can do with it.
Reserved Query Parameters
Blitzen uses a few query parameters for its forms by default, you may notice these in the address bar:
submissionID - If you allow your applicants to Save Progress their form will have a unique submission ID number (For example, their URL would look like so: https://blitzen.com/form/application?submissionID=1234)
Preview - if your form is unpublished the form will always have a "preview=true" appended to the form URL.
autosubmit - if you want the form to be submitted every time it is accessed you can add autosubmit=true to the URL and it will automatically be submitted.
Since these keys are already in use, please refrain from giving them your own values.
Next steps: Integrate an app to export information.