Connection Card Pro Help & Documentation

How Custom Forms Link to People Records

Custom Forms can collect information as standalone form submissions, or they can also be connected to people in your Connection Card Pro database.

This is helpful when you want a form submission to be connected to the person who submitted it, or when you want a form to collect information for one or more additional people.

Linking a form submission to a person

When editing a Custom Form, go to the form’s Settings page.

If you check Link submission to Person, Connection Card Pro will attempt to match the person submitting the form to an existing person in your database or create a new person if a match is not found.

This allows the form submission to be connected to a person profile.

How Connection Card Pro identifies the primary submitter

When Link submission to Person is enabled, the first set of contact information fields encountered on the form will be used for the primary submitter’s person profile.

For this reason, the first contact fields on the form should generally collect information for the person completing the form, unless you are intentionally designing the form differently.

Common fields used for matching or creating a person may include:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Cell Phone

In some cases, the following information may also be used to attempt to find a matching person:

• Birthday
• Grade
• Existing Relationships

The exact information used depends on the fields included in the form and the settings selected.

Matching by first and last name only

The form settings may include an option to Match to existing person based on first and last name only.

For most forms, it is best to collect enough contact information to help Connection Card Pro make a reliable match.

Preset fields

When adding a field to a form, you can choose a Preset. Preset fields connect the response to a known person-profile field, such as:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Cell Phone
• Birthday
• Mailing Address
• Company
• Title

Preset fields are different from fully custom fields.

A preset field tells Connection Card Pro what kind of profile information the answer represents. For example, a field using the Cell Phone preset is understood as a cell phone number, even if you change the question label to say something like “Your Cell Phone.”

Custom fields and Custom / No Preset

If a field is set to Custom / No Preset, the answer is saved with the form submission as a custom response.

Custom form fields are useful when you need to ask questions that are specific to that form, such as:

• “Which ministry are you interested in?”
• “Tell us about your previous experience.”
• “Which days are you available?”
• “Do you have any special requests?”

Custom fields do not work the same way as preset profile fields.

If you are creating a person profile but wish to collect standard information that should not auto-populate the person's profile, you may also set that field to Custom / No Preset.

Attaching uploaded files to a person

The form settings may include an option to Attach File(s) to Person.

When enabled, files uploaded as part of the form submission may be attached to the person connected to that submission.

If a file is uploaded in a section that creates or matches a separate person record, the uploaded file may be attached to that person instead of the primary submitter.

This can be helpful for applications, waivers, documents, forms requiring proof of eligibility, or other file uploads that should remain connected to a person profile.

Creating additional people from a form

The main Link submission to Person setting connects the form submission to the primary submitter.

If your form needs to collect information about additional people, such as children, household members, volunteers, or applicants, you will need to use section settings in the form builder.

In the section settings, you can enable:

Create a new person record (or match existing person) based on this section.

This tells Connection Card Pro that the information in that section represents another person.

For more information, see: Using Repeatable Sections to Collect Information for Multiple People

Best practices

When building a form that should connect to people records:

• Enable Link submission to Person when the submission should be connected to the submitter.
• Use preset fields for standard person-profile information.
• Collect first name and last name when creating or matching people.
• Collect email or phone number when possible to improve matching.
• Use custom fields for answers that are only relevant to the form submission.
• Avoid relying only on first and last name unless that is intentional.
• Test the form before sharing it widely.

When to use a Custom Form

Custom Forms are best for flexible information gathering, such as:

• Volunteer applications
• Ministry interest forms
• Care request forms (when requiring something other than our existing Group Care Need submissions)
• Membership forms
• Baptism interest forms
• General signups
• Requests that need follow-up
• Forms that need review or routing

For event registration, event payments, participant pricing, and event attendance, use the Events/Registrations module instead of a Custom Form.

For guest follow-up, a Digital Guest Card may be a better fit if you want the submission specifically tied to your guest follow-up process. Or, use a custom form when you require more customization.

For simple event sign ups for free events, such as pot lucks or 24/7 prayer events, a Simple Signup may be better suited.