[mar23cas]

Hi All,

I know the API is pretty limited for online forms, but I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here:

Summary: Need to allow online form to only edit existing custom records and not create them. Also up for any other options with same end result.

Background: I have created a custom record for certain non-inventory items sold (i.e. warranty plans), but we may be selling these non-inventory items to dealers who then sell them to customers. For this reason we want to set the plans to a pending activation status on purchase, then require the customer to enter their information via an online form to "activate" the plan.

Current: I've created an online form that is linked to the custom record. This form uses two search fields to find the previously created custom record via two fields (randomly generated numbers for plan # and activation code) and requests the customer enter their email and purchase date. If the two search fields are entered correctly, the email replaces the email field on the record and the purchase date becomes the "activation date" and a workflow sets the status field to "activated" (good!).

Issues: I want to prevent erroneous records and notify the customer when they entered fields incorrectly. Currently, if I enter an incorrect search field, the custom form simply creates a new record (bad!). Also, there is no way to inform the customer that they have successfully activated their plan.

Goals:Prevent creation of new records and only allow editing existing records via online form (or any other option).
Notify customer if they enter either of the search fields incorrectly (i.e. no records found via search).
Notify customer they successfully activated their plan (i.e. updated an existing record).
I would really appreciate if anyone can point me in the right direction here. Unfortunately, we are required to have this activation form available via both our website AND our web store (SCA-Vinson, which I'm sure is going to create a few headaches as well).

Thanks!
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[k_dunc]

Depending on how your dealers are accessing a given URL (i.e., are you emailing it to them?), you could potentially pre-populate most of the fields in the Online Form by passing these in as parameters in the URL. Doing this, means that the fields that you don't want changed can't be changed, and you then maintain a specific ID back to the Custom Record that you want updated (so long as you pass this as a parameter too). In your Online Form setup, ensure that you set one or more fields to "Select" and set the "Handle Duplicate Records" to "Update the first record created." That should get you on the way.

[mar23cas]

Hi, thanks for the response. Unfortunately these will be printed and physically mailed. The dealers will not be activating them, but passing them on to consumers who will later visit our site to activate.

As a temporary fix I've designed a workflow to immediately inactivate all erroneous records, and to send an activation confirmation for good activations. The system informs users to try again if they don't recurve an activation confirmation within a few minutes or call if they never do. Hopefully, that'll do until I figure out another option.

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