How to Dynamically Populate Form Fields in Gravity Forms

1. How to Dynamically Populate Form Fields in Gravity Forms
   1. Step #1: Installing GF Populate Anything
   2. Step #2: Populating Field Choices and Field Values
   3. Step #3: Filtering
   4. Step #4: Live Merge Tags
2. Transferring Data Using GF Easy Passthrough
3. Conclusion

Having the ability to dynamically populate form fields means that you can populate data from anywhere on your site. In other words, you can fill in form fields based on data entered elsewhere. Depending on the circumstances, you could be dynamically entering values or choices in your forms.

Dynamically populating form fields is great for long, complicated forms. Instead of prompting users to re-enter data, you can automatically populate large amounts of data in relevant form fields.

Here are some examples:

• This is useful for product or service pages where a user enters their name at the top of the form and it’s automatically entered in other fields where the user’s name is required.
• Populating fields from another field is also useful for e-commerce stores. For example, you can allow customers to drill down by chaining selects (i.e. Year -> Make -> Model).
• You can let users look up and populate previously entered data. For example, a sales person taking orders enters the customer’s email address and all the previous details for the last order for that customer can be populated in corresponding fields.

One of the key benefits of dynamically loading data instead of re-entering it is that it improves the accuracy and consistency of your forms. In this way, you’re less likely to run into typos when copying choices, entries, or selections from one from to another.

In this tutorial, we’ll explain how you can dynamically populate form fields using the Gravity Forms plugin with Gravity Perks.

How to Dynamically Populate Form Fields in Gravity Forms

There are two main things you might want to populate dynamically:

• Field choices such as Drop Downs, Radio Buttons, and Checkboxes
• Field values such as the user’s name, email address, or phone number

It’s worth mentioning that there are default ways to populate data in Gravity Forms. If you’re a developer, you can populate data dynamically using query strings, shortcodes, blocks, or hooks.

However, the best (and most intuitive) tool for dynamically populating Gravity Forms fields from another field is by using the GF Populate Anything perk.

Here’s how it works:

Using GF Populate Anything, you can dynamically populate field choices and field values with posts, users, taxonomies, terms, Gravity Forms entries, and databases. The field choices and field values can be filtered based on the values that are entered (or selected) in other fields. This allows you to fetch and populate fresh, dynamic data as the user interacts with the form.

Next, let’s take a look at how you can use GF Populate Anything to dynamically populate form fields.

Step #1: Installing GF Populate Anything

The first thing you need to do is get Gravity Perks and install GF Populate Anything on your WordPress website. To do this, head over to Forms > Perks from the WordPress admin panel.

Step #2: Populating Field Choices and Field Values

The easiest way to dynamically populate form fields is by using the GF Populate Anything perk. It lets you populate any choice-based field or value field with dynamic, filterable data.

Enable either Populate Choices Dynamically or Populate Value Dynamically for a form field in the Gravity Forms form editor. Both options work the same way.

Add a field to your Gravity Forms form that supports choices. For example, this could be a Drop Down field, Radio Buttons, or Checkboxes. Next, enable dynamic population for the form fields that you’d like to populate with data from another field.

Once that’s done, select an object type that you’d like to populate the field with. This can be a post, user, taxonomy term, databases, or another Gravity Forms form. The GF Populate Anything perk lets you add filters to show the desired objects, as well.

Finally, choose which object properties should be displayed on the front-end by setting the choice (or value in case of dynamically populating field values) template.

Step #3: Filtering

One of the standout features on offer with GF Populate Anything is that you can filter and populate fresh, dynamic data based on the values and selections made in other form fields. You can filter objects by configuring settings for filter groups, operators, properties, and values (or choices).

First, create groups of conditions that you’ll use to filter out the objects that are populated into the field dynamically. All conditions in the filter group must be true for the group to match. Only the objects that match the group will be populated into the field.

Depending on the filter object you select, you’ll see different properties to choose from. For example, if you select Post, you can choose from:

• Author
• Parent Post
• Post Content
• Post ID
• Post Status
• Post Title
• Post Type
• Post Taxonomies (Dynamic)
• Post Meta (Dynamic)

And if you choose a Gravity Forms entry, then you can choose from:

• Created by (User ID)
• Entry ID
• Fields (Dynamic)

The filter value drop down will automatically be populated with a list of values that apply to the selected property. The objects can also be filtered by values that are entered by the user when the form is filled out.

All you have to do is select the desired field from the Form Field Values option group. Whenever a user enters a value into the specified field, the objects populated into this field will be filtered by that value.

Step #4: Live Merge Tags

Populate Anything supports live merge tags. This means that you can add auto-updating merge tags anywhere inside your forms. This includes in labels, descriptions, choices, values, and HTML content.

Any merge tag that’s prefixed with an @ will automatically be replaced when its associated field is updated. The live merge tags also support a special modifier called the fallback modifier. This can be used to display content when the merge tag doesn’t have a value.

As an example, if you give users the option to enter their name but don’t require it, you can use a fallback modifier to greet them with a friendly Hello there! instead of simply Hello! by using the fallback modifier Hello @{Name:1.3:fallback[there]}.

Transferring Data Using GF Easy Passthrough

GF Easy Passthrough lets you transfer data between Gravity Forms. In other words, you can capture information from one form and then pass the data through to another form to pre-populate fields in the new form.

This way, you don’t have to spend time setting up dynamic parameter names and customizing confirmation query strings. This is great for when you need to dynamically pre-populate data across multiple forms or multi-page forms. The best part is that you can configure GF Easy Passthrough to automatically passthrough a user’s last submitted entry across sessions using a token.

Conclusion

Using Gravity Perks, you can dynamically populate form fields with field choices and field values and transfer data between Gravity Forms.

The field choices and field values can be filtered based on the values that the user entered in other fields or selected in other fields. This way, you can get dynamic data and populate it in other fields as the user interacts with the form.

You can also pass data from one form to pre-populate fields in another Gravity Forms form.

Ready to dynamically populate form fields? Get the GF Populate Anything perk and the GF Easy Passthrough perk today!