Pre and Post population fields do not effect form usage

Request forms with ‘Post-population‘ lookups defined in them are no different to use than any other Request form – Post-population fields are not identified in any way in the form (symbols like the ones used for Autocomplete and Dynamic population are not used) .  The data entered in the form will be used in co-operation with the post-population definition to obtain additional information after the form is submitted – the form user will never see that the additional information has been added to the request that they entered. 

A common use for post-population lookups is to add client contact details to a question created from an imported email. The question will have the client’s email address included as that will have come from the email import process. If the Request form associated with the email import process includes a Post population definition, the email address included in the question will be used to bring in other contact information for that client from the Data source, such as Phone number and Department.

Request forms with ‘Pre-population‘ lookups defined in them are also little different to use than any other Request form – the retrieved data will be added to the form before it is displayed – the designer of the form will decide which of the retrieved fields will be displayed to the user and which will not by setting the type of the field into which the retrieved data will be mapped: As a result of their setup, when a form with a ‘Pre-population’ lookup defined in it displays, the form will generally have some information already filled into it.

In the following screen print, the ‘Pre-population’ lookup associated with this form has resulted in the form user’s name (the client) showing in it when the form first displays. The client’s email address has also been retrieved by the Pre-population lookup and that data entered in the ‘client email’ field as a result of the Lookup, but to keep the form short and simple to use, the form designer has decided not to display that information in the form (it has been defined as a Hidden field).