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I am looking for the quickest and easiest way to create a web-to-lead form for applicants and employees. We want to put our employee application on our site as a form with the submitted info going right into Method as an Applicant (Lead) so that we can use it to track that progress just like it is done with leads and customers. Can we get some guidance on a way this can be done. We have been struggling to create it to work correctly. I was able to do the basic customer WTL and get it to work from our website into the customer table, however, we tried to send it to the Contacts table with no such luck. After installing the Scheduling and Invoice app it appears to install a Team Member table but I was unable to use  that as well as the Employee table to send the information to.

Does anyone have a good way to handle this? Thank you, 

Hi mrjonboy,

The way that you have created your Standard Web To Lead form was correct. The information that is filled out on the web form will be sent to the customers table. The contacts table is used to store information for additional contacts for the lead or customer so you don't need to send that information to the contacts table.

In Method Scheduling and Invoices, when you click on the Edit Team Member Defaults... link, the dropdown for adding the different employees is actually coming from the information you have added in the screen under the Employee List tab link under the Employees tab within the QuickBooks tab group. The information that an employee would place in the web to lead form that you used would not be placed in the Employee table. 

Would you want to place the employees information in the employee table?

Ronen

Ahhh, that makes sense now about the contacts table. 

Well this is what we were wanting to do, maybe this will make it more clear where you can then make a suggestion for making it happen. We would like to track applicants (progress, contact, activity, etc.) and then convert them to employees (we actually them team members but I believe Methods use of that term is a team of employees - correct me if I am wrong) just like getting a customer lead (tracking their progress, contact, activity, etc.) and then converting them to a customer. So we wanted the WTL form to be that starting point where all the info normally on a resume or application would be in the form and then saved in a table. I guess the Employee table would work as long as we can separate with a IsApplicantOnly status like the IsLeadOnly status in the customers table. However, I believe I did already try to link to the Employee table in the WTL and it was not available assuming because of what you stated above. Once we have this base then we would love to expand the capability of the table allowing us to keep all our information about our team in one spot as well as their pay information in QBs. 

Thoughts? Thank you for the help.

Do we believe that this request is doable? 

Thank you,

@mrjonboy -

I feel what you are planning *should* work fine in theory.  We've never tried it ourselves, so that's why I say "theory"!

Lead status does exist for employees, the same way it does for customers and vendors.  Also, the web forms were made to handle generic scenarios like this, rather than be limited to just the standard out-of-the-box customer version.

I believe you would have to use the advanced option in the wizard to create a new form from scratch, rather than modify the basic, standard web-to-lead form.

Also, opportunities are designed for customers, so I don't recommend you insert an opportunity for the employee.

Ideally you'll be able to go through the wizard and a few clicks later you'll get the form collecting data the way you want - but keep in mind you also have 3rd party Method Solution Providers that you can hire to do it, or you can outsource the work to our team directly.  One way or another, I'm confident that what you are asking for is within the scope of Method's capabilities.

HTHs,

Paul

Obviously, I am not explaining myself correctly. I understand that I am not to use a Standard WTL form for what I am trying to do. I never thought that I was supposed to. Now that Ronen explained to me that the Contacts table is what it is then that moves me beyond that table.

I also understand that the standard WTL form goes to the Customer table not the employee table. When I try and use an employee table in an Advanced WTL form it does not give me that table as an option to link to. For some reason it skips that table. How can I get that to show as an option? That seems to me to be the table that I would create custom fields in and send my web information to. Is this correct? If so, how do I get the Advance WTL form to let me link to it? 

@mrjonboy - sorry, I didn't communicate that very well.  In the opening screen for the web form wizard, you need to select the "Create Custom Web Form" option.  Here you can choose the Employee table.  When you go this route, the only option is to the "Advanced" wizard steps.

I just created a super basic one with First Name, Last Name and IsLeadStatusOnly (this I made hidden and default to true), with only one table, the Employee table.  Worked fine, and took me less than a minute to do. But it would get more complex and time consuming once you start creating one that also inserts activities, sends email alerts, and uses formulas.

Paul

Paul, thank you for the replies. 

Yeah, I tried to choose the Employee table in the Custom Web form and unfortunately it isn't showing as an option for me, however, when I go to tables I do have an Employee table. That is weird, right? In the custom web form I do have a Team Member table as an option. That table has fields such as EmployeeorVendor1, EmployeeorVendor2,....., TeamName, etc. Is that what your Employee table shows or is that your Team Member table? The reason I asked is b/c I believe I changed some names around when I downloaded the Scheduling/invoicing app many months ago. We call our "employees" in our company "team members" and I was trying to match the tables up, but I don't remember if I did that or not. Regardless, I am not getting my Employee table as an option in the Custom Form even though I have that table. Can we figure out why that is? Is there something I can do to get the employee table to show up as a table option in the Custom Form?

Sorry for leading you guys on. I know it is as simple as you guys are saying it is.

Thank you ,  

@mrjonboy - which version of QuickBooks are you using?

I was using QuickBooks desktop in my tests. Are you using QuickBooks Online?  If so - that would explain your problem.  The Custom Web Form would only let you select tables that support add/edit.  Right now, for QuickBooks Online users the Employee table is read-only.

Crazy, I know....it's a limitation of the the QuickBooks Online API that all developers face right now (link to docs so that you know I had my morning coffee: https://ipp.developer.intuit.com/0010_Intuit_Partner_Platform/0050_Data_Services/0400_QuickBooks_Online/Employee).

So if you are using QBO, you are out of luck for now.  This will change as soon as Intuit opens up the employee table - and they are working quickly. They do it for QB Desktop, so I expect it to be on their "Version 3" which should be available and implemeted by us this summer.  I say "should be", because I can't promise what I can't control. A temporary work around would be to create your own table called "Applicants" and have the web form feed into that.  Of course, it's a dead end because you can't convert them into Employees yet, but at least you could create a workflow around the application process.

If you are using QB Desktop, however, then we need to figure out why you can't see the Employee table.  In this case, please make Method Support active (under Customize > Users) and private message me your Company Account name so that I can check it out.

Paul 

Yep, we have QBO. Thanks for the info. Seems like using QBO we are always on the trailing end. :-(

Anyway, i will do a work around, maybe info goes into the Team Member table for now. How will I know when things have been improved/updated so that I can start creating it the way I think we want it?

Thanks again.

@mrjonboy - I don't think TeamMember is going to work for you.  That's meant for the Scheduling & Invoicing app.  It's purpose is to group existing employees and relate them to a team.

It's better to create a new table.

In terms of finding out about updates, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for our release notes http://www.methodintegration.com/cs/blogs/releasenotes/default.aspx.  We do our best to update those notes when we have new features & fixes.

Paul

Thanks, Paul. Moving on it. Hopefully after I go through all this work of creating the tables I need that when the Employee table is allowed to be changed by users that I can easily move these applicants into it (if they become employees) or easily take entries from applicant table and move them to the employee table checking them IsLeadStatus to yes to seperate them. I am sure I will need guidance with that when/if it happens

I am seeing an isssue when creating the WTL forms, however. This has happened a few times now (I thought it was a glitch the 1st time but it keeps happening). I have multiple custom forms saved and certain forms (appears to be the bigger ones with more tables and fields) lose the information or won't load all the information that was saved last. For example, I have a form called Web-to-Applicant. I created it with 4 tables (Applicants, Employment, EmploymentFormer, and Education), picked all the fields in the right order, formatted fields and formulas and saved it, which obvisouly took a decent amount of time. If I go back into that form almost all the fields are missing and it is looking to one table - customers, which I didn't even direct it to initially. Can you help me figure out this glitch before I go through all the time of creating it and formatting this form again?

Also another comment off this topic. While customizing and creating screens it will be really cool if we could preview the screens and how they look right from that area without having to publish them or save and close and then go view the screen. Just a thought. 

Thank you, 

mrjonboy - I checked with the developers.  In looking at the logs, there was an error on your webform at 11:13 PM, Eastern time, yesterday.  Did the same thing happen at that time?  I'll create a ticket for them to figure out what went wrong, and hopefully it is the cause for your form to not save properly.  

(you're pretty cool about it......if I lost work I wouldn't be in a good mood)

On the side note - yes it would be *very* cool to preview.  We agree, and would absolutely benefit from that ourselves.  The problem we have with that though is that long time it takes to publish a screen is the same long time it would take to preview.....so it kind of defeats the purpose.  We've got a big revamp of the designer screen coming out later this year and I expect the publish time to be cut down dramatically (by many multiples).  At that time, a preview would be feasible.  Right now, it isn't.

I'll get back to you on the web form error.  Might be a couple days, though, until I get a good answer from the team.

Paul

I wasn't necessarily happy but Im not going to get stressed over something I can't control. :-) I just know I need to get this created and up on our site so I can move on with many other custom things we want to do. 

That time is probably about the time I noticed it messed up. Like I said it has happened before. I have noticed it happening when I close out of one form and then go into another and then back into the 1st one. not every time but sometimes it has screwed it up. I am not sure if that is the reason or not. In using Custom Forms it seems to revert back to the default tables when you start the Custom form process even though that is not what was saved. Hope this helps.

Also, the design of the Thank you page is not allowing me to put any information into the box. I have noticed this to come and go as well (sometimes does, sometimes doesn't)

Is there a way in the forms to get radio buttons or yes/no choices as opposed to just a single box that they check for yes?

Thank you, 

mrjonboy - just wanted to follow up and say that I haven't forgotten about you.  I just haven't yet got a definitive answer from the dev team on what happend with your web form entry.