Jul 30

Partial Submissions: Values should be updated and recorded when user hits the "next page" button

Currently, when partial subs are on, the values of variables are only updated and recorded when the user NEXT interacts with an input field. The "next page" button currently does count as said user interaction and doesn't update variable values. This seems like a technical oversight. "How can there be variable updates of consequence when user hasn't interacted with an input field?" Calculated values. We discovered this issue when trying to use a calculated value to track where a user drops off in our multipage form. However, some pages on this multi page form are text only and don't contain any user interaction block aside from the next page button. We were skeptical that 100% percent of visitors to our form would drop off on either page 2 or page 4 (the only pages with input blocks), with 0% on page 3 or 1, which lead some testing and conversation with support. This is why I'm making this post. Support suggested that we add some required input blocks to these text only pages but that would just lead to friction and additional drop off, too big of a trade-off. Why this matters: Calculated values are variables that are (optionally) not seen by the user. Simply being able to track where users drop off by using conditionals and hidden variables means we don't have to grapple with Google analytics or pay for plausible, which isn't even able to track individual user journeys like these hidden variables can. I'm sure there are other use cases too. To the user, there isn't any perceived difference between a required untitled multiple choice button vs a next page button (depending on styling ofc) -- both require user interaction. So why is it that pressing one would trigger an update to the recorded partial sub values while the other does nothing and just loses useful data? Not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just asking for the definition of "user intractable field" to actually include all user intractable elements of consequence.

Pending