Marketo Engage Forms & forms2.js jQuery update

[Steven_Vanderb3]

What is changing?

Currently, Marketo Engage Forms use jQuery library version 1.x when embedded on websites. In our next release beginning on January 9^th, 2024, we will be updating the jQuery library used by forms2.js to version 3.7.1.

Why is this change being made?

The currently used jQuery version has security vulnerabilities, is not sufficiently supported by browsers, and has reached the end of it’s supported lifecycle. jQuery 3. x offers enhanced security, better performance, smaller file sizes for faster loading on slow networks, ECMAScript 6 support, and several other advantages.

What customer action is required?

If your company’s website loads its own version of the jQuery library, and your website uses embedded Marketo Engage forms or forms2.js, it must be updated to support jQuery library version 3.x.

When must customers make the change?

Customers that load their own version of the jQuery library on their website and use embedded Marketo Engage Forms must be able support version 3.x  by January 9^th, 2024.

What happens if customers don’t act?

If a website is loading a version of jQuery that does not support version 3.7.1, their Marketo Engage embedded Forms on those pages may not load or submit successfully.

[Dave_Roberts]

Been looking forward to this getting updated for some time, thanks for the update here and excited that this is finally coming into play. Keep up the good work!

[TyrellC]

Thanks @Steven_Vanderb3 for sharing this update with us.

I am a little confused as to why an existing website that uses jQuery older than 3.x needs to now be using 3.x or later.

From my understanding, there is no requirement to be loading in jQuery externally to use forms2.min.js. 
Why then would a page need to update their jQuery version if it's not even a requirement to begin with?

I am worried about breaking other third party scripts or local scripts that the page may be using by updating to the 3.x jQuery library if they are using an older version. 

I would love some clarification on why the externally loaded jQuery library also requires the version update.

Thanks so much, and happy holidays! 

[nnasrallah]

@TyrellC It is my understanding that this will only affect your landing pages IF the jQuery you are using 'piggybacks' off of Marketo's jQuery. But the recommendation is to still set up a test environment and test with the updated version of jQuery. 

[SanfordWhiteman]

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It is my understanding that this will only affect your landing pages IF the jQuery you are using 'piggybacks' off of Marketo's jQuery. But the recommendation is to still set up a test environment and test with the updated version of jQuery. 

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That’s the largest part of it, yes. The major impact is if you reuse MktoForms2.$ as your jQuery library for other tasks (which is quite efficient as it avoids loading an extra resource).

In theory, there could also be impact if you use a different jQuery library instance (which only now has a different jQuery version) to access Marketo <form> elements, i.e. if elements are extended in different ways. But this is pretty unlikely IMO because your main jQuery was probably already a later version.

[megansniffen]

What did you have your developers do in this case? Our Marketo forms are not loading on Wordpress even after they have updated the JQuery locally? 

[SanfordWhiteman]

You’d have to link to your page to troubleshoot further. I kind of doubt that it’s directly connected to the internal jQuery version in the forms library.