Form Options - Remove option once form is live

[Jamie_Dombrady]

Hello,

I am working on deploying an email campaign that includes a form on a landing page for customers to fill out to request a product sample. We have three different scents to choose from. Is there a way that I can set a rule to remove a scent option from the form once it has reached a limit, say 25 people have selected it and I have 25 samples allotted? Then only allow the remaining 2 options to appear on the form as active selections?

Thanks!
Jamie

[SanfordWhiteman]

Please move the thread to Products to continue. There's a Move link at the right.

[Jamie_Dombrady]

Thanks! Just moved it!

[Anonymous]

No, you can't change the form in flight.

[SanfordWhiteman]

You definitely can change the form at runtime: this is something we do all the time, for example for localization or URL-specific layouts.

The question here is how to access the ​criteria ​by which you decide how to render the form.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Jamie, what you're talking about is a form of the ​Counter Pattern ​in Marketo. Counters are used to count things taken off a stack -- those things can be registrations to a space-limited event, software trial keys, or, as in your case, sample packs or other physical offers -- it doesn't matter what the thing is, it's all the same concept.

Unfortunately, counters aren't a true built-in feature, so we have to manage them in one of 2 ways:

1. Using a special lead to represent the counter, which I call a ​Resource Lead. Whenever you use up a thing, send a form post (using a webhook) to that special lead that tells the lead to bump up a score field.
2. Using a true counter in a remote database, also incremented (or decremented) via webhook.

OK, so now you have a counter with the right count... somewhere out there. Then the question becomes, as I alluded to above, how to use that count to influence the display of a form.  Best destination (IMO) to store these options is a program-level {{my.token}}: have the webhook in (2) also update the program token via the Asset API when you go over a certain target count. But some people just manage the {{my.token}} by hand and have the webhook trigger an email ("Campaign Blah-Blah has used all its chits!") to remind them to change it.