How is Checkboxes data stored? How can Checkboxes data be picked up in Smart List Flows?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I’m having trouble figuring out how to get Checkboxes data to transfer into Smart List flows to help trigger different actions as well as transmit data to our Salesforce reps.

On a form I am building, I am utilizing a mandatory Checkboxes field where there are four options (A, B, C, D) and at least one checkbox needs to be ticked. If checkboxes A and C are checked, how is that info stored in a field in Marketo? Ideally, I’d like our Salesforce reps to see that A and C were checked. We would also send specific follow-up email messaging based on the checkboxes selected.

I tried making a Smart List that would write these selected values to their own fields, but I don’t see any way for the Smart List Flow to update user data based on Checkboxes field selections – all I see is the initial form field but no pre-population of the checkbox options I put into the form.

I could make the individual form checkbox fields A, B, C, and D and align them so they appear to be one set of checkboxes, but I’m not sure how I’d trigger the logic so that at least one field is mandatory as it can be programed in the native checkboxes field.

Manually checking a lead’s activity history isn’t ideal since I’d like to be able to report on checkbox field selections through some type of export.

I did some brief searching in the forums here, but couldn’t find a specific answer to this use case. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

[John_Clark1 · Accepted solution]

The entry type of a field isn't necessarily the same as the data type of that field.  In this case, a standard checkbox field is Boolean, meaning it can only accept true/false, yes/no, on/off.  This would preclude having four options, so I'm guessing your field is probably a string type field with an entry type of Checkboxes.

Depending on whether a box was checked when the form was submitted, the value associated to that box would get written to the string field.  So the value of that field could be anything from "a" to "a;b;c;d".

When you have multiple values in a field like this, it's usually easiest to use the "contains" feature in your smartlist filters/triggers.  For instance, you could have a trigger that says Data Value Changes > New Value "contains" "a", then send an alert based on that.  The alert could contain a token for that string field that houses the values the lead chose, and the salespersons would see the values listed in the field.

Having four different fields could work, but it wouldn't be possible on your form to make them work together and have at least one required.

John

[Anonymous]

Ah-ha, that works perfectly! The checkboxes are indeed storing into the field with semicolons (A; B; C; D). I set up the campaign as you suggested so that "contains" for each value triggers its own action.

Marked as correct.

Thanks!

Noah

[SanfordWhiteman]

But how are you dealing with "I’d like our Salesforce reps to see that A and C were checked" -- I thought you meant these were populating individual checkboxes in SFDC as well.

Also, fields that contain the unescaped delimiter or partial matches will screw up primitive parsing methods (i.e. a search for "do" will match "don't").

[Anonymous]

I created four new SFDC fields that are simply true/false fields and then created the logic in Marketo to mark them as True if they are checked in the checkboxes field. Been testing it out and it works flawlessly. Kind of clunky at first but works for me - and the reps in Salesforce can run reports now that each of those categories have their own field.

Noah

[SanfordWhiteman]

Fair enough, but I think having four fields in Marketo is more maintainable, since then they will sync back correctly from SFDC and you don't need any special flow steps in Marketo.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Having four different fields could work, but it wouldn't be possible on your form to make them work together and have at least one required.

It's actually really easy to have separate boolean fields and have at least one required on the form.  Just use your own quick validation.

This seems a lot better suited to this case than a delimited string, since the end goal appears to be different checkboxes surfacing in SFDC.

[John_Clark1]

Hi Sanford,

I should have been more clear.  It's not possible using only the out-of-the-box features of Marketo to make fields work together in this way.

Users are, of course, free to add custom validation code to their pages.

John

[SanfordWhiteman]

I try to consider Forms 2.0 an out-of-the-box feature.

Quick demo: MktoForms2 :: Indie Checkboxes to Virtual Checkbox Set​