Hello,
I have the following problem and I have no idea how to solve it, so any idea is highly appreciated: I want to build a form where the customer can select from a list of products he is interested in. After submission he should get one email containing the links to the products he selected. My first idea was to build workflows and automated emails with the links, but the customer can select between 15 products so the amount of combinations from the selected products is too high to create an email for each combination. So I tried to put the contacts into lists, and added smart rules to the lists. But what happens now is, that the customers on the lists get all links they ever selected, bcecause they don’t leave the list after their first submission.
I hope my explanation makes sense, it’s a bit complicated. Many thanks for any idea 
Hi @AWesterhoff,
This is a tricky one. You probably don’t want the links to be listed as plain text, one after another separated by comma. (That’s what happens when you use a multiple checkboxes property as a personalization token. This could be achieved.) I assume this email should include the products and links, formatted with paragraphs and hyperlinks – and that’s where you end up with smart variations. (And yes, creating that many variations would be insane.)
Could explain your smart rule approach in more detail? (“So I tried to put the contacts into lists, and added smart rules to the lists. But what happens now…”) I can’t quite follow what you did here but getting contacts to leave lists seems solvable.
Best regards!
Hi @karstenkoehler,
Thanks for the reply, that gives me a bit hope I created lists for each product. So if you selected product xyz, you are a member of the list xyz. And in the email the smart rule checks, if you are member of the list xyz, and if you are, you see the download link to product xyz. Hope that makes sense. This way I ended up with over 30 lists, but that’s ok, if it would work. Unfortunately it does not, I am guessing it’s because the next time you fill out the form, you are still on the list of product xyz, even if you selected only product abc this time, so you get both links. Means it’s just adding the products to the email and the email is not refelecting what you really selected.
I said “I am guessing” here because actually my test emails even contained sometimes no links at all even though I was on afew of those lists, so it was a bit strange what exactly went wrong. But maybe I just have a typo in one of the smart rules, or it is really not behaving the way I am expecting
Thanks,
Ariane
Hi @AWesterhoff,
I’m not sure about the issue you’re describing in your second paragraph but the overall question can be answered
I’d recommend working with two properties here, let’s say one is called Product interest (use in forms), the other one is Product interest (all-time selections).
Your lists used for the emails would be based on Product interest (use in forms). Right after sending your automated email, you could clear this property in an email. If your lists are based on this property’s value, the contact would leave the list as soon as the property is cleared. If they come back, the next time they start with a blank page – they might enter lists again but they won’t be in a list already from the last time. (Make sure to review re-enrollment of all your workflows.)
Now I assume you want to keep track of the choices that a contact has ever made. This can be achieved with the Product interest (all-time selections) property. A workflow can append the value from the Product interest (use in forms) property tot he Product interest (all-time selections) property. This would be a bit tedious, unfortunately. You would create a short workflow for each option.
Workflow 1:
If Product interest (use in forms) is equal to any “Product 1”, append “Product 1” to Product interest (all-time selections)
Workflow 2:
If Product interest (use in forms) is equal to any “Product 2”, append Product 2" to Product interest (all-time selections)
etc.
Unfortunately, yes, these need to be separate workflows since your form allows the selection of multiple values – each needs to be carried over by its own workflow. (Still better than a workflow with branches for all combinations, eh?)
This second part would make sure that you can keep track of all selections. The forms property would always be cleared after sending the emails.
Keep in mind that you want to give the workflow that copies over the information enough time before the forms property is cleared.
Hope this helps!
That did work. Many thanks @karstenkoehler !
Nice, glad to hear, @AWesterhoff!