Cognito Forms, from the company of the same name in South Carolina, is presented by the vendor as an easy-to-use online form builder, allowing anyone to create, publish, and manage forms, with free and paid plans. With it, users can create unlimited forms including registration forms, payment forms, and surveys without coding. Forms can be embedded directly into a website, and form submissions can be viewed from any device, any time.
$0
1 user
FormAssembly
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
The FormAssembly Data Collection Platform helps organizations collect, connect, and protect data. It features a no-code form builder that simplifies the process of collecting data in the most complex environments. Multi-stage workflows automate manual processes and business-critical integrations – including Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft – provide a connected data ecosystem that ensures data is where it’s needed, when it’s needed. Its operational standards, combined with…
It's excellent for small sets of forms, from simple to highly complex It's not good at scale. With over 170 forms now, we desperately need some way to manage and maintain shared content once Cognito does not help. Their approach is that you can copy a working form (great) and modify it to create the next one. That's how we've got so many forms...
FormAssembly has been an essential tool to have in our back pocket. It's best when you need a form quickly and can compromise on some of the dynamic elements that would be possible in Visualforce. It serves a particularly critical need when skilled developers are at a premium, but clever admins are available.
SalesForce integration is really nice. You can map to specific fields with form values, or you can use detailed formulas. You can also choose to bypass assignment rules on a per-form basis, and create customized logic for when cases are created, when leads are created/merged, etc. It's very robust.
Form creation in general is very simple. They've gotten good over the years of creating an intuitive, drag and drop interface that's quick to edit. I like that you can also assign values to fields so conditional form building gets easy.
I like that you can customize how responses are viewed in the response window. Choose what columns show up so you can find records with ease, and with just one glance. OR you can download everything to excel in a snap too.
We have families of forms with a mix of unique parts and common functionality. Cognito has no ability to copy a field or a section (set of fields) between forms. If you need to update the common functionality, you have to do it separately for each affected form.
It seems that the (large and impressive) functionality has outgrown the capabilities provided to manage sets of complex forms that exploit this functionality - such as copying and pasting between forms or being able to define a section in one place and have it appear in many forms (#include)
The documentation is incomplete - often have to discover how things work by trial and error
The information coming from Salesforce to use in the choices for an answer does not always appear as needed. (API vs name).
Ability for Admins to see and edit every user's forms. This would be useful in the event that someone is no longer with the institution.
When a form is cloned, it would be nice if the connector were also cloned but not active. This would allow us to verify and turn on without having to rebuild everything.
One major point for us is our migration to a completely Microsoft infrastructure. IN addition to that, the afore mentioned need to ingest external data resources means that we do have our eyes open toward the landscape so that we can fill these needs. This in no way indicates a move away from FormAssembly: their support is first rate, and so far the product has always stood up to the tests we've put it through.
Given how many sophisticated features appear in the form builder itself, the back-end management can feel strikingly skimpy at times. More dynamic or visually appealing confirmation messages/email notifications would realign these with the existing capabilities of the forms themselves. This is a small issue though because data capture is our primary priority in form fills and it is always excellent in Salesforce!
Very friendly and helpful, but typically takes at least one day to respond. However, when they do respond they dive right into the specific form I ask about and tell me exactly how to fix what I need help with
While it's not a true development package and misses some features like ingestion of external data for lists, etc... the product is fast, stable, easy to use, and will suit the needs of anyone needing online form functionality with SalesForce and other connectors available for your marketing needs.
I have not used any other programs like Cognito Forms. I have been with my company for almost two years. I very much like the ease of this system and its capabilities. I like knowing everyone is using the same thing. I do not foresee us making any changes to our current use of Cognito Forms.
Form Assembly allows for advanced data mapping, pre-filling forms with Salesforce data, and working with custom objects. FormAssembly excels in Salesforce Integration, as it is highly specialized and deeply integrated. Often considered the industry leader for Salesforce forms, Formstack has strong integration, but may not offer the same level of granular control as FormAssembly.
