It can happen that the integration is working as normal, and yet the contacts are not being created, or you're not receiving some of the custom field data that was collected during the submission.
If the integration triggers then chances are that the data is also being sent and you're not looking in the right spot, or perhaps there are some setup problems at play.
In this article we'll go through some of the most common scenarios and what can be done on each one of them.
Contact Is Missing
Here are a few reasons and things you can do if the integration triggers but you can't find the contacts.
Search for the contact on the app you've integrated with. Start by finding a submission with a contact that was not added to your integration's list and search for them. Most of the time the contact has been created, but the app you're using might not show it in a intuitive way (common with Klaviyo).
Example of Klaviyo's search function. The tool you use should have it as well.
The contact already exists on your list/group/ etc. If this is the case and the participant creates a new submission with the same email address, then their details will just be updated, no new contact will be created. There can be exceptions to this rule, so make sure to check this information on the dedicated help article of the integration you're using.
The contact was on the list, but it was deleted. This is more specific to Mailchimp, where if an email address was already on your list, it cannot be subscribed again even if deleted. If this happens, it doesn't matter how many submissions the participant creates, they will not show on the list.
Custom Fields Are Missing
This type of issue is usually more specific to reporting integrations, but it can also happen with other integrations.
Custom field was not correctly created. When mapping certain custom fields, you'll need to make sure that you write its name down correctly, and in some cases also pick the correct field type.
But sometimes it can happen that the name was not correctly written (if the field looks correct then make sure to check for things like spaces, these are virtually invisible but make a difference), or perhaps the wrong type was chosen.
To avoid this, make sure that you check the relevant article for your integration and follow the instructions in there to make sure the fields are being correctly created and mapped.
Specific to Reporting Integrations (Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Airtable, etc.)
With these kinds of integrations it is important to understand that submission data is always sent to its respective column on the sheet, this means that the data for the participant's first name will go to the column that has “First name” as its header title, and so on. The titles of the headers are automatically set up by the integration, so you don't need to set up anything.
Example of how submission data normally looks like on Google sheets.
It can happen however, that you have decided that certain columns are not necessary (since it's not possible to pick which data is received with these kinds of integrations), or maybe you would like for them to have different names so you can better organize your data.
While understandable, this is something we advise against. While data will still be received if you make any of these two changes, you will also experience formatting issues that will make the data hard to read.
To be more specific, any deleted columns will be automatically re-added to the right end of your sheet, and if you change the titles of any headers then new ones will be created on the right end of the sheet as well, while the column you changed the header title of will be empty and not receive any data.
In the example below we deleted the "Name" column, and changed the "Last name" column to be called "Family name" instead. As you can see, this caused formatting issues on the two new submissions (row 5 and 6). We now have empty cells under "Family name" and two new columns have been added on the right side.
In the above example the formatting is not too bad since we're only collecting minimal data, but in cases where a lot of data is being collected these formatting issues can become a big problem, and in some situations there might even be so many columns that you might not notice new ones have been added. This might cause you to think the data stopped being received, when it's actually being added all the way on the right side of your sheet under the new columns that have been created.
Fixing the Formatting Issue
If you figure that the problem you're experiencing is due to you having deleted columns, or having changed the titles of several headers, then you can do the following to fix the problem:
Revert the sheet back to how it was, prior to you making any changes to it. If the "Undo" option no longer works, then you will need to make these changes manually.
If the above suggestion is too much work due to how severe the formatting issue has become, then it might be best to consider creating a new sheet from scratch.
Possible Workarounds
We understand that sometimes a sheet might require some customization in order for you to make better sense of the data that it contains.
In order to achieve the levels of customization you require, while still making sure that the sheet's formatting is not impacted, we recommend syncing the spreadsheet that was created by the involve.me integration, with another sheet which will be the one you can customize.
This method should allow you to customize your data as needed, without having to worry about eventual formatting problems.
Alternatively, if all you want to do is make sure that certain columns are not visible, then you can just hide them instead of deleting them.
Did the above troubleshooting help? If not, reach out to our support team for help.