Advanced Feature: Communicating with External Databases through HTTP POST

SurveyGizmo’s Enterprise level account offers a range of features for the advanced user. One of the most powerful features is HTTP POST. The HTTP POST allows SurveyGizmo to interact with other websites in one of three primary ways:

• Send data to a website so it can be updated or captured
• Display the output from another website
• Send data to a website and retrieve data to pre-populate fields in the survey

In most cases, it is necessary to be familiar with web design and programming (or have someone on staff who is) to get the highest level of automation. However, if this is a resource that is available to you, the possibilities grow exponentially. First, we’ve compiled two surveys to demonstrate the abilities of the HTTP POST action.
Warning: SurveyGizmo is not responsible for the content submitted by users testing out the following surveys. We will try and remove inappropriate content on a regular basis.

First, to demonstrate the ability to add content to an external database, the following survey will capture the data and provide you with a unique ID: add HTTP POST data

Second, to demonstrate recovering that data (it is linked to from the first survey also) and getting summaries of information, check out the ability to retrieve data via HTTP POST

So what else can you do with HTTP POST? What are some other possible uses? Here are a couple more ideas:

• Pass a user id from your website’s user database with the survey link, and then use HTTP POST to send that id back to your site and pre-populate the survey with customer details (account type, years as customer, etc) that you would not want the user to see but may be used to change logic and survey flow.
• Transmit contact information from a survey form directly into your database to update user information.
• Use complex quiz scoring (outside of the scope of SurveyGizmo Tally score quiz action) on your site by transmitting survey responses to your site for processing and return recommendations to the survey taker.
• Update other web services such as CampaignMonitor.com’s subscriber record through their API (future tutorial)
• Capture the data into another piece of software, such as capturing sales inquiries in a ticket tracking system through a form on your website (assumes functionality in the other piece of software)

I’m sure there are other ideas out there, and we would love to hear about them in the comments below. If you are looking for an advanced survey solution for power-users, SurveyGizmo’s HTTP POST action may integrate into the rest of your company or website’s activities.

Note: since about 2009 this mechanism has come to be more generally known as a WebHook. It’s a very powerful feature and we’d love to see wider use of it. In fact, we use it to power our API developer key request form.

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