Using forms has always been the easiest and most productive way to manually add a new lead to your Open Leads account. By entering a lead using a form, you are able to use only the pertinent fields for new lead entry, and are also able to trigger a Workflow upon entry. Workflows adds one or more Types to the leads, can assign a User and Actions, as well as trigger an Autoresponder Email.

But until now this required creating a form and then opening it in a new window in your browser or using the preview function. While effective, it was not the most efficient way of doing this. The latest update to Open Leads adds the function to add a lead from a form directly in the application. To use this function, first click on “Add Lead” from your lead list. When the dialogue opens, you have the option of adding manually (the same as before) or adding from a form. Choose the latter and then select the form you wish to use from the dropdown. At that point all of the fields from the form you chose will be displayed and you can add data and tab through the fields as needed. Once done and you click “Save,” your lead is entered, and any Workflows associated with it are triggered.

The key to this working well, of course, is to create a form (or series of forms) for your specific new lead needs, and any workflows you wish to be applied. Make sure that you reference them in the Apply Workflow section when you edit your form.