Many organizations need to make the transition from inefficient paper forms to more efficient digital submissions, and Aish Detroit, a community-based nonprofit, was no different.
The organization’s executive director, Simcha (Sam) Tolwin, has been a devotee of Salesforce since its early days. In fact, Salesforce is the backbone of his team’s data flows.
So it was crucial that the form solution the team chose was capable of streamlining their Salesforce process (getting data from forms into their Salesforce instance without a hitch).
After some trial and error, they chose Jotform.
Aish Detroit is an innovative organization committed to strengthening families in the Jewish tradition through meaningful, experiential, and relevant programming and education. The goal of Aish Detroit (a local chapter of a global organization) is to uplift and inspire people to live more thoughtful, spiritual, and impactful lives.
In line with maintaining a “growth mindset” — one of the core values of the organization — Tolwin went about finding a form solution that fit an 80/20 rule for his small staff: If a task requires 80 percent of the team’s time, they find a way to automate it, and if a task requires only 20 percent of their time, they handle it manually.
“[Finding] Jotform was an evolution of going through options,” explained Tolwin. “I tried this one and that one. You could name them, and I probably tried them all.”
But that was only half the equation. Having worked with Salesforce for so many years, his organization has come to depend on it as a source of marketing and data storage. You could say it’s the heart of the organization.
As a result, it was imperative that the team’s form solution not only integrate with Salesforce but do so in a way that offers flexibility and enables scaling for future data needs.
Discovering the sweet spot in collecting and managing data
Tolwin thought Jotform was the most committed to providing the tools his team needed, as evidenced by our 2023 Jotform for Salesforce launch (which enhanced the existing integration).
He recalls the moment he hired an app specialist to configure Zapier to connect Salesforce.
“Guess what? I don’t need Zapier anymore. Jotform does it automatically. I literally had just paid the guy and I’m like, you better find a new business, because if people are buying the right apps, they don’t need connections.”
Indeed, a big reason Jotform is part of Aish’s software stack (along with Mailchimp and Google Workspace) is because of its Salesforce integration. It doesn’t hurt that Jotform also helps streamline Aish’s registration, donation, and contact workflows.
Another need Jotform’s Salesforce integration helps meet is the ability to use — and pull — Salesforce field data to create a new form in Jotform. With the Jotform for Salesforce app, users can create forms from Salesforce fields (note this feature is only available in the app).
Help your team become more productive with the Jotform for Salesforce app!
I’m not investing in anything that doesn’t invest in Salesforce. Jotform invests in Salesforce, so I invest in Jotform.
Simcha Tolwin
A canceled event opens the door for Salesforce prefill
Event registration is a popular use case for prefilled forms, and that’s exactly how Aish Detroit employed prefill with Jotform.
Tolwin explains, “We had a big event that we had to cancel. We told everybody who registered for that event, ‘If you would like to come to this other event, register here.’ If they clicked on it, the form was prefilled with existing [data] from the previous event. [The users] felt good about that. They’re like, ‘Oh, you see, I’m already in.’ ”
Now, with the release of Salesforce dynamic prefill — which enables real-time data syncing from Salesforce to prefill form fields — users like Tolwin can save more time and reduce errors. As his end users enjoy a better experience with prefilled forms tailored to them.
With their core data needs handled, Tolwin’s team is now exploring other features like sending email notifications through Jotform Tables (a tool that’s also integrated with Salesforce).
What’s clear is that any software tool that helps his team be more efficient — in conjunction with Salesforce — is one Tolwin will explore.
“I would say, Jotform has made us more collaborative,” says Tolwin. “Through the Jotform tools, whether it’s integrated into Salesforce or into Google Docs, it’s become much easier for us to work together with each other and with volunteers for each program. So that’s the main thing: Collaboration equals efficiency.”
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Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
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