Troubleshooting external form tracking

Form tracking helps you quickly capture information about leads, shorten response times, and generate more conversions for your business. In this article, we'll cover some common form tracking issues and how to troubleshoot them.

Getting started

Sometimes, form tracking can be tricky to implement since there are multiple form helpers, builders, and plugins that submit forms differently.

Most form submission issues will be readily apparent since you will either see no activity on your form submission timeline, receive incomplete information on submitted forms, or not receive your pre-set notifications when forms are submitted. 

Common form tracking issues

The primary causes of a form not submitting are an error with your JavaScript snippet installation or an error with the submission event. Common JavaScript snippet installation errors include installing the code snippet for the wrong company, installing it multiple times, or installing it in the wrong place.

Please use this help article for more information on the form tracking setup.

Confirm that your JavaScript snippet is installed correctly

For help making sure that your JavaScript snippet is installed correctly, read this support article. If you're using WordPress, read this support article for more information on installing the WordPress plugin.

The dynamic number insertion auto-test can help you confirm that your JavaScript snippet is installed correctly. You can use this support article for step-by-step instructions. 

Check your form tracking settings for ignored fields

The ignored fields section of your form tracking setup page will show a list of fields that a user has manually asked us to ignore. Check your company’s account to make sure that ignored fields aren’t listed for items you’d like to see on your CallRail form submissions dashboard.

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The user is visiting/submitting from an unsupported browser

Examples of unsupported browsers include Brave and OperaGX.

The user has ad-blocking or content-blocking extensions installed

Such extensions interfere with our script and prevent the capture event from firing upon submission. In this case, the user must turn off the ad-blocker.

Advanced troubleshooting

The following steps require familiarity with the backend of your website. If you are unfamiliar with editing code on your page, you may wish to contact a web developer for assistance.

Please note: CallRail only supports forms that utilize a <form> tag. We are not compatible with some providers that use iframes and <div> containers. For more information on supported forms and form providers, please view this article.

The following instructions are specific to Google Chrome; if you're using another browser type for troubleshooting, these steps may not accurately reflect menu options.

Use the inspect button to troubleshoot the submit event 

If you have confirmed that your JavaScript snippet is installed correctly but you're still not receiving form submissions, follow these instructions to ensure that your form submission event is functioning properly.

  1.  Go to the page on your website that features a form and right-click on the form. 
  2.  On the menu that appears below where you clicked, select Inspect. 
  3.  Look for the form code and highlight it. The beginning of the form code is indicated by the <form> tag. 
  4.  Look for the phrase cr-attached=’true’ within the code. If you cannot find that phrase, look for the phrase cr-form-attach-retry=true.
  5. Look for the phrase <input type="submit">. This allows an event listener to trigger the Submit Button to capture the forms.
  6.  If you see one of those phrases and you’re still not receiving form submissions, contact support for additional troubleshooting assistance. 
  7.  If you don’t see either phrase, follow the steps below to install your custom code. 

Add custom code 

Follow these instructions to manually attach an event listener for form submissions. 

  1. Check that the code for your form is formatted like this:
    <form id="myform" action="/request-quote" method="post">
        <input type="text" name="Email">
        <textarea name="Comments"></textarea>
        <!-- this form will be captured,
             but the captcha will be excluded. -->
        <input type="text" name="captcha" data-cr-no-capture>
        <input type="submit">
      </form>
  2.  If it is, your custom code will look like this:
    <script>
    var form = document.querySelector('#myform');

    form.addEventListener(
     'submit',
     function() {
       CallTrk.captureForm('#myform');
     }
    );
    </script>
  3.  Edit the #myform string to match the formatting of your form and install it at the bottom of the <body> tag, right above where the CallRail JavaScript snippet.

Troubleshooting form notifications

Follow these instructions if you are not receiving email notifications for new form submissions:

  1. Click the Account icon in the top left to open the My Account panel, then click Notifications.
  2. Choose Forms from the Notifications header on the left.
  3. Verify that a notification has been set up for the correct email. You can only add emails for users on your account. 

Read this help article for instructions on how to add users to your account.

Follow these instructions if you're not receiving Quick Response alerts for your forms:

  1. Click the Account icon in the top left to open the My Account panel, then click Notifications.
  2. Choose Forms from the Quick Response header on the left.
  3. Verify the correct phone was entered to receive the call or text notification.
  4. Verify that the form was submitted during the notification window that has been configured in the Quick Response page.

Troubleshooting incomplete phone numbers

When you set up Quick Response notifications for form submissions, we’ll call you on the number in the “Phone Call” alerts field to notify you that a form was submitted. If the customer has provided a number, we'll also ask if you would like to call the number they provided in their form submission. If you press 1 to connect, our system will call the customer's number they provided.

There are two main cases where our system might not recognize a phone number in a form submission:

  1. If the phone number field on the form is broken into three fields (area code, prefix, suffix), we will not recognize that these fields go together to form a phone number. Ensure that your forms only use one field for the full phone number and be sure that it has a “name” attribute that is called “phone” such as `<input class=”element” name=”phone”>`.
  2. A valid phone number must be submitted on the form in order for the number/name (which comes from the caller's caller ID) to show up in CallRail and a phone call alert to occur. This is why some submissions come through as "Name: Anonymous" and "Number: (Not Available)".
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