This article contains a series of options for you to consider when thinking about securing your data and the data belonging to your contacts, particularly in relation to forms.

Closing off RSVP forms by trigger

It is important, once an event is over, (or fully subscribed) to close off the forms in question.  This can be done by accessing the campaign and redirecting the link which says Click here to RSVP.

There is an article on the help desk here, which describes in full how to achieve this automatically – using triggers to redirect the URL on a certain date. 

Closing off RSVP forms manually

If you don’t have triggers yet you can still do this manually:  Create a “Sorry this event is now full” page and name it RSVP Replacement Form or similar.  On the day you want to switch off the original RSVP form, go into the campaign and rename the Replacement Form to the same as the original form.  Anyone now clicking on the link will see the “sorry” message instead.

Putting a general life expectancy on all links

There is a system-wide feature which allows you to set a “life” on all links in your firm’s emails.  We recommend that you implement this feature, perhaps with a six month life expectancy on all links. This means that if you do forget to close off a form, it will expire anyway in the time period you set.  There is an article describing this here.

Managing email links that may no longer be valid

There is an article here, which will help you to divert users if you have already sent out an email but one or more links in that email are now no longer valid.  This is not for forms – which remain in the campaign and can be changed by you on the platform – it is for other links, to your firm’s website for example. 

Adding forms to websites

If you have the responsibility for adding a copy of a registration form to a website – perhaps encouraging contacts to register for a firm event – please be aware that, if you take a copy of the form that was emailed to you, that copy URL will contain a SID which is a code linking the email to you, the recipient.  Best practice is always to use the Blank Form in your campaign, and click on the Deploy option.  This will give you the code to embed a truly blank form on your site for contacts to complete.

Educate your users to use Forward to a Friend

In this scenario, a contact receives an invitation from your firm, with a link to a prefilled RSVP.  If the contact forwards this invitation using Outlook, the prefilled form will be prepopulated with the original recipient’s details when the colleague receives it.

However, if the contact forwards the invitation using Vuture’s feature Forward to a Friend, the form will be blanked.

Consider using a Warning: message at the top of your pre-filled forms – “This form contains the contact details we hold for you, the recipient of this email.  If you would like to forward this invitation to a colleague, please do not use the forward feature in your email client.  Instead, you should use our Forward to a Friend option which can be found at the foot of the email.”

Use Two Step Authentication

To provide an extra layer of security, any landing page or form in your Vuture instance can have two-step authentication added to it.  This is designed to ensure that only the intended recipient can view a form or landing page populated with their personal data.

There is an article dealing with this feature here.